Got Unfollowed on Twitter? Don’t Take it Personally

I have a friend that uses Qwitter on a regular basis in order to find out when people have stopped following him on Twitter. He says he considers it critical feedback, as he’ll match up the time someone has stopped following him with the time of activity on his Twitter account. In his mind he’s wondering if he said something stupid, useless or offensive in order to turn people off to his Twitter stream.

In some ways this line of reasoning can be readily applied, but aligning the general time stamps of Twitter activity and the act of being unfollowed doesn’t always mean there’s a correlation, let alone causation. What I’m trying to say is, don’t take un-follows or no-follows too personally.

While it’s generally considered good form to follow a user that has followed you, both parties should be well aware that they don’t have to follow anyone and everyone, and each Twitter user needs to do what’s best for their personal and professional objectives. So if you follow a user and they don’t follow you back, it’s OK. They may have accidentally deleted the email alerting them to you as their new follower, or their third party app that auto-follows all users that follow them may be glitchy or have some Twitter authentication problems.

And if someone that was once following you no longer follows you, it’s OK. As long as you’re utilizing Twitter in a non-spammy and socially acceptable manner, there’s no point in fretting over all the people that have un-followed you. See here for more guidelines.

What’s important to remember is that your Twitter experience is what you make it. Stick to your topics of interest, remain active in the community and reach out to those that have similar interests in order to have a fulfilling Twitter experience.

But there are times when noting those users that don’t follow you is important. When you’re hovering around the 2,000 cap for the number of Twitter users you can follow, seeing who isn’t following you back can help you keep a healthy following-to-followers ratio.

Also, keep this last point in mind when using a service to see which followers have un-followed or have never followed you at all. Perhaps they followed you in hopes of getting a return follow, and you were the one that missed your email alert. That unfollow may simply be their own act of balancing out their Twitter ratio.

Written by Kristen Nicole from Kristen Nicole
Posted on May 20th, 2009 and filed under Social Media
Do not forget to subscribe to our RSS feed for updates

3