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Why I Won't Follow You On Twitter

By Barbara Radisavljevic of Barb's People Builders

That is a hypothetical "you." I do actually follow a lot of people on Twitter. But I am picky. I am not trying to see how many followers I can get for the sake of getting a huge following. Here's what I look for in the people I do follow:

1. Some common interest. I especially like to follow classroom teachers, school administrators, parents, librarians, writers, gardeners, people of similar political and religious beliefs and anyone else who just seems interesting.
2. Someone who asks an occasional question that indicates a desire to interact -- not just promote or impress.
3. Someone who posts links to articles I'm interested in or to photos or clean humor that makes me laugh.
4. Someone who lives in my town, even if we may not have common interests.
5. Someone that is knowledgeable in things I want to learn.
6. Someone I know personally in the real world or interact with regularly in the virtual world to the point I feel like I know him or her.

If you have any of these characteristics and I discover you on Twitter, I will probably follow you. I may find you on a search or because you interact with someone else I follow. Or maybe you have followed me and I check your profile and see that a common bond I'm looking for is there.

If you follow me, I will check your profile. I never follow or unfollow anyone automatically. I will read some of your tweets. I just may follow you back. But if I don't, here are the reasons I didn't:

1. You have a default atavar. I want to see what you look like or something that expresses your personality.
2. You don't tell me where you are. I want to know your country or state.
3. You give me no indication of your interests. I like to put people on my lists and if you don't tell me who you are or what interests you or what you do for a living, how can I decide if we have anything in common?
4. Your tweets are repetitious and unoriginal. I don't follow sports. If all you tweet are sports scores, I won't follow you. If all you tweet are standard updates to your Squidoo lenses, I won't follow you even though I'm also a lensmaster. If you only post quotes from others and never anything original, I probably won't follow you.
5. You post ten tweets in a row and take up my whole twitter screen and block out everyone else's tweets. That will force me to unfollow you. This is especially true if those tweets consist of long lists of Follow Friday recommendations.
6. You follow thousands of other people. I don't see how anyone can follow thousands of other people and see more than a fraction of the tweets they get.
7. You are a social media guru that I know nothing about except you have thousands of followers. I might give you a chance to prove I can learn from you, but if I don't learn enough, I will probably unfollow you.

I do actually want to interact with and learn from those I follow. Naturally I hope they follow me back, but if they don't, and I'm still learning from them, I will not stop following them just because they did not follow back. I hope I can give them a reason to follow me back because we have common interests and my tweets provide some value and variety. I actually have formed some relationships on Twitter that have led to virtual friendships. There are people whose tweets I look forward to, and whose tweets are missed if I don't see any.

If you would like to follow me on Twitter knowing all this, my Twitter name is barbsbooks, just as my Qondio name is. I look forward to meeting you.

You've got a pretty good approach to Twitter. On the other hand, now that Twitter has lists it's certainly possible to subscribe to a greater number of users and pay attention to only the subset (list) you want to at a given time.

Jason G Jan 5, 2010 12:19

I'm afraid I am too old for Twitter - I simply do not understand it. I have 752 followers and follow considerably less - the trouble is, following takes up a lot of time. Add this to facebook with their games and virtual coffee and hugs and I am totally out of my depth.
My grandchildren, needless to say, know all about them and say they are great - then again, they can send SMS messages that I can't read - they are in some wierd shorthand.

I like Facebook, but will not participate in any of the games, etc., and I hide all the game updates I get sent. To the right of each status update at the top is a hide button that appears if you get near it with the mouse. You can choose whether to hide the person or just the game application status reports associated with him. Keeps my wall from being cluttered with stuff I don't want to read.

Touche. I have started cutting down the number of people I follow. The principles you apply also apply to blogging. If I get to know someone I am more likely to take their recommendations. Many twitter comments arte just cold calling...

drkelp Jan 5, 2010 13:27

This is by far the best Twitter-related article I've ever read. You speak the truth and you don't hold back. Must-read for anyone getting into Twitter, or having difficulties with Twitter.

nick Jan 5, 2010 13:51

appreciated

I have my posts from various blogs sent to Twitter, but I personally find looking at all the tweets from thousands of people rather annoying, and it's hard to get a picture of a full conversation, all you see is one reply and not what it is in response to. I thought about a year ago it would be good to get a huge following, but then realised that most people doing this were doing it just for their posts to be seen, just as I was, so I doubt many of mine get read either.

When I don't understand an answer someone tweets to @barbsbooks, I check my profile to see if I've tweeted anything it would be a proper response to. It works 90% of the time. Every day I check my @barbsbooks and my direct mail. Then I skim whatever I have time for or check one of my lists to see if there's something I can interact with. I try not to spend more than a total of half an hour a day on Twitter. When it's under control, it can be useful.

Great intel Barb,
I haven't had the courage to get into twitter yet, and after your great information, I think that I'll wait.
Thank you for sharing.
Frederick

frederick Jan 5, 2010 16:38

Nice one! One day, maybe, I'll tweet. Bookmarking your Intel now.

Roy Law Jan 5, 2010 17:46

Amen to all of that. I follow about 40 people and don't feel compelled to add more. There is so much "noise" that I seldom even go there.

I am using this service to try and eliminate twitter spammers
It may be of use to you, there is a basic free service and a upgraded service , at the moment I only need the free service.

I'll take a look at that link. Thanks.

I think there are a lot of spammers on Twitter, and also a growing number of sites that give you links to post on Twitter for people to click on so that you can earn money.

I know Twitter is closing these down all the time, but more just open up as fast as they get shut down.

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