I don’t know how many this email will help.
But after being asked recently about why I follow so few people on Twitter — including being asked this by good friends, in some cases, whose stuff I like reading — I figure I might as well explain my low down, filthy, shameless Twitter parasitical ways.
First, my entire existence is about curation.
If there is one all-encompassing business goal I chase in life curation is it.
I curate everything, everyone, and every idea, customer, opportunity, person, whatever.
I cannot curate enough.
And I am always looking to break and throw out, not accept and keep.
It goes in complete accordance with what I wrote in the 10th anniversary issue of Email Players back in 2021 — the more I try to break things (ideas, thoughts, assumptions, people, propaganda, opportunities, whatever it is), the more I try to look for reasons to reject… the more I relentlessly filter… the better my business, the more my peace of mind, the greater my joy in business, work, all of life.
Second, I am also a big fan of leverage.
And one thing I like to leverage is algorithms.
In Twitter’s case:
Yes, I follow only a handful of people “on paper.”
But the reality is, I follow hundreds of people.
And the way I do it is by being a low-down parasite off those I do follow.
Example:
My pal Shane Hunter.
He’s a discerning guy with as little tolerance for stupidity or nonsense as I do. He also has a lot of the same attitudes, business philosophies, marketing approaches, etc that I do. And he follows 200+ people. And many of them are people I do not follow. But because I know he has good discernment game, I will often see (on my timeline) the stuff he engages with most, the people he’s interested in and dealing with and following most… without me having to follow any of those people myself.
Same with, for example, the great Tom Woods.
He follows over 4,000 people.
And I know his discernment game is especially keen too.
So I will see the important stuff he engages with, without having to follow 4k people.
Same goes with my pal and Enoch Wars publisher Greg Perry who follows over 6k people.
I see the stuff he engages with, the posts he interacts with, etc.
All the most engaging stuff from others bubbles up in my timeline.
And so it goes with other discerning, like-minded boys & ghouls on there I follow.
So the reality is, there are hundreds of people I “follow”, but they don’t even know it, wouldn’t know it, have no idea about it. Yet I am indeed following them indirectly, since I am regularly seeing the stuff when they engage with people I am following directly, without the NPC stuff (lots of that on there) that gets ignored I know I would not be able to care less about.
This may prompt a few reply guys telling me “that’s not ACTUALLY how it works…”
And that’s good.
Because all they’ll be doing is helping me curate them out..
Whatever the case:
I run strict parasite Twitter game.
And that’s just the way it is right now.
So for those wanting me to follow them, etc, just be engaging with the people I do follow and I can almost guarantee I am “following” you in a lot of ways. I am well aware that this may or may not be a good way to create a large following on there. But gaining followers is not the metric I care about. I am far more interested in quality than quantity – which is part of the whole curation approach to begin with.
Way I see it, following me or anyone else hoping for a follow back is silly.
There are a lot of accounts I follow who have zero idea who I am.
And who will never buy or do jack for my business directly.
Nor do I care if they do one way or another.
Because, in a lot of cases, I’m not “following” them as much as parasitizing them.
All right so hopefully the message is clear:
I’m all about curation and parasitization.
And I encourage you to be, too.
Even if that means, curating me out…
Or, if you so desire, parasitizing off me.
All right enough about social media.
Social is a great way to network, built an email list, etc. But for direct selling it pales in comparison to good, old fashioned, “retro” email.
For more on my email methodology go here:
Ben Settle
