He Followed Me!! Why it Matters.

Hi all, 3AM here and I have to be up again at 5 to go catch my plane to TX. So hopefully I can say this quick and  pop back to bed.

Chris Brogan followed me back this week, and I am still celebrating. Early in my experience of this whole crazy twitter thing, I purchased a book by Chris & co-author Julian Smith, called Trust Agents. I downloaded it to my Nook and read it, just as I was getting started with Twitter and I was still in first stages of the learning curve, feeling quite lonely and isolated. The book promised that if I began to engage in a genuine way, to help others, & to create content, that my experience of social media would improve dramatically. It asked me to become a "trust agent" myself.

Now I KNOW Chris follows more than 100,000 people- someone joked to me today that they believe he follows back anyone who is "clearly not a bot." So it's not like I expect our level of connection to go up significantly by this act. But it was still an emotional, personal, and symbolic victory for me. This was a milestone moment and I wasn't shy about telling him (via two carefully NOT AUTOMATIC direct messages) and neither was I afraid to celebrate publicly with my Twitter friends. Tease me as they might, (some justification- I *am* a fangirl) there are good reasons why I celebrate Chris.

Here are some:

1) In the book, Chris & Julien suggest that the newbie go to twitter, create an account, and type in a status update that says "reading trust agents." When I did this, Chris replied to my @ with a "thank you." He has 167,000 followers, but clearly he either watches or pays someone to watch for him. Either way, he was one of the first people EVER to message me or interact with me directly, and I remember it made an impression.

2) Chris is the reason I participated in my first ever "chat," because he promoted it and I was curious. The experience was frenetic and intense, and it prepared me for understanding what I had stumbled upon later when I bumped into the #usguys for the first time.

3) When I was watching another chat recently, people began praising Chris & his book. When I teasingly told him they were talking about him and invited him via an @ message to stop by #cmgrchat  not only did he drop in, he dropped in to PASS the praise ON to his co-author, Julien. He also said hello to me- by name. In front of a lot of people. This made me feel great, and showed that he goes with the flow, pays attention to what's happening, gives credit to others, and knows how to treat fangirls ;)

and finally

4) I kept teasing him with opportuities to become a follower, and he finally followed me back right after Christmas. When I DMd him, he ALSO took the time to DM me back and thank me for connecting. Very, very few people have ever done this. This guy is the real deal.

As a result, Chris has a very devoted fan in me. I consider him to be a role model, and hope to keep following in his footsteps on this strange and fantastical journey.

A couple of other milestone moments this week: I also hit 500 followers around Christmas, and another mentor & role model, Dave Peck, also followed me back this week. Feeling very good about Twitter these days.

Love from your favorite insomniac, Jackie