5 Reasons They May Not Follow on Twitter
When you follow people on Twitter, you are doing more than just getting their tweets, you’re also sending them a note letting them know that you are interested in what they have to say. Ideally, a good percentage of them, after looking at your profile should feel the same way and return the follow.
Personally, I follow about 80% of the people who follow me. I view Twitter as a tool for conversations and, within reason, if someone is interested in hearing what I have to say, I want to listen to them as well.
However, as with most people, there are certain users I ignore or “snub” depending on your perspective. Though I’m grateful they took an interest in me, I’m not motivated to follow back. So for two weeks I kept track of the users I don’t follow and found the five most common reasons for me I don’t click the button.
Hopefully, this list will help you avoid some of the more common pitfalls when putting your Twitter account out there for the world to see.
5. No Icon
To most, this one should be pretty obvious. The first thing you should change on your Twitter account, if you are serious about it, is your icon. It doesn’t matter if it is your logo, your photo, a cartoon avatar or something else altogether, it should be anything other than the default Twitter “face”.
Even if you are a human being and a very active Twitter user, having the default icon looks unprofessional and makes others, including myself suspicious of your account. It only takes a few moments to add a new avatar and, since it is the first thing most people look at when they see your profile, it could be the most important change you make.
4. No Updates
Everyone has to start somewhere. So if you just started your account and I’m in the first batch of people you follow, that is a huge honor and I treat it as such.
However, leaving your Twitter account blank is poor form. You should at least have one or two tweets up before people start showing up. Also, if you haven’t tweeted in many days or months, not only does the follow seem suspicious, but it makes people much less likely to follow back as it indicates the account is abandoned.
If you wish to stop posting to your Twitter account or don’t want add any tweets of your own, that’s fine, just don’t expect many others to follow it, not that it would matter if they did.
3. The Numbers
Are you following 1000 people but only have 50 followers and 3 updates? If so, you’re probably a spammer or you at least look like one.
Numbers aren’t everything on Twitter but they do tell a tale about what your objective on the site is. If you are following more than a are following you, you’ree aggressively seeking out new people. There is nothing wrong with that until the proportions get completely out of whack. That tells people you are indiscriminately following others for attention and that makes them feel as if they’ve been spammed.
For me, there is no magic formula, but your numbers have to make sense for a human being, not a robot. Numbers are not the sole factor for most people, but if they don’t add up, don’t expect a lot of return follows.
2. Every Tweet is a Link
Everyone loves a few good links, but every Twitter stream needs a bit of variety. Making every single tweet a link to your latest post or, even worse, a promotion of some sort, is not. Or rather, is very annoying, especially when those Twitter users follow large numbers of people.
There are many Twitter accounts that I subscribe to that are nothing but link collections. However, I usually add them from their respective sites, not based upon them following me. If you use your Twitter account as a mini-RSS feed, that’s fine, just don’t expect people to follow back if they are not interested in the topic.
Personally, for most of those kinds of lists, I much prefer to get them in my RSS reader than my Twitter.
1. No @replies
Finally, as I said in the beginning, Twitter is about conversation. However, if you never @reply anyone for any reason, then, for you, Twitter is just a broadcast medium. It shows others that you aren’t reading your incoming tweets and, if you are, that you are not replying.
Though there is nothing wrong with broadcasting over Twitter, as with the link collections, it is important that the person be interested in the content by itself, not the conversation. Where one might be interested in talking with a realtor from Phoenix on Twitter, significantly fewer are going to be interested in a Twitter account about nothing but new housing listings in the region.
If you want to be followed broadly and use Twitter for conversation, it is important to let people know that you are listening and replying, something a healthy amount of @replies does very well.
Bottom Line
Everyone who comes to Twitter is doing so with different goals in mind. To some, Twitter is just a broadcast medium, another way to get links and other content to the masses. To others, it is an RSS reader, a way to get news almost instantly. For those, being followed back may not be as important as it is for others.
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to how to use Twitter, with perhaps the sole exception of obvious spammers.
However, for those who are interested in the dialog and need a balance in those who follow them back to make it happen, it is important to put your best foot forward on Twitter, make it clear that you are human and that you have an interest in hearing what others say, that you are active and that you care about your account.
If you do those things, most people, including myself, will be happy to follow you and talk with you. If you don’t, you may be left wondering why nobody is following you back.
Written by Jonathan Bailey from Plagiarism TodayPosted on April 30th, 2009 and filed under Blogging
Do not forget to subscribe to our RSS feed for updates
19 Responses to “5 Reasons They May Not Follow on Twitter”
Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments
Trackbacks
-
[...] 5 reasons people aren’t following you on Twitter (Via: @stejules) [...]
-
[...] SaturdayMay 2, 2009 // Jonathan Bailey from Plagiarism Today wrote a great post the other day on BloggingTips entitled ‘5 Reasons They May Not Follow on Twitter‘. [...]
-
[...] can expect me to talk about on Twitter. And after reading Jonathan Baileys post last week about why people will not follow you, I was inspired to add this to my welcome page too and tell users which type of Twitter users I [...]
-
[...] week I wrote a post entitled “5 Reasons They May Not Follow on Twitter” that sparked a great conversation both on this site and on [...]
-
[...] 2. 5 Reasons They May Not Follow On Twitter. [...]
Comments are closed.
Comments are closed since this post is older than 30 days. However, you can continue this discussion in our popular Blogging Forums
Sponsors
Blogging Tips Newsletter
Sign up to the Blogging Tips Newsletter for Free today and get a free ebook!
It’s true. I try to stay away from those things and my numbers keep increasing daily! @stickycarrots
I completely agree with your every point here. They are very few things (if any) you will do in life that won’t require you to have “etiquette” and twitter is certainly not one of those things!
I agree on every point here, but for me the bio is also important
Excellent point Jonathan. You might want to add one more point on your list; the scantily dressed profile picture. It’s a good indication that it’s a porn/spam. Of course, this too goes back to the user’s profile stats and usually these types of profiles have very few updates but follow very many people.
I totally agree with your philosophy on reciprocal following. I too follow most of the people that follow me. I feel that if they are willing to listen to me, I should be willing to give them the same opportunity. If they abuse that opportunity, then I simply unfollow that person.
I’d like to add too many tweets in a five minute time span to the list. What’s more annoying than that many tweets is the fact they’re all links.
Another thing I’ve recently found suspicious is people who reply to you only in a direct message, not in their broadcast tweets. I have one person I follow and I know the person is legit (not a spammer) but this person never @replies to me in a broadcast, it’s always in a direct message.
It makes me wonder if this person doesn’t want others to know who he replies to- or maybe it’s just me he doesn’t want his followers being aware of. It’s not like these are private messages, most are usually a simple “thank you”, but I just find it odd that someone wouldn’t do a public ‘thanks’.
If someone has been kind to me I want to share the kindness of this person with other tweeters. We all need a little more kindness, right?
Just my two cents worth. Great post Jonathan!
Patti
Twitter is not being used as it is intended to be or is it?
I’d like to add one more:
Making Every Tweet A Billboard For Your Services.
Doing that adds no value to the conversation or helps you build any relationships. It comes across as egotistical and self-serving. It is equal to the fail whale!
Stickycarots: My numbers keep growing too and quite well. I’m no Twitter supserstar but I have far more people than I ever thought possible for me.
Salwa: Agreed completely. Etiquette is part of everything we do, Twitter being no different.
Sjdvda: I agree about the bio but I don’t read too much into it if the account is new. I know that my bio wasn’t filled out completely for a while. Still, for an established account, absolutely.
Kevin: Good point on the sexy/risque picture. I have to be careful with that though as my practice does attract all kinds of bloggers and photographers so I do have some “sexy” icons that are legit in my follow list. However, you’re right that most are spam, especially when their tweets are about interest rates…
I agree completely about unfollowing those that abuse the privilege and the chance to talk. That makes perfect sense.
Patti: I agree that you should unfollow those that send out too many tweets close together. That is annoying but, for me, it is something I tend to notice when they are in my timeline and do an unfollow on later. So, for them, it might seem like I followed back at least initially.
The DM thing is strange but not unheard of, I do have a few are that way. I guess they think all conversation to a person should be private. It’s odd but not a deal breaker I suppose.
Jason: Hard to say on that one. I don’t know what the original intentions were, just what they seem to be now.
Jeff: I agree, it’s one thing to promote and mention your services or your site but another to make it your sole purpose on Twitter. The latter is just annoying and makes me wish there were adblocking software for those kinds of Twitter users…
Thanks for the tips! I’m new to blogging (less than 2 months) and just opened my twitter account. I immediately changed my icon, but the other tips you mentioned are good to keep in mind for us starters. Basically it comes down to including “tweeting” time in your schedule a couple of times a day, a mental switch i haven’t made yet.
These five reasons are the exact five things I look for when deciding to follow a Twitter follower. I’m fairly new to Twitter but I never auto-follow. I look at each one personally. I Dugg, Stumbled and Retweeted. Great post.
Hector: Glad it was able to help! Happy Twittering!
Brian: Thanks for the support! Auto-following, in my opinion, may be the death of Twitter as it just encourages the spammers and other Twitter misuse. Thank you for being one of the human!
Hi,
Nods. Agree with them all.
A follow-up posting covering why you stop following would be nice too.
(my pet hate: twitters who go to conferences/events and suddenly tweetx10 per hour for 2 days and drunken nights)
Paul: That’s not a bad idea for a follow up. I think I might do that this week. Thanks for the suggestion!
Interesting, and it answered a question that this noob had and that was do the people who I am following but who aren’t following me actually seeing that I am replying to some of their posts. Sometimes I feel as though I am talking to myself when I use the @reply as I don’t get anything back. I’ll keep on answering when I have something to say about their posts.
Thanks
Jake
The Penpoint