The debate of Quality vs. Quantity, as it associates with social network profiles, has heated up quite a bit over the last few months.  As social networks are supposed to exhibit social functions in the digital space, quality on social networks = engagement.  While some marketers have begun to preach that quality matters more than quantity, a lot of the gatekeepers have not (i.e. the numerous news stories about the number of Ashton Kutcher’s followers on Twitter).  

The Quality side has been supported by a number of studies involving twitter followers.  For example, tweeters on the suggested user list have greatly increased their follower count but have garnered relatively no growth in interactivity.  Instead, many of the gained followers were people who registered for twitter to check it out and then never return.  Anil Dash has a great post on this as he recounts his experience on The List. 

While I am certainly on the Quality side, Quantity still has its place.  The Quantity metric for social networks should focus on the number of rewteets and @ replies on Twitter or the number of Likes and Comments on Facebook rather than the number of followers.  Followers are cheap and the number of followers holds very little real-world value.  The level of engagement is what counts.

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