Let me start by saying that I LOVE to connect with people. Last month, when I blogged about culling my Twitter list, I really meant it when I said “I hate breaking up with people”.
It seemed natural to me, a few months ago, to want to follow-back people who follow me on Twitter, and to make friends with people who wanted to befriend me on Facebook. On Facebook, I’ve befriended most people, and it’s not as if I’m being inundated with requests. So the philosophy works fine there. Twitter is another matter.
Back in January or so, when I gave Tweetlater.com instructions to automatically follow-back every person who followed me, Twitter was a great big party of users, some commercial and more just having fun. If someone followed me, I figured it was because they genuinely thought I had something to say. I didn’t mind the occasional marketer, because I could perhaps learn a thing or two from the way they used Twitter to engage potential clients.
Twitter being what it is (and I think that might be a constantly mutating, highly contagious virus right about now), things have changed since then. Every snake-oil salesman and would-be Internet millionaire is climbing aboard. People who have their accounts set to autofollow are sitting ducks for these hucksters.
Hucksters, I have news for you: you are BORING!! Honestly, if you are going to sell to me, at least make it interesting. Make me feel like you care about me. The philosophy of social media is engagement. Dance with me. Date me. Show me why I should fall in love with your product. I know you only have 140 characters to make an impression.
That makes Twitter a lot like real life, where you only have a few seconds before your customers have passed judgement on you. I’m sure you wouldn’t start a Real Life conversation “Hi. Let me show you how to get 16,000 new customers in a month” – even at a trade show.
Therefore, the autofollow is turned off, at least until the hucksters stop trying to stuff me in their sales funnel. And really, it’s not as if I’m following Mr. Snake Oil’s advice and using Twitter Secrets to Gain 16,000 Followers This Month. My following is growing at a nicely manageable speed of a couple of dozen people each day. I can stay on top of that manually by going into my “following” list, and only selecting the people with real photos, real names, real bios and (if I have to really dig deep to decide if I’ll follow back) real conversations.
I am no longer a sitting duck!
A technical aside: I actually thought I had my autofollow turned off about a month ago, when I took that option off of SocialToo.com. But I forgot about my initial deal with Tweetlater. It’s a good idea to write down somewhere which third-party applications you are using, and what for. Keep it with your other administrative records.
I could write a really long comment post about this, but since I’m short on time, I’ll just save my thoughts for one of my own blogs. I’m at the point where I’m ready to do another mass unfollow, and even more importantly a mass BLOCK of twitter snobs who think they are too good to follow back. There are so many examples I keep running into that I could write a book.
See, I have never used autofollows, have always manual followed and follow people I think are interesting and those that have the same interests as me. Many of those never follow back. Why? Maybe because I’m in a Direct Sales party plan business or a work at home mom. Nobody bothers to find out about me at all, what I sell or WHY or anything about me personally or my business at all. And it doesn’t matter that I mainly dialog, pay it forward to OTHER moms in business, promote OTHERS way more than myself. Many times I get to feeling so used and walked on and ESPECIALLY snubbed by twitter snobs or elite that I get to the point of being furious and that’s where I’m at now.
I’m amazed at how many snobby people are on twitter. Be careful – you may be on the road to becoming one. Judging or categorizing people can close the door to potential friends. Not sure there’s an easy answer to twitter following, but I am personally tired of being snubbed and labeled as unworthy to follow back when people don’t even bother to learn even one thing about me.
Hi Jannifer –
Thanks for the comment! As it turns out, because you commented on my blog, I followed you on both Twitter and FriendFeed (which I’m liking more and more, and will proably blog about pretty quick!).
You see, I think you and I use Twitter in the same way. I *want* to pay it forward. I very much want dialogue and engagement. It’s boring if there’s no interaction. I reply to everyone who sends me an actual, personal direct message and @reply/mention-whatever-it’s-called-now thingie. It’s exactly the people who follow, send the “hi, buy my stuff” message then quickly unfollow so they can grab more followers that make Twitter an occasionally noisy, irritating place to be. Nobody wants to be using social media just to be used, or sold to.
Do you ever check people’s following/followers ratio before adding them? If they have far more followers than people they follow, you might not get a whole lot of dialogue with them.
Hopefully I’m in no danger of becoming a Twitter snob. If you are following me, give me a shout-out or direct message occasionally. And I may even recommend you on #followfriday just for being a giver!
Catherine,
I also do not auto follow and do not normally recommend it for my clients – although there are times when I can see it being advantageous for an organization to use autofollow. There are quite a few people I do not follow, but I do not believe I’m a twitter snob by any stretch of the imagination. (I’m following about 50 more people than are following me.) I check profiles before deciding whether or not to follow someone…and if I’m “on the fence” I will generally go ahead and follow. I’ve found some very interesting “nuggets” from some off the wall followings!