If you think in terms of Google PageRank, replies and likes, not follows, are the equivalent of links.

Follows = stated preference
Replies and Likes = revealed preference

It’s all about social capital @dwr.eth 

It’s not about how many follows,
It’s also not about amount of engagement 

Both can be gamed 

rather it’s about strength of follows & their engagement 

That’s page rank

It’s not who links
It’s the authority of who links 

U can’t game vitalik’s engagement

That's pretty much the lessons learned from Pagerank

The reason today's SEO is so different from 20 years ago was essentially recognizing that a link from the WSJ, Wikipedia or some forum are entirely different