I have no idea why but for the past few days I have been obsessed with the number of followers I have.
It probably has to do with the fact that it is public and everyone can see it. Or maybe it has something with the fact that if someone has a ton of followers we think they are more important than others. I often find myself looking at how many followers other people have to determine if they are worthy of my follow.
Public stats has worked on me over and over again.
First it was YouTube. Since people could see how many views a particular video has, I wanted to promote the crap out of it. I also would email all my friends so I could get 1 more view. If a video is over 5 minutes long and it has less than a 1,000 views I will most likely turn it off before the 1 minute mark (unless it completely engages me).
Next it was LinkedIn. Since the number of connections was public I really wanted to hit the 500+ connections landmark. I quickly lost interest in connecting with more people after I hit the 500+ goal because you can’t publicly see how many connections someone has past 500.
Now it is Twitter. I find myself checking Twitter Counter on a daily basis to see if my # of followers has grown. Do I think it is pathetic?… yes, I do. Will I still check my twitter numbers tomorrow… yes, I will.
Conclusion: If you want your users to care. Show them stats and make it public for everyone to see.
Side Note: I wonder if I would have done better in school if my grades were displayed publicly.
Am I the only one that is like this? Do public stats make you care? Let me know in the comments please.
Hey Rishi, Great post! What’s funny about these type of stats is how easy they are to game. If I wanted a 1000 followers, you follow 5,000 people and let the reciprocation affect kick-in. I’ve become a bigger fan of Klout lately because of this (another score to obsessively check). Final random thought — I’m guilty of checking my numbers too often as well, but I rarely take action. Could Twitter & Youtube add things to make their stats more actionable?
Jason
Jason – nice comment. I’ve heard about that strategy. I also find myself checking their follower to followee ration. If it is 1:1 I know they are gaming the system and automatically deem unimportant (unless you are Obama).
I think YouTube already does a great job. People know that the # of views you have directly correlates with getting featured on their homepage. YouTube also shows you in-depth stats publicly. Like the first time the video was embeded or tweeted allowing you to be a better promoter in the future.
I’ve noticed that once people see their stats, they start to do things just to improve their stats, and for no other reason. Especially when its made somewhat competitive. For example, a few ski resorts started to log total annual vertical feet that you cover on the slopes this year (for season pass holders). And your numbers are ranked on their public website against other season pass holders. The top contenders I’ve met have become crazed about logging vertical feet, in order to stay at the top of the website listings. Even those that are not front-runners will still go out to the mountain when they don’t really feel like it, just to get more vertical feet under their belt for the year. There seems to be some kind of inherent value in these types of stats, a sense of accomplishment, with concrete evidence you can point to.
Robert – Sweet example of how stats apply out of tech and into sports. Do you remember what the website was? Would love to check that out.
Great post! You are right…it is like gaming…people always want to add more points and connections are points. This is why all of the address book importers, and “people you may know” tools are working so well on these sites…they offer the opportunity for more immediate points. You also want to get to those milestones…when you start a new site it is very uncomfortable to have less than 10 or 100 friends. You want a way to tally fast and these tools help.
I remember the last time we did a brain drain with a group of people. Every idea was worth 1 post-it note. For some reason I wanted the most post-its so I tried to come up with the most ideas.
Just re-hashing my HN comment:
There is a psychological factor to this that is used by games as well. People get addicted to collecting things whether they be tweets, comments, etc. I highly recommend Amy Jo Kim’s video where she shows examples of this across several social apps:
Ish – that video link by Amy Jo Kim is wonderful. She goes into great detail on game mechanics. I love her analysis of eBay.
We’ve grownup with points/numbers so it makes perfect sense to continue to apply that to every aspect of our life. It’s like making it into a game that appeals to me. I frequently check how many iPhone apps have been downloaded for utradition.
I’m the same way. I check my Google Analytics twice a day.