There’s a new trend on twitter right now, mainly popularized by this article from twitip, that consist in “starting over” with your twitter account. It was once very well seen (in fact it still is from my point of view…) to follow back people who were following you, but as the article points out, it’s hard to follow conversations when you follow 10K people. I totally agree with this point (even though it’s still possible with the right tools), but I totally disagree with the way people are “using” this article.
The article mainly says you should follow only the people you find interesting and that there’s nothing wrong with unfollowing people because you don’t care about what they have to say. While I agree, here’s the side effect I find ridiculous.
Mass unfollow
After this article was published, a lot of people started to “mass unfollow”, just so they could “start over” with their twitter account. The idea is:
I have 20K followers, but only find 100 of them interesting, so let’s unfollow the rest.
The concept I have problems with is not the “follow only people you find interesting” concept, it’s the “Let’s get 20K followers, then realize I don’t give a crap about them, un-follow them and get a killer follow/followers ratio” concept. What most people say after this is that they are “starting over” with their twitter account because they only want to follow “interesting” people.
Starting over mean starting over
That’s not what I consider starting over. Starting over would mean starting a completely new account with 0 followers and then only following people you find interesting. If you don’t want to follow back people, don’t follow them back, that’s fine with me. Would you still reach 20K followers just by doing that? No, because let’s face it, unless you’re Guy Kawasaki, you need to share, interact and follow people to get some of that twitter juice. That’s how it is. So, either you start over and accept the fact you won’t reach 20K or you accept the fact from the start that you are not Barack Obama and won’t attract 500,000 followers unless you share, interact and follow.
It’s the way the followers were acquired
My main problem with the “mass unfollow” to “start over” idea is the way the followers were acquired in the first place. Let’s face it, there are ways to get new followers easily and most people I’ve seen “mass unfollow”, followed me in the first place so I could follow them back and get more followers. That’s a perfectly fine technique, it works and a lot of people do it. Here’s why it doesn’t make sense at all to “start over” in this situation:
- YOU follow someone with the only goal of getting more followers (you already don’t give a crap)
- That person follow you back so both are happy
- Then you realize you can’t follow ALL conversations (what did you expect?)
- Finally, mass un-follow people YOU first followed because you don’t really give a damn about them. (Wait, you didn’t give a damn in the first place, so why did you follow?)
Is it just me or this scenario doesn’t make sense? You’re the judge, but I strongly disagree with this practice.
It’s OK to only follow people you like
Again, don’t get me wrong. It’s OK to only follow people you find interesting, it’s the process of mass following and then mass unfollowing that I think is wrong. What are your thoughts? Let me know.
I like to follow people that follow me. However, I've learned that I can't answer everyone. I do have a website and people are more than welcome to contact me there if they really want to get ahold of me. That's how I do it. – Richard Brian Penn
Absolutely Richard. There comes a point where you have to accept you won't be able to read every single tweet and answer every single person. I usually answer all @reply, but can't read every tweet.
Then, I use Skype/gtalk or email to really communicate with people…
Thanks for your comment Richard!
while your point is valid… Who gives a shit? people are assholes and will do whatever they want.
I guess that's a way to see it… hehe
I clean up my followers/following list every once in a while, removing inactive users, machines, and otherwise uncool people. I don't mass unfollow (I don't have many enough to mass-anything).
I'd rather follow 150~ people and find interesting tweets each and every time I check my stream, than following 2000 hoping they'll follow me back, and in the process turning my twitter stream into an unreadable mess.
I do cleanup my list once in a while also. I think it's an important process to remove inactive users, bots, etc. I personally follow over 2K people and it's not been a problem so far, I can still track conversations fairly easily with TweetDeck.
You're more than welcome, thanks for dropping a comment buddy!
Yes, I totally understand your point. I personally have a "big" network with about 2.5K followers/following and I love it to be honest. Using tweetdeck I don't have problems to follow conversations and having a big network puts you in contact with a lot of useful information.
Very well said, i totally agree with you. It's really unfair to do such a things, and to even have excuse for that. It was mater of time when would twitter members come on to unfollow trend. I am afraid that will really hurt twitter, and could lead to really negative effects.
I still don't understand why so many people think follower numbers are important. It's the quality of the contacts, not the quantity. The only thing that large numbers of followers does for you, is make you more appealing to services like TwitAd and Magpie. And Magpie-ers tend to get mass unfollowed anyway.
If the majority of your followers are only following you for the followback, they are not going to be the people who follow your links, buy your products, or give you any type of social life. That's why I only follow interesting people from the start. Occasionally I'll change my mind and add someone if they begin interacting with me via @'s because that's proof that they're interested in what I have to say, and not what I add to their numbers.
There I go, showing my bias again.
I totally agree that it's the strength of your network that matters on twitter, but at the same time the numbers still matter. I would go with strength first and then build A LOT of quality connections.
Thanks for the comment
Great post Ben! I love it. Twitter is dope. I used to not understand the point but now I do. I don't follow everyone that follows me, but I do most.
My thing is, I'm all about quality too, but sometimes you have to go with the quantity first to find the quality. If someone seems interesting, or they are interested in me and we seem to be on the same "vibe" I'll follow.
Now, it may take weeks or months, but eventually some of these new will @reply me or direct message and we'll start building.
Thing is it's just like alexa, or page rank, etc. Sure…this stuff really doesn't matter to many, but others, a lot of others, still put high value in it.
Some won't even follow unless you have a decent number of folks following.
I don't agree with the mass unfollow to make it look like you got maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad number of followers.
Start over fresh if you want lol
I also keep multiple twitter accounts for various topics, so I don't get cross pollinated lol. My music stuff is seperate, my business stuff is seperate, copywriting…separate.
You just gotta find your method, get comfortable, and be SOCIAL lol.
Thanks Joe, it's good to see you back!
I like how you put it mate: "sometimes you have to go with the quantity first to find the quality". I followed a lot of people that most people wouldn't have followed because they had something like 30 followers at the time. Now they freakin' have like 10K followers and are totally killing it. That make very good relations and good people to have in your network.
I also have a couple of twitter accounts. I use @bentremblay for general tweets.
THanks for your comment mate!
No doubt man! You gotta do what makes sense to you dude, that's how you create the best relationships man. Keep it coming froggy, your site is jumpin bro! Good to see it.
I also keep separate accounts! Someone who likes my photos and poems, for example, doesn't necessarily want to hear about Internet Marketing see links to data on SEO. And the same goes for other niches. I would feel weird tweeting at all if I didn't keep things separate (or at least try to).
It definitely helps keep things neater.
Froggy in the house! Strong as usual, my man. I think the mass unfollow is some bs, but what can you expect from people that just are looking for short cuts. You are building something different with your ideas, Froggy. Stay on your individual course and be a Purple Cow. (Sorry, ready Seth Godin's book "Purple Cow" right now and it just comes out of me. LOL)
Fredddddiiiee! Thanks man, I really appreciate it! I'm trying to be a Purple Cow
Thanks for dropping a comment!
You are a Purple Frog!!!
Great post Ben,
I've been very careful of who I follow back simply because I don't want to turn my twitter into an unreadable mess. I really like how Joe is doing. Having multiple twitter accounts for various topics.
I also agree with Joe's way. In fact I do the same with all my different projects, it helps to keep everything clean and build quality networks based on interests.
Well, we're going to see more and more of this as twitter grows and goes mainstream. We're going to have to deal with ti!
While I find this concept of trying to get as many followers as one can distasteful, what I find disingenuous is, after doing that, suddenly deciding that you don't want to follow that many people and don't want that many people following you either, for whatever reason, and announcing it as you go ahead and do it. That's why, even though I have a lot of followers, I look each one of them up and determine whether I'm going to follow them or not. I mean really, is someone already following 45,000 people really going to care one way or another what I have to say? And if they decide to drop me because they're tired of all those people, what am I supposed to feel about that?
I agree with you Mitch and it is my position as well. You can be sure people following 45K people have a seperate stream in tweet deck for the persons they really want to follow. I have to admit I do it to, I follow a lot of people, but I have specific persons I really want to read their tweets. So, I have a "favorite" group in TweetDeck.
Hey, I'll own up to that myself. Actually, I have two separate special lists, one for my real friends, and one for people who I'm interested in seeing what they have to say. That one changes more often, because sometimes people just get weird, if you know what I mean. TweetDeck is a great tool for that reason.
LOL nice
Well this is dumb. I mean, you create a blog, write, gather viewers, grow in power … and then what, screw it all and start again ? what's the point ? Besides, abandoning those 20k readers would only make you look like an asshole. Sure you might not know them or find them interesting, but they know you! want to read what you write! Why punish them for that ?
Simple solution is too have one for business and one for pleasure.
Yes, it's a good solution and also have seperate accounts for seperate subjects/niches.
The mass un-follow as it is being used is definitely bad. I don't really follow people because they follow me. With tweetdeck and seesmic it's not really difficult to manage 100s of people ( I am not sure about thousands ).
About thousands, I personally create "groups" in twitter for people I really don't want to miss their tweets. This ensure that I get the best out of my network, while still reading what everybody has to say when I have the time to.
I agree that that method of unfollowing is uncool I would never mass unfollow people but I will unfollow people who are not active or don't update their tweeps I also unfollow tweeps that just spam.
I think it goes wrong from the beginning when you follow massive amounts of people just to get them to follow you back. I don't mean interacting and socializing and sharing thoughts with people – I mean following thousands of people so that they will follow you back. I personally just follow people I find interesting.
I don't want to auto-follow those who follow me, for obvious reasons. For one thing, I'd wind up following creeps and prostitutes as well. I tried in the past to check each new follower and follow them back if I liked them, but it was a joke, I got hundreds and hundreds every week or every day … I would have needed to spend hours per day on it.
So now I just try to be as natural as possible with Twitter. But I can agree, it isn't really right to just gather up followers by following them, and then suddenly unfollow …
I agree, it all depends what your goals are with your twitter account. There is no doubt that if you are building a network to promote your brand, following back most of your followers will help you.
hehe absolutely
Thanks Gerald for your comment. I am also able to interact with people fairly easily using tweetdeck even if I have over 2000 followers. Of course I can't get personal with everyone, but when I'm online in front of tweetdeck I can read most tweets and interact.
Yep, I noticed the same dirty trick of unfollowing only a couple of days after following. Not a good practice for sure if you are looking to build a brand.
Wish you the best of luck to expand your twitter network!
Thanks mate.
Absolutely, my "filter" is usually to follow people, not brands and people that aren't there just for spam & make money reasons.
haha, some are just following to get a follow back, so that's probably why you are still getting new followers.
Good luck in your quest for 100 followers and thanks for dropping a comment.
Hey, thanks a lot for that comment.
I think it's a choice whether you want to follow people you "don't want to" or not. Following people you don't necessarily want to will surely give you more followers and it depends what your goals with twitter are.