Cal Newport writes about some recent research on the impact of social media followers/traffic in Can You Tweet Your Way to Impact? The tl;dr is that audience != impact:

In this narrow look at social media and science a more general lesson about this technology emerges. Maintaining an aggressive presence in these online spaces can increase the number of people who temporarily encounter you or your work. But these encounters are often ephemeral, rarely leading to more serious engagement. It’s exciting to receive increased attention in the present, but it may have little effect on your impact in the future.

I would say that this is true for me as well. Tweeting never got me much, even in the “olden days”. But I’ve made lots of real connections (and even got hired) because of this slow, steady blog.

Speaking of Cal, I just started on his latest book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout and I’m really liking it so far. From the intro:

I want to instead propose an entirely new way for you, your small business, or your large employer to think about what it means to get things done. I want to rescue knowledge work from its increasingly untenable freneticism and rebuild it into something more sustainable and humane, enabling you to create things you’re proud of without requiring you to grind yourself down along the way.