DISQUS

Michelle Evans · 12 months ago

I follow a whole bunch of people that probably don't follow me back.

Firstly, I don't keep track of it - that will likely just make me feel badly. Every so often I @someone and then I see "Someone is following you" in my email. No biggie. I followed them, they didn't follow me; I said something that caught their eye and now they're following. Doesn't mean they won't change their mind at some point if I become annoying or boring.

Secondly, when someone follows me, I go to their profile, have a read through their bio... do you have one? No bio, no follow, unless your tweets are super interesting. I take a gander through their 1st page of tweets. Have you looked at your own profile lately? Is it interesting? Would you follow you? If it's protected I'm not following back unless you have an AWESOME bio. Seriously. But if I look at your profile and it's just not interesting to me, I'm sorry... we just wouldn't likely have anything much to talk about. I'm not offended if you don't like the look of my profile either. I'll keep following you as long as you're interesting to me.

Meg · 12 months ago

It's not snobbery for me, or feeling like I'm some sort of "leader" on the Twitter. I just can't spend the kind of time it would take to process the words of thousands of people. Who DOES have that kind of time?

Most people who follow on that level have private accounts for their must-have feeds, and then reply to @'s for the most part from there. A thousand people produce several pages a minute. If you're really taking it all in, you aren't doing anything else.

Gary Jones :: BlueFur.com · 12 months ago

I think it depends on your objectives when using twitter.

If your using it to market only then deffinately follow.

Like you I use it for quality information instead of quantity.

You should look at @Xmasradio for how your own show could get more listeners.

Vicki · 12 months ago

Nicely put.

I'd say it goes a step farther for some of us. I wouldn't call myself a "leader". I'm not an influencer in the Social Media space.

I treat Twitter as a microblogging and storytelling community as well as a place to read news and get interesting links. If I'm interested in the stories you tell and the stories you like, I'll follow you.

The way I put it in my Twitter "Follow policy" is: If I don't follow you, that doesn't mean you're not an interesting person. It just means your way of using Twitter doesn't match mine.

unclespeedo · 10 months ago

I didn't read your post because just like real life, my internet life is mine alone, I dictate who/what/when I communicate with, there should never be any written rules or expectations for/from anyone else.

I find that those who complain about who follows who and for what reason are typically the people that are trying way too hard.

If you're not getting the followers you feel you deserve you're probably just not that interesting.

Carl Nelson · 9 months ago

What I do when someone follows me is check out their Twitter page showing their latest posts. If it looks like they are making interesting tweets, I will follow them. Otherwise, there's no obligation.

Lately it seems that 90% of new followers on Twitter are spammers anyway.