contacts . discussions . jobs

Do you have to follow someone back on Twitter?

Do you still subscribe to this old twetiquette thing where if someone follows you, you should follow them back?

We'll take for granted that the guy in the USA who wants to tell us what he's just cooked on his BBQ is unlikely to be followed back. However, I don't know about you but I can't keep up with all the tweets - if I followed everyone that follows me, I'd probably miss all the useful tweets.

Perhaps you twitter pros can share some hints and tips?

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Moray Souter on January 11, 2010 at 3:29pm: I would say you really don't have to follow someone back on Twitter. Perhaps the best reason is the one you have just stated Mark, however I would suggest one other.

If you automatically follow everyone that follows you it diminishes the value of your 'following' list. Whenever I visit a new profile page on Twitter I always look to see who they are following. The list of who you are following is a direct means of adding value to your Twitter page.

Allow others to benefit from your expertise by making sure that when they browse your 'following' list it is all people you find genuinely useful and not just users you felt obligated to list.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Vivien Underwood on January 21, 2010 at 10:49am: Following everyone who followed Econsultancy on Twitter was causing us a major administrative headache, so we 'unfollowed' 19,000 people last week. Had a bit of a mixed response, but overall, it has been successful, and we only lost the most spammy followers.

The blog post (and resulting discussion) is still generating some strong debate:

http://econsultancy.com/blog/5249-why-econsultancy-is-unfollowing-1...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark lennox on January 21, 2010 at 11:11am: Good advice guys, I have a rule that if we check someone's tweets and they just don't look relevant, we unfollow - I guess everyone does that right?

I actually wonder how many people just go after a large following and don't actually look at the people's tweets that they are following? They're missing out on so much info, maybe too much!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nadejda Tatarciuc on January 28, 2010 at 2:19pm: Quite a dilemma, right?:) In fear of having someone offended many prefer to follow everybody, even promising in the Bio info, such as "I'm following everybody back"..Consequently - they become "an unspecialized store full of all kinds of products", maybe that's how Woolworths UK went bankrupt,btw:) Anyway my point is - if you want a clear image for your brand across all communication platforms the nice way would be to thank in a DM your followers and choose to follow your related ones or follow anybody but create endless Twitter lists:); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark Stonham on February 1, 2010 at 8:50am: I guess it depends on how you view Twitter; and whether you want it for relationships, or to consume or to broadcast.

If you want it for relationships then you actively manage your list and who you follow, so you can read and reply and build dialogue.
If you use it to consume topic alerts and similar from authority figures you may not expect the authority figures to follow you back.
If you want to broadcast messages and become an authority for your topic then you need to build up your following, perhaps by following others and hoping they follow you back.
LISTS can be a good way to separate people you follow into different groups.

Getting through the 2000 following limit means you have to have more than 1800 followers, so you may be unfollowed by someone if you haven't followed them and they are trying to build up a large group of followers.

Seems to me it's early days still on Twitter and yet there are already many different approaches to how it is used.

Mark.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mathew Aitken on February 2, 2010 at 12:00pm: I don't think so. Quite a few people will blindly follow people in the hope they will be followed back. Only follow if you're interested in what they have to say.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alec Saiko on February 8, 2010 at 2:30pm: No. What's the point of following just for the sake of following? If a person is following you, he/she finds value in your communications. That doesn't mean the value is reciprocal.; ▶ Reply to This