Let’s Talk About Following and Unfollowing on Twitter
If you hang out on Twitter for a bit, you are inevitably faced with a decision. “How many of these people following me should I follow back?” If you do research on the topic, you’ll find that there are plenty of blog posts on the subject. You’re also likely to find that many of these blog posts implore you to do everything that particular way. Many of these posts sort of deride other ways of approaching the great following/unfollowing question.
In the end, it’s kind of silly to get so worked up about these things, and besides, in the end it really comes down to how you want your Twitter world to turn. So let’s talk about some pros and cons of some of the advice you’ll encounter out there.
Follow anyone back who follows you
A lot of people believe that in the world of Twitter, you should follow back everyone who follows you. This is why a lot of people feel okay turning to automated systems. These systems will auto-follow back, and then if that account goes inactive or seems spammy, the automated program will also unfollow for you.
The logic behind this concept is that you can offend people if you do not follow them back, so it is a sort of developing online etiquette.
Now, I have never really been a proponent of this particular approach. I have felt from my very earliest days on Twitter that a lot of the “noise” people complain about results from following everyone that follows them. There are a lot of people who use Twitter more like a broadcast channel and less like a communication tool. They will tweet out their posts over and over again and do little else. Even if you read their posts once or twice, the rest of the tweets become white noise in your stream. Many of these accounts are also just after the numbers. They want to follow you specifically because they want you to follow them, and it’s not a compliment – you’re another “follower” on their growing list.
People defend against that kind of argument by noting that you can sort people into lists and just review peoples’ tweets that you are interested in. I do that to some extent – I peep in on chats or study my reply page. Much like I suffer over in Google Plus land, my problem is that I do not have the time, patience, or inclination to sort people, so this approach does not work well for me. If you are a person who loves Twitter lists, you may find that this approach is extremely easy and sensible.
Only follow back a select few
In contrast to this perspective is the idea that you should be extraordinarily selective in who you follow back. As in, if you have thousands of followers, you’d only be following back about 200 people.
If you are worried about Twitter noise, or if you have a really specific purpose for your Twitter account, I can see how this approach would make sense. However, it can also be easy for this kind of approach to get you labeled as an “elitist” or a “snob.” If you do not define what motivates you to follow some people but not others, those “others” may be kind of ticked. Such is life, but if you are aiming not to ruffle any feathers, this approach can be kind of risky.
Follow back (or not) on an individual basis
The last way I’ve heard about dealing with the following/unfollowing issue is the way I approach the matter. From the very beginning, I happened to fall into the habit of looking at peoples’ profiles, looking at how they were tweeting, and deciding if I wanted to follow them. If you don’t have a bio or an avatar, that will lean me towards not following you. If all you do is broadcast your own stuff – I probably won’t follow you. If I have talked to you in a chat or just in the regular stream, I’ll likely follow you even if you haven’t followed me first.
Now the advantage to this for me is that I know that there is a reason for every person I see in my home stream. I don’t have to worry about super spammy accounts in there unless a person gets hacked. The disadvantages, of course, are a blend of the first two approaches. You can end up following a lot of people, which can get to be hard to manage, and you can end up hurting some peoples’ feelings because you don’t follow them back. It’s also time-consuming to go through and see who you want to follow and who you don’t – perhaps even more time-consuming than stuffing people into lists. But, that’s the way that works for me.
So now it’s your turn. What have you tried? What’s your philosophy? What works and what doesn’t? Let’s talk about it!
Image by Diego Sinning. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/dsigning
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Interesting as usual. You cannot please all the people. In the end the only thing you can do is understand why you have account and keep those values and principles in place, treat people with respect and do your thing. People want to be validated. But the validation they are seeking has to come from themselves. Nobody can give it to them by following.Twitter is the entry point not the end point.
Quite well stated, sir Kenny. The problem, I think, is that a lot of people subscribe to the “I’m gonna figure this out as I go along” thing, and while that can work, you definitely run some risks that way 🙂
Thanks for the comment!
I have not made any lists-it’s just one 1912 name long list. The only thing I have done so far is set up a guide line. If your Avitar looks like an egg or you have no bio I don’t follow. Now I am getting busy. I answer mentions, thank people for mentions and RT’s. When I get overwhelmed I do it in groups. I wite names down as I am on line to recommend for the day. What more can I do? With 1912 people how do you start making a list.
I’m with you there, Gloria. I just don’t have the time or patience to sort people. I suppose I sort in a way by checking my replies first and stuff like that, but making actual lists? It just doesn’t work for me. It does for many other people, however!
Margie,
I’m with you. I look at each profile, and usually some tweets from the person or company. I tend to default to following rather than not. If it’s obvious from either bio or tweets that I would get no value (same tweet over and over about something I’m not interested in, for example) I don’t follow.
It takes work, but I think it makes my experience better.
Thanks for posting and sharing.
Roy
Thanks, Roy. Yeah, you’re going to have to put some time in somewhere along the line. I like to get my work in on the front end, I guess.
I follow everyone unless:
1. They have no avatar
2. They have thousands of followers but have never tweeted
3. If their twitter stream is all links to their content and no interaction.
Once I follow, I can see them and then have the opportunity to unfollow if need be. I do like my lists, need to get caught up with that one of these days!
That’s interesting, Cathy!
I just think people take unfollowing so hard sometimes that I don’t like to do it unless I don’t really have a choice. Then again, I’ve gotten a few comments from people who were mad I didn’t follow them in the first place! Like Kenny said, you can’t please everyone. Not even close!
I absolutely agree with you, and do the same thing. I don´t feel obliged to follow back if the follower doesn’t seem to bring something with him. And I individually choose every single person to follow.
Thanks, Henrique. Good to know!
I think you need to make a distinction between personal accounts and brand accounts. I think it’s foolish for organizational accounts to follow selectively and risk alienating members/alums/customers/prospects.
As a “personal” account, I just follow people who are interesting to me (and I gravitate to people who are conversational).
That’s a great point and one that gets brought up often. However, I would add that if you are a brand account, you actually could benefit from making sure you are building your network based on people who may buy from you at some point. I think a lot of brand accounts have been following back a lot of people (or getting a ton of Facebook fans or whatever it might be) and they are finding that a lot of those people aren’t really potential customers. In that sense, the value is still there, in my opinion, in making sure you are following the right folks.
Hi Margie! I also do the individualized follow back thing for your exact reasons. And, truth be told, I go through and pare down my follow list as often as I can. I’ve tried the follow back thing earlier on and it didn’t work out so well for me. As they say, though, your mileage may vary and don’t get caught up in one form of dogma or other…
Absolutely, ParisAs I am wont to say, there is not really a “right” or “wrong” in most social media scenarios 🙂
I use the same method as you. When going through the people who are following me, I go to their timeline. If they seem to engage, I will usually follow.
Thanks for sharing, Graham!
I simply follow people that I find interesting, or ones that I want to engage with. I believe if someone is going to follow you, you have to earn it. I will put people on a ‘trial’ follow, and if I don’t like what I see, or see what I was hoping for, I simply unfollow them.
I have not really given anyone reason (via my tweet history) to follow me, and I certainly don’t take offense when someone I choose to follow does not follow me.
Oh, I’m sure you have plenty of reason for people to follow you, Ted!
The idea of a trial follow is interesting. I’ll have to roll that around in my head a bit more. Thanks for sharing!
Margie, like you, I follow/unfollow on an individual basis. I always check profiles to see what the individual is tweeting. Is it the same thing every few hours, or does the person actually engage with others? It only takes a moment to get a decent picture of who I am following. Miriam
Yep, I usually can get a good idea about an account based on the first 3 tweets I see. If they are all, “See my post, and my post here, and my post here,” I usually don’t dig a whole lot deeper unless the bio is REALLY interesting or if we’ve conversed before.
It is all done on an individual basis but the number one rule is engagement. If I don’t see any attempt on their part to interact with people then I probably won’t take the time to follow them.
You said it all there, Jack. Like I mentioned to Miriam, it’s pretty easy to gauge an account based on a very small number of tweets. Sad but true!
Yep, too much broadcasting and not enough listening/talking can really kill it.
Hi Margie,
I always look forward to your posts! And today you tackled a perplexing problem especially if someone is new to Twitter…and, as you point out, there is no one answer that is the end all be all. Like some of the comments here, I tend to look at the engagement of a person and the type of tweets they send out before I make my decision to follow. I am more apt to cultivate my Twitter community like you, Margie…on a person by person basis.
Thanks for another great post!
Claudia
Thanks so much, Claudia. Glad it helped!
Margie,
I love engaging with people on twitter so I may over follow. When someone follows me I check the profile and check to see they actually tweet and it’s not a bot. If there profile is interesting to me I will follow.
I sometimes wonder how people decide they want to follow me and what I could possibly offer them. For example every once in a while I will get a very conservative religious follow and I know if they checked my profile they would see that my profile doesn’t really jive with theirs. Are they trying to get me “Saved”? I have no idea. There are several other random people that decide to follow me that I have no clue as to why.
I enjoy getting follows after a twitter chat because that way i know we have engaged and will likely engage some more going forward.
As far as the way I use Twitter if someone @messages me I will respond almost 100% of the time. If someone took the time to send me a personal message the least I can do is get back to them in a reasonable amount of time. The only time I may not is if the message came through in a twitter chat and a general response was given at the time or if it’s spam.
As always Margie you give us food for thought in ways that help us be better peeps in social media.
Thanks for your great comment, Jim.
Yes, some of the people who follow me make me wonder as well. For example, a person who doesn’t speak any English – I wish I knew what they were saying, but it makes communication on Twitter quite difficult, at least without a universal translating device.
And yes, Twitter chats do make it easy because you can remember engaging with that person or you can see that they engaged with others. It definitely makes life a bit easier, and boy am I all for that!
HA! Something I know a little about. All through experimentation. I’ve done the moderately selective thing, the “elitist” thing (although that was not the intention… it was more a social media experiment), and I am now on the “Twitter is a tool, not a gigantic time-sucking chat room for me” phase, wherein I am following mostly everyone back (less moderately than at first).
My reasoning(s) is this:
– Being moderately selective kept my stream somewhat relevant (although more chat based than anything) but I gained followers very slowly. It was okay, but the gains were not impressive enough for what I need to do.
– Being “elitist” was merely a way for me to see how that whole concept worked. I was very interested (even as a little guy) in the reactions I received. I expected to lose between 600-700 followers because of it. I did not lose that many. Actually, less than half that number ran off. Interesting, but it turned into a more gradual down-slope than I cared for.
– Following back almost everyone works best for me simply because it takes less time to filter and really scrutinize. Also, over the course of the last 9 months, I have had unlikely subscribers from businesses and other agencies who i never expected to have anything to do with me. I had to sit back and tell myself that EVERY account has the potential to be a reader of mine in one form or another. Plus, the polite thing got to me. I simply do not possess an elitist attitude. I’m a small person in this world and i fully expect to stay that way. I like it down here.
So there you have it. Its all about what you use the platform for. I will still do chats and network as soon as I can, but I prefer to use numbers in an advantageous way and not take the chance of leaving anyone out if I can help it.
(caveat – for the love of God, if you are looking for the best way to manage Twitter, PLEASE do not do the Te@m F*ll*wb@ck crap… UGH! So annoying…)
Yes, Team Followback often, paradoxically, makes me not want to follow the person. Go figure.
As for the rest of what you said, are you sure you’re not a scientist? Maybe you can try that next, because holy control group, Batman 🙂
*smush*
LMAO! You crack me up. Thanks for the chuckle. Sadly, though, as hard as I try to escape the stigma, even Brandi will agree that I am indeed a big nerd. 😉
Love the conversation here Margie!
I try to follow everyone back, with an avatar & tweet history, that being said I do also go through and unfollow people who unfollow me. It seems so pretentious to expect someone to follow you when you don’t follow them. Is the assumption that you add value to the Twitterverse & I don’t?
Follow and be followed in return. 🙂
Peggy
Hmm, interesting. See, I’ve seldom been offended when people have not followed me back. The only time it bothered me is when I had actually purchased a product from the person and they still did not follow me back. That kind of cheesed me off something royal. But we all bring our own mindset and expectations to this world, online and off. I just do my best not to tick too many people off 🙂
Hi Margie! Interesting topic! I follow back about 70 or 80% of everyone who follows me. I look at each person and the thing I really like to look at are the tabs “you both follow” and “also followed by.” I am much more likely to follow someone where I see that there are shared follows – In my case, that often signals a shared interest in Starbucks. If you follow me, and I see that you are following @Starbucks and @StarbucksCard and @StarbucksJobs and other key profiles, I am very inclined to follow you back, and possibly even if you are an egg. But I almost never follow anyone with zero tweets.
Having said all that, I’ve heard proponent of “follow all” talk about the fundamental fairness factor. This sounds a little strange, but since twitter limits following to 2000 people OR no limit if you are within a certain ratio (I think 10%) then the theory is that those who don’t follow back make it harder for others to follow more who are at 2000. If everyone adopted the “elitist” strategy, it would be hard for people to follow more than 2000 because if everyone followed only a handful back (like for example Bette Midler follows just a handful back, or there are so many like that – Brian Solis or so many…) then we’d all struggle to be within the correct twitter ratio. I have a hard time explaining that one, but it is something I think about, and I weigh heavily in favor of following back over not following back.
I go through an unfollow SOME people who unfollow me, but there are cases where I don’t, again it is case by case.
And Margie, I still really liked your “great unfollowing” article. I see it happening. I find it a bit unctuous to followback your first 50k, and then to suddenly unfollow 40k people, if you know what I mean. That feels pretentious to me.
See you soon on twitter! @sbuxmel
Margie,
Your post has been *the most helpful* to me, out of the many, many blog posts on the subject! I’m still a relatively new blogger (started in March) and, as such, I have a lot to learn about…everything! As far as Twitter, I haven’t changed my approach since my first tweet. I always follow back (even one naked egg that actually had some interesting info.) *unless* the account hasn’t sent out a tweet, or I see that they have totally despicable ones.
Thank you, as always, for a great post! x
I follow selectively. I want my stream to be full of stuff that’s interesting to me.
[…] I fall squarely into that category. Margie Clayman wrote a great post summing up her feelings on the subject of Twitter follows (and unfollows), which got me thinking about my own Twitter […]