Twitter Tip Tuesday - Following and Unfollowing

(This post is way late. Due to Typepad issues I was unable to post, but here it is Twitter Tip Tuesday on a Friday.)

Starting out on Twitter can be a daunting task, because acquiring followers is more difficult than one would expect. You have to get out there and scour through Twitter profiles and proactively follow people, without knowing if they are going to reciprocate the follow.

Let's say you follow 100 people, maybe 50% of those follow you back. This means you are getting the updates of 100 people, but only 50 of those people are actually getting your updates, because they have not followed you back.  Before you go and find more people to follow, get rid of those that did not follow you in return. Unless the person who did not reciprocate the follow is an influencer you admire or some other big personality, unfollow them. Don't receive updates from those that do not receive yours. (There are some ways to help encourage others to follow you back but I will get into those tactics in another post.)

The most important reason to unfollow, it to keep your Following/Follower ratio close together. When you come across someone who is following 300 people and only 50 of those they are following are following them back, it makes you wonder if they are *worth* the follow. It is natural to want to follow someone who appears to have a following, and it is equally as natural to get turned off by someone whose following/follower ratio is drastically unbalanced.

There is a easy (but not obvious) way to know if someone is following you back. Go to your Twitter homepage; click on your "following" link to access your list of those you are following; if you cannot direct message a person, they are not following you back; click the "remove" button to unfollow them. (See image below)

 

Comments

[Michelle]

great tip!

[Michael]

Thanks! I love Twitter Tip Tuesdays! I'm not that new to it, but I am for sure not using it to it's full potential!

[Michael]

Thanks! I love Twitter Tip Tuesdays! I'm not that new to it, but I am for sure not using it to it's full potential!

[Brad Grier]

Hi Julia,

1) I'm one of your follower's :)
2) Check out Twitterless.com. It's in closed beta, but yuo can get invites. The FAQ explains it, but in a nutshell, it alerts you when someone stops following you, and allows you to manage your peeps easily. Pretty cool. I'll blog about it some day, but it seemed to fit your post today.

http://twitterless.com/frequently_asked_questions

[jonny goldstein]

Yep. I totally look at the followers/following ratio, and if it looks like they are following a zillion people but have few followers, I am unlikely to follow back. I figure, they are probably spammers or something.

[cassondra]

thanks for this tip. I just discovered the twitter tool friend or follow and find it very helpful and time saving: http://friendorfollow.com/

[Ryan Martin]

Nice tip Julia. I am a new (this week) follower of your Tweets and I dig your style. The personal head shots and silly videos help your followers recognize that you are a real person and not just another bland online personality. I really think that this is major ingredient to gaining more followers as well.

So... I guess keep it real is the key.

[Pariah S. Burke]

From your tip it sounds like you believe the point of following others is soley to entice them into following you.

Your tip seems to infer that content of tweets is irrelevant to building Following/Follower numbers. Further, that virtually any Follower number--and thus one's perceived importance and status within the Twitter community--is predicated merely on the number of those one is Following. That is how the Twitter spammers do it, afterall.

Is Twitter then nothing but a popularity contest? I do know the value of Twitter as a marketing tool, but far above that it's a communication tool, a means of facilitating intercourse.

Whom I follow is determined primarily by my interest level in the person (in the case of friends, colleagues) or, more commonly, by my interest level in what the person tweets. When to stop following someone I decide not by whether she is following me but rather by whether her Tweets still interest me.

That, in my humble opinion, is the point of Twitter, and I would much prefer to think that the majority of those who follow my tweets do so for the same purpose--because what I have to say interests them.

[John Carson]

Hey Julia,

I don't think it's a popularity contest on Twitter. To me, there's more value in following people than being followed -- I have so much great info flowing across my Twitter screen from social media influencers. It's gold, especially in my PR role.

Cheers,
JC.

[Steve Hall]

You know I'm your biggest fan, Julia, but I'm not sure I agree with you for reasons similar to the ones stated by Pariah. I am one of those people who does have the lopsided scenario you describe. I have about 1100 follower and follow "only" about 300, But, those 300 people are people I really REALLY want/need/must to hear from.

I don't think there should be a quid pro quo here. Twitter makes it very easy for you to follow whoever it is you want to follow and not follow those who, for whatever reason, you don't want to. That is not to say the 7-800 people I don't follow back are losers. It really has nothing to do with them at all. It's all about me. If I followed 1100 people, my head would explode and I'd get no work done all day because, unlike some, I have Twitter going (through Twhirl) continuously all day long. Basically, my simple mind just can't handle it:-)

I imagine the people who follow me have an interest in what I have to say, perhaps, because of my role as the dude who writes about advertising. Maybe all they want is a one way information dump from me.

The beauty of Twitter is the choice it gives you. It's flexible. People can choose how they want or don't want to use it.

I'm sure some unfollow me when I don't reciprocate and that's perfectly fine. Again, that's the choice and flexibility of Twitter. What I want out of Twitter is not thousands of followers just to say I have a lot of followers but close contact with the people relevant to what I do for work, my friends and brands (yes, brands) I am interested in.

[Scott Bliss]

Uh Oh... this is not good! I follow you but, you don't follow me... hmmm... delete you and miss out on all of your wit and wisdom (and 12second vids) or keep you and look like a lurker... or!! -- you could just start following me and save me from my dilemma. :)

[Patrick]

Great post. Thanks for the tips.

[Richard Mackney]

Hey, nice post and some great tips. I've not been on twitter for long and struggle to to keep up to date with the 21 people that I follow! I feel the need to ensure I see every post. So therefore I think it's the quality of the people that I follow not quantity. In return I have 32 followers, most are probably people that are just adding me to get a follow in return or spammers. I don't know If I have twitter totally wrong, but I can't see how I could follow over a thousand people - for starters my pda would contantly be beeping throughout the day.

Interesting post, thank you

@mackney

[Chris Eigner]

I feel kinda famous! Good tips Julia. I'm just getting started using Twitter. I've had an account for awhile but was discouraged by how few of my friends were using it. Slowly, but surely I'm starting to find some good people to follow.

[Ryan Oelke]

@Steve Hall You have confused what Julia said. Your ratio have more followers than the number of people you're following is good. That appears to the average Twitterer that you are NOT a spammer, for one. Julia said the opposite: if you follow 1000 people, but only 50 follow you back, a person wonders, quite rightly, if you are a spammer. Or if you are not, YOU are treating it as a popularity contest by mindlessly following anyone and everyone.

Now, on that point, @Pariah, I think you are partially right. Sure, some folks can treat Twitter, or any other social networking site/tool, as a way to "be popular". But in defense of Julia's strategy - 1. Julia is not advocating spamming people or mindlessly following people. She specifically says to follow people you're interested by spending "hours scouring Twitter profiles". 2. It is actually a sign of authenticity, in my opinion, to keep an honest social connection by unfollowing people who are not interested in you. How can you keep up with people who actually want to reciprocate socially if you're Twitter feed is cluttered up by those who don't? Also, if you're looking for interaction with people you're interested in, no sense in following someone who doesn't reciprocate (unless they fall into that special category that Julia mentioned).

[Chris F.]

I started using Twitter this past summer.
It is pretty handy to have. I don't necessarily care to have lots of followers. I've always preferred quality over quantity.

[Doug C.]

To me Twitter is like those forums I visit where people are obsessed with their post counts. I shake my head every time I see someone tweet, “Wow, just five more people and I’ll have a thousand followers!” Big whoop. Where’s the intelligence to something like that?