Dan Janal of Shorewood, MN, owner of PRLeads, writes:
“I subscribe to UseQwitter.com which tells me when people stop following me on Twittter.
“I recently became very active on Twitter and many people started following me—more than 400 in a week. However, UseQwitter now tells me that 20 people have stopped following me.
“Was this a scam by them to get me to follow them? Should I “unfollow” them in return? Were they really interested in hearing from me, or were they trying to boost their own numbers?
“What do your readers do when they find out they are no longer being followed? I feel so used!”
Hi Dan,
I just signed up for this service just to see if it really makes a difference.
I feel that the people that are following me and continue to follow me are valuable. Those who no longer want to follow me are free to do so and they weren’t interested in what I had to say or they weren’t interested in my product or services.
I can always unfollow people as well if I find there tweets to be of no value to me and my business or I find what they tweet about to be offensive.
I signed up for Qwitter a long time ago and forgot about it. Suddenly, it hit me with a bunch of unfollowers. Obviously, the service was flaky. Nonetheless, I unsubscribed to the service after that. It’s just not worth getting hurt or emotional about those who stop following you.
Besides, Twitter also flakes at times. It had me stop following people I *know* I followed.
Twitter isn’t about your follower / following numbers (unless they’re so lopsided). It’s how you use twitter that matters. Don’t worry about those unfollowers — it could simply be a glitch or people need to cut back.
@merylkevans
hi Dan,
I use socialtoo to monitor my new follows and unfollows. it has a setting to automatically follow anyone who follows me and to unfollow anyone who unfollows me as well. it will send me notifications of new follows and unfollows along with the tweets I sent at the time. if I lose someone important and want to keep following them regardless- I can just re-follow them. it’s really helped me automate my twitter usage and I find it more helpful than quitter or tweetlater.
When determining if I’m going to follow someone, if I have to scroll more than one page to find a Tweet that isn’t their reply to someone else’s Tweet, I don’t follow them. Reading one side of the conversation like that is uninteresting to me. I’ve also unfollowed people who Tweet too frequently – or just Tweet blatant ads at me constantly.
Sure, I want people to buy my stuff but I try to direct them in an interesting way, not all “Crazy Eddie, These Prices are Insane”. And I often Tweet just regular life stuff, so people get to know me.
There are definitely users on Twitter who take advantage of people who automatically follow those who follow them. Usually when I get a Qwitter e-mail, I find that it’s from a person who started following me only a couple of days ago. It’s also usually one of those people who follows way more people than follow them. This combination leads me to believe that these people are only trying to get followers by following others.
In general, I never allow myself to feel obligated to follow someone because they’ve followed me, ReTweeted me, or @replied me. These are all potential ways to pander and try to get more followers. I only follow those whom I find interesting or helpful. I *try* not to feel hurt if those people don’t follow me back, or at some point unfollow me 🙂
For me, it’s not about reciprocity, it’s about genuine relationships and useful information. Follow that principle and you’ll know when it’s right to unfollow someone.
I’ve never used Quitter because I don’t believe in or have time to get caught up in the social media numbers game.
I have a small follower base compared to many of those with whom I have Twitter relationships, but can say that all I choose to follow are valuable minds in their industries and/or are lots of fun. If they unfollow, I’m not going to analyze why. You can’t please everybody, especially in a base as broad as social media.
My goal whether my follow base is 2 or 2,000 is to provide valuable information and insight, develop relationships and enjoy the same from those I follow/friend.
One hint for tweeters who don’t want to show one side of a conversation as Stefani mentioned: if possible, repeat said topic in your answer to allow followers to know the gist of the conversation and feel included.
I think Twitter is an organic amorphous, ever changing kind of thing. Like life, things and people flow in and out. Twitter allows us to check something out, see if it meets our needs, and for how long. I imagine it will take some time for Twitter to find its way or its ways. In the meantime, people are experimenting.
I am interested in following someone who has interesting things to say, interesting suggestions, etc. I’m not interested in rampant advertising, or in over the top pushing websites. I can handle the personal anecdotes as long as there is something more substantial to the tweets.
All this by way of saying that people may stop following you for a variety of reasons. There is probably no easy and clear way to determine why they leave and it’s not worth my energy to fret about followers and unfollowers.
There are more Twitter tools for following and unfollowing people. Check out the post I wrote today on the massive Twitter directory that categorizes hundreds of Twitter tools and apps: https://publicityhound.com/blog/massive-twitter-directory-lists-tools-apps-galore-bookmark-it/
I have to agree with those who say they don’t get emotional about being unfollowed. I’ve unfollowed people myself, and it’s for a very unemotional reason: I followed at first because that person’s tweets were resonating with me for some reason. Then, at some point, things changed. Either that person’s tweets were no longer of interest, or I began to develop different interests to which they were no longer relevant.
Either way, it wasn’t a personal case of, “Oh, I don’t like this person any more.” It was simply the reality that I have so many minutes in a day and I need to use them productively.
I expect I, too, will become irrelevant to some others over time, as well. I’m not going to let it bother me. People and their needs evolve – it’s not personal.
I hope no one relies on Twitter for their self esteem to the point where they find it hurtful or feel betrayed when they get unfollowed. That scenario is kind of disturbing.
I think most people on twitter are still in limbo on what is right, and what is not. For example how about bloggers who don’t allo dofollow in their comments? To me it comes down to a simple formula, I help add value to your twitter by adding myself as a follower, you do the same for me. I follow your blog, and add value to your blog with intelligent dialog, do the same for me. I have several twitter accounts, one for each niche that I am a part of. I have one account with over 13,000 followers all done by searching twitter finding the niche my blog and twitter account is about, and I follow those who share the same interest. Joans blog is a solid resource for good information that I can use immediately. So not only do I follow and comment, but I also recommend this blog to some of my piers because it adds value to my relationship with them. So if someone gives you follow luv, give it back… ying and yang for bloggers, and micro bloggers.
FYI; I also just gave this post some twitter luv my RT retweeting it… pay it forward.