Beware of the Twitter “Follower Unfollower”

Annoyed with the Twitter “Follower Unfollower”?

Check out Diane’s Schmorgasboard blog about annoying twitter types.  In my opinion, I pretty much do not fit any of these categories, although you are welcome to post any disagreements.  She goes on to list 13 types of annoying twitter types.  I think she did a good job of summarizing what they are, and I would add on more, the “follower unfollower”.  In the last year, I have noticed a trend of tweeters who follow you in hopes of you following them, only to unfollow you later.

Why would they do this?

Did they accidentally unfollow me?  Was I annoying?  If not then why?  There is only one reason I can think of.  Most twitterers have an even ration of people they follow along with their followers, which is expected since you are encouraged to follow back.    If you have a higher ratio of people you are following, the perception might be that you might be in it for shameless promotion rather than promoting others, an unwritten twitter golden rule.  Then there are the celebrities and or twitter elite who have way more followers than follows due of their fame and or brand, and they may or may not follow you back.  I don’t expect to be followed back by that type as I am not the famous one, they are.  If you follow me, as long as you have a profile, a pic, not “spammy”, and a history of decent tweets, I am most likely going to follow you back, even if I do not personally know you.  The normal twitter type who is developing a following and as a result follows me, I am supportive of.  What I don’t support, is unfollowing me a while later to inflate your followers by dropping those who you originally followed yourself!

How do I know that they followed and then unfollowed?

Simple, I obviously knew they followed me as we all know from our notifications of new followers.  Once in a while, I am curious, more so recently, to see who is not following me that I follow from Friend or Follow.  Put your twitter handle, and tada!, it shows all followers who are not following you back.  Unless they are an amazing tweeter or a company that I choose to follow for their valuable information, I return the favor and unfollow.

Beware Future Follower Unfollowers

For the twitter follower unfollowers in my past, I will give you a pass, and Im sure I am not following you back anymore, however, for future ones?, I plan to name in this blog.  At the very least, it will give them an opportunity to debunk my thoughts and or explain why they followed and then unfollowed.

4 Responsesto “Beware of the Twitter “Follower Unfollower””

1. Diane says:

   September 3, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   Thanks for the mention! It’s greatly appreciated.
   I agree with you almost completely. The only thing keeping it from being 100% is the fact that I have unfollowed many people myself. There have been people whom I’ve followed because their bio and/or Tweets were aligned with my interests. I later discover that they don’t usually Twitter about whatever interested me or they hardly Twitter at all. So, I unfollow. Why follow someone if you’re not interested in what they have to say? (I also choose not to automatically follow anyone who follows me simply because they follow me. This seems to be a controversial choice to many people, so much so that I figured I’d better write about the method behind my madness. Feel free to check it out if you’d like.) Thanks again for stopping by and mentioning my blog on yours. Have a great day!

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   admin Reply:
   September 4th, 2009 at 7:03 pm

   Diane, you are welcome, I actually had your post on one of my window tabs for a while.

   I do agree with you, although in my experience my unfollows come from people, usually in my industry (so we share interests) who followed me first. In some cases, they unfollowed a few days after I decided to follow them back without a single tweet on my end! In my tweets I actually promote others and tweet good info when I see it. I keep my own promotion to a fraction of my tweets. I also do not automatically follow, I check them out first. So this annoyance is directed at those who are intentionally unfollowing good tweets who they solicited to follow them to begin with.

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2. Diane says:

   September 5, 2009 at 10:34 pm

   Ahh, ok. Got it. =)

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3. [Blocked by CFC] kevin says:

   February 9, 2010 at 5:50 pm

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