One Tuesday in spring 2008, Twitter users logged into their Phone Number List accounts to discover all their followers were gone. So were the people they were following. Instead of being part of one big Twitter party, everyone was alone in the virtual Twitterverse. What happened? Twitter's server crashed and deleted everyone's followers. For Twitter addicts this was a shock. Twitter without followers and people to follow is kind of like walking down the street talking to yourself.
For people you knew well, it was easy to refollow them. And because Phone Number List many people were without a twitter tribe, in the Phone Number List days immediately following the crash, many people were quick to follow anyone who started to follow them. But for a small business using Twitter as a marketing tool, this should have been a serious wake-up call. When you lose your followers, you lose your biggest marketing asset.
Yes, your raving fans will seek you out and refollow, but what about Phone Number List people just getting to know you? Maybe they ran across you by accident or by referral and are following you out of curiosity but haven't had the time to get to know you well enough to hunt you down? They're lost to you, maybe forever. While Facebook and LinkedIn are selling advertising and other business services as a revenue-generating model, both are closed-mouthed about how their revenue stream is going. And Twitter doesn't appear to have any revenue-generating model yet.