What does TechCruch have against @sockington?

I straddle two worlds. I play with The Pet Wiki in my world of pet friends and play in the world of SEO and social media for my professional life. I think that I have a unique perspective on both sides of the coin.

I have been a follower of @sockington since the first #pawpawty (see post) that I went to. That was in the beginning of April. I had no idea that he was such an influential cat at the time. He was one of the lives of the pawty. If I would have guessed which cat would have become a celebrity of this magnitude, I would have gone with @RomeoTheCat. Romeo is a cat that was rescued from The Forgotten Persian Rescue and Friends, and has now devoted his life to help raise money for other rescue organizations.

I digress. The point is that I (probably like most of his followers) followed him to be part of a cool crowd. Sockington is cool. He is not a cat that follows back. That means, that I read his tweets, but he doesn’t read mine (except from TweetGrid during the #pawpawty). As a matter of fact, he is currently following fewer than 400 people (actually, pets) so I don’t really feel left out. He is a selective follower. So am I.

I have no idea how he got so many people to follow him. I’m not sure that he does either. I’ve read his blog, and he’s just as surprised as anyone to have this level of twitter fame.

Why does it bother TechCruch so much? Robin Wauters, of TechCruch recently wrote an article This Is Getting Ridiculous: Cat Amasses Half A Million Twitter Followers In 3 Months. It’s not ridiculous. People are enjoying what the kitty has to say so much, that they are buying t-shirts with his tweets. I think that people are just jealous.

Is there a magic formula for getting followers? If anything, I think that Sockington proves not. He’s just this cat, you know.