I watched my first episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive yesterday. It definitely inspired me to go through my boxes with a fine tooth comb as I unpack into my new apartment. I’m finding things I’ve been holding onto for so long. Things that I don’t need. Things that have no relevancy in my life. But nevertheless, I clung to them in the past.

This got me to thinking about people that are concerned with how many followers they have. The ones that send out tweets that say “Follow me and I’ll follow you when I get a chance.” Or the ones that are constantly reading articles about how to get more followers. Or even the ones writing those articles.

There was a trend of articles a while back talking about how the new resume was a Klout score. The algorithm for a Klout score involves things like following to follower ratio and number of retweets, and is based on a short section of time. I doubled my score in something like 3 days without even intentionally changing my habits.

This stuff is not important. It may give someone a small insight into your reach at a quick glance, but the number of followers you have does not define the value of your tweets or your blog posts. Nor does it define whether you are an authority in your field.

The content is where your value lies. Read, learn and write. Challenge yourself. Your content will get better as you grow, and others will notice.

Just like the people on Hoarding: Buried Alive focus on their stuff rather than their quality of life, focusing on the number of followers or subscribers you have rather than your content can hurt you. Quit clinging to quantity and invest in quality.

Where’s your focus?

Photo by Plutor