Don’t Want Followers on Twitter? Here’s How!
When it comes to Twitter, I am fairly liberal with who I’ll follow. But there is are a couple things you can do to ensure I won’t follow you. Here are my top no-follow guarantees:
Don’t Upload A Picture
The default avatar screams spammer to me. So if you haven’t uploaded a picture, don’t expect a follow.
Have Hundreds of Followers and Zero Tweets
If you haven’t tweeted yet and are already following hundreds of people, you don’t get followed.
Repeat the Same Tweets Over and Over
If all you do is promote yourself with the same boring tweets, you suck. And you won’t get followed. I am looking to build relationships on twitter, not to learn how to whiten my teeth.
Follow 40,000 People
I don’t care who you are, you can’t have a genuine interest in building authentic relationships with 40,000 people. So if you’re “that guy”, don’t bother following me. I won’t follow back.
I am sure many of you have your own Twitter pet-peeves. I’d love to hear all about it…
9 Responses to “Don’t Want Followers on Twitter? Here’s How!”
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I couldn’t agree more.
If I get someone following me that fits into my “Criteria of the Twitterverse” then I’ll follow them. But nothing bothers me more than when I follow someone and then they DM me saying “Hey thanks for following me and my awesome tweets. Hey check out my blog at … or Learn how you can make a million bucks per day working from home.” That gets an immediate un-follow. Even if it’s someone I’d like to follow, I just hate getting pointless DMs.
I also don’t follow people who only RT. I want to build a relationship with you, not the 12 thousand other people you RT.
I agreed on the overly suggestive picture.
also,
- use of profanity
There’s one company I follow who’s products I absolutely love, but every day they post all of their specials as separate tweets. I like to know what’s on sale, but I hate 20 tweets a day with “Product 1 10% off” “Product 2 10% off” etc. Just say “Category 1 is 10% off today” and leave it at that!
Yep. I agree. Social Media guru Chris Brogan (http://www.chrisbrogan.com) says we should “listen first”. I couldn’t agree more! Some people think the whole point of twitter is to inform everyone of their product. If that’s all you do, that’s a quick way to lose followers.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bo Lane and Vin Thomas, chadharvey. chadharvey said: RT @vinthomas: Don’t Want Followers on Twitter? Here’s How! — http://bit.ly/8L42DK […]
As someone who is new to this stuff, I’m still not certain what to make of Twitter. There seems to be more junk than useful stuff, but the useful stuff is REALLY useful. I suppose there is a lot of trial and error associated with finding the right people to follow, and at times it just seems to be too overwhelming. I also find that I can waste hours watching stuff scroll by in TweetDeck. It’s kind of like a train wreck — I can’t stop watching.
It took me a couple months to really see the benefit of Twitter. But now that I have been using it consistently for well over a year, I find it very valuable. There are a few tips that can make it easier to use:
1. Use a Twitter App (Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Tweetie, etc).
2. It’s not about quantity of friends, it’s about quality.
5. It’s not about quantity of tweets, it’s about quality.
4. Be human.
I could list tons more…maybe this is another blog post in the making?
Here are a few more:
Have an overly suggestive picture.
Follow me and then immediately unfollow, hoping I won’t notice.
Have a twitter stream with no interaction with others, no @replies, no retweets, just links.
Have “SEO” in your profile
Yes, those are all good too. I think the “SEO” one is true in most cases. Although I know a couple people who are into SEO that are truly engaging on twitter. (see @robmcquire)