Can You Climb the 'Follower Cliff' by Following Others? The Truth About 'Action Begets Action' on Note Revealed Through Regression Analysis #95

I recently had a sudden realization.
I've been running and testing two Note accounts, and—

On one, 'as I increased the number of people I followed, my follower count started to grow.'
On the other, 'I didn't follow anyone, and even though I kept the articles consistent, it didn't grow at all (maybe the genre isn't very Note-like, haha).'

Of course, the direction of your articles and the consistency of your world-building are important.
But, in the first place, if you aren't 'noticed,' your follower count won't increase.

When I thought about that, a thought crossed my mind.

I'm sure other people have written about this kind of thing.
But—I wanted to verify it with my own data.

Right now, I should still be able to pull the numbers.

So, this time,
I did a serious data analysis on the 'relationship between following and followers.'

Hypothesis: The 'Action Begets Action' Theory

On social media, 'Following = Action,' and 'Followers = Reaction.'

Looking at it through AIDMA or AISAS,
Following is 'Interest / Search',
and gaining followers is 'Action / Share'.

Isn't there a 'circular structure' where actions catch the eye and further induce more actions?

In other words, the possibility that increasing the number of people you follow leads to more followers can also be explained theoretically.

Data Analysis: Looking at the Correlation of Note Accounts

1. How to collect data

The subjects for verification are314 accounts.
I created a data frame with the number of people followed and the number of followers and lined them up.

With over 300 entries,it's statistically 'well, I guess you can trust it' territory.
However, I have a feeling the slope of the distribution might be tricky...

The analysis tool is, of course,my home turf: Google Colab + Plotly.
This combo makes me a graph artisan.

2. Taking a peek at the data distribution

Since I went to the trouble of collecting 314 entries, I first took a rough look at the distribution of follower counts.

When I turned it into a histogram using Plotly—it was beautifully bunched to the left.

Most accounts have fewer than 1,000 followers.
You can see a glimpse of the 'tens of thousands club' on the far right, but that's already a different world.

In other words, 'everyone is trying hard, but the top is far away'.
The SNS world has a longer tail than I thought.

But I'm not the type to turn back here.
Even within the 'follower cliff',
'So, if I increase the number of people I follow, can I climb a little?'
—to verify that, I'll move on to regression analysis next.

3. Relationships seen through regression analysis

And here is the result of plotting the number of followings and followers for 314 accounts as a scatter plot.

The red line is theregression line (least squares method, and
the formula is y = 0.957x - 150.8,coefficient of determination R² = 0.892.

In short—
'If the number of followings increases, the number of followers increases at almost the same rate' was the result.

An R² of 0.892 is a fairly strong value for a correlation.
Roughly speaking,the increase in followings can explain about 90% of the follower increase.

Of course, it doesn't mean 'anyone who follows will be followed back', but at least the tendency that 'the more active you are, the easier it is to be noticed' is clearly shown in the data.

Consideration: The 'psychology and algorithm' of follow-backs

In terms of AIDMA, it's 'Attention → Interest → Desire → Action'.
By following, you increase the probability of being 'noticed'.

In terms of AISAS, it's 'Search → Action → Share'.
Following becomes a trigger for exposure.

In other words, following can be called an active advertising action.

But 'trust' (Follower) doesn't grow just by following.
I think from here on out, it's a world where things like content consistency and empathy come into play in the next stage.

In short:

Conclusion: The follow strategy is an 'expression of interest device'

Increasing the number of followings certainly increases the chances of being noticed—that tendency was visible.
But whether you get 'followed back' might depend on the 'quality and timing of interest' lol

At the end of the day, a follow is an
active sign that says, 'I'm interested in you.'

In other words, a follow equals a device for expressing interest.

And from there on—
'consistency' and 'update frequency' might just be what works in the 'deepening trust' phase!?

Afterword: The 'humanity' revealed by data

No matter how many graphs you line up, there is always human psychology behind them.
What I think after writing and posting articles is—
'Thank you for finding me' and 'I'm happy you noticed me'.
Perhaps that accumulation is what SNS is all about.

My interest is, after all, this 'human touch within the numbers'.
I'll go find another moment to grin behind the data again.

※I really hope I don't have to transcribe data manually again lol
※Data for analysis and topic suggestions are very welcome.

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Thank you for finding me!