A Twitter dilemma: To follow or not to follow

In Six Ways, I talked about ways to influence and persuade.

Chief among them: reciprocity. You do something for someone else, they do something for you.

So when someone starts to follow me on Twitter, I feel somewhat obligated to reciprocate. Not following follow them back says one of two things:

– I don’t find your content worth reading.

– I can see why you would follow me. I’m important. I have lots to say.

Neither are very flattering.

And yet, I’m enjoying Twitter less the more people I follow. With so many entries from so many virtual strangers, it’s difficult to catch the updates from the people I genuinely *want* to follow.

Here’s an exchange I had today with an online acquaintance today:

I wrote, “I saw you stopped following me on Twitter. I’m interested to know why. Be open. I want to learn all I can about the medium and you’re the first person I ‘kind of actually know’ that stopped following me in a long while. I wonder why.

She wrote back, “Hi Joe, I actually quite enjoy your twittering and as you know I’ve clicked through on links you’ve posted and we’ve exchanged comments a few times. I’ve always appreciated your follow-up.

Perhaps it sounds silly, part of the reason I quit following you was because you were not following me back. I had read your posts on all the great uses for twitter and what a great tool you found it to be. And honestly, I think perhaps you might have been one of the catalysts for me to join Twitter. And as I became more involved with using Twitter, I started examining who I wanted to be following and why. Part of the answer was that I want to create relationships and connections. In following people that I’ve had some connection with (even if small) and if they choose to not follow me back then I see that as they are not especially interested in what I have to contribute. And that’s okay. That’s the way it should be with social media/networking.

I was simply trying to pare down my following to a level that I could better manage for creating relationships and connections. I’m still working on it…creating a follow/unfollow policy is definitely a thought provoking process.

I also figured that I’d still get to see great ideas and tips that you post through Biznik. It certainly wasn’t your content or your twittering, as I have found your tweets thoughtful and informative.

I hope that answers your question. Thanks for asking, knowing that you care so much about why someone might unfollow makes me re-consider my decision.

And I replied, “I’m struggling with the follow list too. Now I’ve started to follow just about everybody who follows me and I unfollow if I really don’t like their content or if they Tweet too often.

Even so, at more than 160 people I”m following, I’m not enjoying trying to keep up with so many strangers. I have no idea how those who follow thousands can use the application effectively.

If you’ve gotten this far in the post, you can relate. How do you manage your follows and followers?

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Comments

  1. Joe,

    I’m following over 700 and there is no way you can manage them all. The key is to find the important ones and follow them closely and build relationships. The others I might read if I’m just on Twitter and not doing anything else. Usually I’m checking throughout the day and I check my @replies my DM’s and the current Tweets.

    hope this helps.

  2. Tracey,

    Thanks. I do kind of “glance over” the icons to find ones I especially like. But even with a modest 160 or so, I sometimes have to go a few pages before I find my friends’ content.

    Makes me enjoy the experience less. I’m thinking of paring back to friends + say, 50-75 “strangers” and thought leaders.

    I’m concerned that step would have the same effect as saying “your stuff isn’t interesting enough for me” to 100 people.

    I expect a number of followers would drop me because I’m not reciprocating. The impact would lessen my sphere of influence but might make for a more enjoyable Twitter experience.

    I’m debating it.

  3. My first step was to define my goal…

    My goal is to have a list of people who I share common interests with and have an open exchange of information and ideas.

    To that end I periodically review who I follow and don’t follow. Un-following people who either haven’t posted in a month or so or are posting about things I am not interested.

    As I get new followers I look at their profile and prior posts. If their posts look interesting I reciprocate the follow. Otherwise I leave it as it is.

    As for people who I choose to follow… I look at who the people I find most interesting are following and people with high Grader scores.

    Jim Littlefields last blog post..Marathons are Scams

  4. I’ve thought a lot about this. I know that some people have unfollowed me. I look at their profile and realize I never even knew they were following me to begin with. Some emails may get lost in cyberspace, some I just miss somehow.

    I tend to check my @replies and DMs plus scan the current tweets. Another thought, if you have people you’ve built a relationship with and want to keep following, perhaps the best way (until a good tool is developed) is to use search.twitter.com and create a query of those you want to follow and then subscribe to the feed. If you view your feed in Google Reader, it can be easy to scan through and see if there is anything relevant to you that you want to comment on.

    As for my qualifications for who to follow: If they follow me first, I look to see if they are spammers first.

    If I follow them first, it is because I have found them through Grader or was intrigued by a conversation I saw online and checked on their name to find out more.

    Tawnyas last blog post..Hey, I’m a rock star!

  5. At first I thought the whole follow / unfollow thing was a dilemma. But I just asked myself a very simple question:

    – When I log onto Twitter, what do I want to read?

    I realized that I want to read about people who are interested in the same things I am, people who are thought leaders, people who can educate me, and people who I want to build relationships with.

    So *every* time I receive a follow, I go check out their Twitter profile and recent Tweets. I skim who they follow and who follows them (if it’s a reasonable number), and I check out their website.

    Then I let the follow notice sit in my email inbox for several hours or a day while I see how it ‘feels.’

    Most of the time I delete the Twitter notice, and occasionally I follow.

    The bottom line is, I don’t care what people think of me with regards to following / not following. If I am providing a genuine experience, then people will naturally want to follow me regardless of whether I follow them.

    And for those who genuinely do want to build a relationship, I have profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and my newsletters / mailing lists… many ways to reach and connect with me, such that if there’s alignment then I will re-consider following them on Twitter.

    In the world of social media, it’s easy to get hung up on social expectations and cultural norms. But I figure as long as I stay authentic and true, then whatever I do is a-okay in my book… and I’m the one who has to live with myself every day.

  6. You know, Chris, I think that’s right.

    I think I may have gotten a little caught up in my selection among the Top 50 Tweeples to Watch. It’s probably contributed to my desire to have hundreds if not thousands of followers.

    Shallow of me? I’m not sure because I do think there is marketing value in having a larger sphere of influence.

    But as you say, if I have content worth following, people may follow.

  7. I am hardly in your category of following quantity, but what I do is only have the ones I am most interested in following go directly to my phone in the form of texts. That way they stand out and the tweets I quickly determine I want to review again later I save on my phone until I do so… the rest I delete immediately.

  8. P.S. You are one of the 3 I currently receive direct to my phone via text messaging.

  9. Just winnowed # I’m following from 194 to 160.
    Presently I have 293 followers.

    While not perfectly correlated, let’s see how many unfollow me in the next few weeks. Will let you know.

  10. Hey Joe,

    Unlike many Twitterers I see, I do not have any plans to market or otherwise boost my Twitter following.

    I also don’t really use Twitter to be all that social. I have Biznik, the phone, and email for that. 🙂
    And I post my Twitterings to my biz website, which I think keeps me on task of only writing Tweets that have decent content.

    Sure, I want to get my name out there more and promote my biz, but not at the expense of things turning into spam-share.

    I only follow people after I examine their tweet history and find it interesting…and usually after they’ve chosen to follow me. I only have four or five Tweeple on my following list that I haven’t met personally.

    In truth, it’s much more meaningful to me when I get a follower who is only following 50 or less Tweeples than when I get a follower who is watching 1,000…even when the latter probably means more traffic for me. But I assume the guy with 1,000 to watch isn’t really paying attention to me.

  11. I’ve been pondering the Twitter Follow thing quite a bit. I’ve come to view this as one of those things that people shouldn’t take personally.

    I Follow those I find interesting, and a few “odd balls” just to expand my horizons. I Follow a couple of folks who speak languages I love but don’t speak. I Follow a variety of “experts” and frequently click through the links they include in their posts. I Follow some folks just because they write beautifully, humorously, and/or inspirationally.

    When I gain Followers I do not Follow back blindly. Like many have already stated, I scan profiles and Tweets and Follow back if I am intrigued or impressed.

    I do NOT Follow back anyone who is following thousands of Tweeples. I generally do NOT Follow anyone who declares they have a tit-for-tat follow policy, because such strikes me as either shallow or self-centered. It’s clear that many Tweeples view their number of Twitter Followers as indicative of their popularity or value, as a way to build social media “power”. That view doesn’t seem very compatible with my own.

    My own purposes? Initially to see what Twitter can be, and to develop my writing skills (I celebrate pithy, beautiful writing). Like Rachel, I feed my posts to my site, so I try to write things that have merit all within those 140 characters. Over time I saw that Tweeples can introduce me to interesting and fascinating things around the world. I enjoy that.

  12. Great post topic, Joe, and very timely.

    My general rule of thumb is as follows (no pun intended!) 🙂

    * If someone follows me, I will look at their profile and go back over the last 2-3 pages of Tweets. If it’s mostly self-promotion on their own blogs or website, or incredibly inane chatter, I won’t follow.

    * When I’m looking for someone to follow, I’ll use the search option (when it works!) or tools like TweetThis. The main reason for this is that I want to follow people who either offer something to me personally to help me grow professionally, or that has something genuine to offer the whole “community”.

    I must admit, I don’t bother putting too much emphasis onto stuff like unofficial Top 50 lists, nor even “official” ones (and I mean that with no disrespect to your position in one).

    Lists on Twitter users say 1 of 2 things to me – it’s one person’s point of view as to who makes up that list, or it’s people that would probably be followed anyway.

    I use Twitter to connect with people that I can learn from and connect professionally with, and who knows, maybe people will even learn something from me at times. I certainly didn’t join up to lead the race on the amount of followers I have.

    It’s one of the reasons I have regular cleanouts – one of which I should go and do now. 😉

    Thanks for an interesting read and allowing me to share my view. 🙂

    Danny Browns last blog post..5 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Twitter Relationship

  13. Hi Joe – I don’t follow everyone who follows me and I don’t expect those I follow to follow me back.

    There will be reasons why I follow certain people (fellow PR/marketing types to see how they’re working and progressing within the industry and journalists to try to get to know them). On the other hand, some people might follow me because they’re interested in my topic or looking into hiring a publicist and want to know what I have to offer. If I developed a relationship with any of them or they became clients, I would then follow them if I wasn’t already.

  14. This is a great topic and one that I’m finding helpful as a Twitter neophyte.

    This is the system I’ve adopted: when someone follows me, I’ll follow them for a short time to see if we have anything to tweet home about. (bad joke 🙂 ) Then, I’ll make my decision to follow or unfollow. I find that this takes less time out of an already packed day & gives you an idea of how that person interacts with you. Different people, different dynamics.

    Thank you to all for bringing your perspicacious (how do you like that word, Joe? One of my faves!) points of view forward.

    Marianna Paulsons last blog post..Rejuvenation – Appreciation!

  15. Joe
    Thanks for the great topic. Like you, I feel I want to follow the genuine people who are following me. I guess I have had to be discerning as some people who follow me seem to follow thousands of people. I don’t really get that they care about me.

    At first I found Twitter hard to use because of one-sided conversations so I began to follow the people who seem to start the conversations. I have meet some new lovely people this way.

    I choose to follow people I can learn something from. I don’t mind a few “family or dinner” type tweets here and there but not all the time.

    I do feel I am building relationships with some new people who know things I need to learn about. I like it when people send links to interesting blogs they have read and can suggest good book etc.

    I do like the idea of community so therefore I like the fact that there is a group of people who I follow and they also follow me.

    I am impressed that you could notice that someone quit following you. Without getting a notification you would have to think about looking. I am not sure I’d even remember who to look for!

  16. Actually, Kaya, I cheat.

    There is a free application at http://useqwitter.com. It provides a daily notice to let you know who stopped following you.

    I use it for two reasons: One, I want to know if someone I care about stops following me. (In those cases, I might ask why they left.) Two, I like to get a sense of *when* someone leaves. It may indicate that the last thing I posted was offensive in some way.

  17. Hi Joe,

    Just heard about this conversation on twitter. The whole follow-unfollow thing reminds me a little of middle school. I started my follows with a list, I think it came from Peter Shankman of Help a Reporter Out (HARO). It was his advice on thought leaders in journalism, public relations and marketing, which are the areas of focus in my work. I then added some of my biznik friends. Since then, I have had a few follows whose tweets, blogs and websites impressed me and I have actually developed friendships with a couple of them. Throw in a couple of the bizarre ones (like Trudy_Campbell), and there you have it.

    I usually check the profiles of people who choose to follow me just to see if we might have ideas to share with each other. But an interesting thing: One of my “follows” bothered me a little. One of her tweets was all about how proud she was of her 8-year-old son for killing an 8-point buck at “deer camp.” Being a vegetarian and animal lover, our values really didn’t mesh. Unsurprisingly, I chose not to follow her.

    Who would have thought this whole issue could be so complex?

  18. Here on December 31, I follow 215 Twitterers. 416 follow me.

    I did not see a mass exodus when I un-followed people, but that's just my experience.

  19. Joe, as mentioned earlier, your goals are key to what you choose to do, there is no right or wrong, simply effective or ineffective to reach the goal.

    For me, I follow everyone who follows me, unless I have a major issue with their tweets, or they are clearly spammers (@_bob_proctor and the like come to mind…)

    I use tweet deck to keep closer tabs on some vs. others, and to keep people in categories to better communicate with them.

    My goals are networking and marketing oriented, so the more followers the better. That said, I think I’ll go follow you now. If you choose to follow me, I’m @richhopkins.

    Rich

  20. Hey, Rich, would you like write up something about Tweetdeck for my readers? I tried it but didn’t like having a separate program up and found it cumbersome to use.

    If I keep it open all day, I’d jeopardize getting my work done. See https://joehageonline.wpengine.com/2009/01/04/do-more-than-just-get-through-the-year/ to see what I mean.

    Thanks for the comment!
    Joe

  21. Revisiting this article 18 months later. I now follow 682 and 1187 follow me. I’m less engaged on Twitter than I was and neither get notifications when someone new follows nor check to see who follows me.

    Every once in a while, perhaps after a Sunday night #blogchat, I’ll see what new followers might have come because of the #blogchat conversation. I may follow them back.

    I was also amused by Ted Rubin’s comment on this string. Hard to remember back when he was a neophyte, 28,000 followers and multiple write-ups later!

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