As of today, here is what my follower and following count on Twitter looks like:
Something definitely happened to my attention once I began following 120-140 people: Monitoring my Twitter feed became much more taxing.
I attributed this largely to the fact that I recently began following more UX and game design professionals – some of which you might consider to be “prolific tweeters.”
However, as I looked at many other people’s Twitter accounts, I discovered that these people also had follower counts somewhere in the 60 – 200 range. Aside from the social media hypermarketers who clearly used their tool for information dissemination vs. meaningful exchange, there really seemed to be a trend regarding the numbers of people that these accounts are following.
Was there something about a “manageable” size limit for Twitter followers? I decided to research it a little…
Behold: Dunbar’s Number
Maybe I’m a little late to the party, or maybe I’m just a little too removed from my old Psych degree to have remembered the concept, but it boils down to this: Dunbar’s Number is a theoretical limit to the number of people that a person can maintain stable social relationships with at any given time. Many place this number “around 150.”
If we accept this theory as mostly accurate, we may be able to speculate on what Dunbar’s Number means in this era of ever-expanding networking:
- People will find themselves getting overly-taxed if they attempt to manage a TRUE network of relationships (what I would consider to mean relevant back-and-forth dialogue and true concern for each other’s wellbeing) that is larger than about 150 people.
- If you are on a follower list for a person that has many followers (perhaps 450+) and you are not engaged in meaningful conversation with that person on a regular basis, you might be able to assume that your communications are not seen – i.e. you are not part of that person’s “important 150″ or “inner-circle.”
- Excessive following (i.e. follower counts greater than 1000+, for example) becomes a “dog-and-pony” show for a meaningful relationship; true relationships simply cannot exist at that volume. Assume that people employing this strategy are using their accounts for information distribution/marketing/customer support/etc. and change your expectations for the quality of the relationship accordingly. It may be important to note that I’m not saying there is not value in this approach, just that it is not a true relationship network.
- Twitter list functionality can be employed to make parsing multiple networks of relationships easier, but point 1 from above will still hold true – there may just be a true cap to how many relationships we can effectively manage at one time.
It will be interesting to see if Dunbar’s Number receives further validation or if it is disproven as networking continues to evolve in the increasingly complex social media landscape.