Over on Silicon Alley Insider, Fred Wilson VC points to three over-used statistics that, he says, might sound good but don’t add up to much. He says it’s best to ignore RSS subscriber numbers, Facebook app install numbers and follower numbers on Twitter, Friendfeed, Tumblr, or other social media service. An extract:
I am telling you that the number of followers you have may be relevant early on in the life of a service, but it really doesn’t matter in the long run. …My blog has, according to FeedBurner, 133,000 RSS subscribers. That’s a big number. But the number of people who read this blog via the feed every day averages less than 4,000.
…I have 5,152 followers on Twitter, 4,482 followers on FriendFeed, and 877 followers on Tumblr. I don’t know of any way to calculate the number of people who actually visit my updates on Twitter or FriendFeed, but I do know that my tumblog gets on average 250 visits per day.
…Social media is no different from all media. The number of people who at one point were interested in your content or service is not that meaningful. What matters is the number of people who engage with your content or service on a daily basis and how engaged they are. And RSS subscribers, Facebook app installs, and follower numbers don’t measure that.
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