Ahhh, Twitter. Another place to worry about if people like you or not. And not since high school have you been so well able to quantify how popular you are (or aren’t). Because, let’s face it, having less Facebook friends might actually make you cooler.
Just like adolescence, it hurts a bunch when you put yourself out there and your social life suffers because of it. In this case, a drop in your number of followers. It’s something that affects people of any level of Twitter influence. I see people with exponentially more followers than me tweet questions about why they just lost a bunch of people.
Here are some reasons that I can think of:
- Sometimes, you’ve offended people.
I know that there are certain tweets that I’ve written involving sensitive subjects that have then resulted in unfollows. It seems like a fair correlation to draw. By now, I’m aware of the risk.
This is a question of who you want to be seen as online. Do you want your tweets to be vanilla? Or are you willing to risk offending people to potentially be interesting enough to gain better connections and other potential followers? It’s extremely subjective, but I would rather have a unique voice than worry that I might lose a couple of followers.
- There’s a lot of spam.
I imagine some percentage of your unfollows have to deal with inactive accounts following you to begin with, which get deleted after people report them.
- Maybe you’re tweeting too much.
As I mentioned in my Tips post, there’s really no reason to be on Twitter if you’re not active. But if you’re tweeting every couple minutes, you might have people feel like you’re unnecessarily dominating their feed. Make sure that you’re not just pimping your stuff out. I find myself a lot more forgiving on continuing to follow people who are engaged in long conversations on Twitter, even if I’m not interested.
And instead of doing the lame “Sorry for my following excessive tweeting” tweet that others do before Twitter events, I’m considering putting up a link on how to block hashtags before #TTOT.
(Spoiler alert: Proxlet is great for Google Chrome users and TweetDeck and HootSuite have their own hashtag blocking functions.)
- You over-hashtag.
Don’t be the guy who has 10 hashtags after his tweet to try to generate as much notice as possible. I rarely find myself getting new followers (or even mentions) because of a hashtag. If anything, it highlights your tweet to the people that are already following you, so don’t alienate them. #Pick #and #choose #your #hashtags. #yourewastingcharactersanyway
- Are you following them?
If you’re not following people, it makes it a lot easy for them to unfollow you. The more interactive you are, the more of a chance someone’s heartstrings will tug, stopping them from unfollowing you and leaving you just under that wonderful round number you’ve been chasing.
Conclusion:
I’m almost to the point of being happy when I see that I’ve lost followers. Why would I want someone to follow me if they aren’t interested in what I have to say?
Early on in your Twitter life, you need to find your voice and learn your audience. Once you’ve hit a stride, it doesn’t behoove you to pay too much attention to the people you might lose. Pay more attention to the people that follow you. Develop the connections with people who care.
Don’t forget: there’s always a chance to win these people back. It’s not high school. You have more than 4 years to get it right.
What do you think? Why do you unfollow people? What reasons did I forget?
For research, I stumbled upon a couple of posts:
6 Reasons Why I Unfollowed You on Twitter
I tend to unfollow someone as soon as I realize that they have no personality of their own. They do not engage in any type of conversation and only use the service for forwarding links to news stories and blogs written by other people. (Mostly, news stories I’ve already read elsewhere on the net) Show me you’re a real human being with real emotion and thoughts and I’ll keep you around.
Not to plug my own stuff on here, but this is a recent blog I wrote about the types of Tweeters I quickly grow tired of: http://velcro108.blogspot.com/2011/03/many-faces-of-twitter.html
Besides people who tweet too much, people who RT everything, seemingly to get RTs in return or for attention, get on my nerves. My favorite tweeps are those willing to engage in conversation or who are funny or unique.
Interesting post. Glad to know about blocking hashtags. Had no idea! I do think that could be useful for when one is not participating or in the mood to see a live chat. Thanks!
I really want to unfollow when people talk about how many followers they lost or gained or how many they need to get to a certain number… this may matter to you but it matters to no one else.
I have a passion for travel and that is why I originally started my an account on FB — after attending the Book Passage Travel Writer’s Conference in Corte Madera, CA in 2008. The people who I met there were wonderful,creative, and supportive. I’ve recently started becoming active on Twitter and engaging with travel ppl, but I’m disappointed to find ppl who, instead of being supporting, are just “too cool for school” like yourself. I really don’t care how many followers I have, I want to be here just to engage with other travelers. And since you are obviously way too cool to follow others, I am officially “unfollowing” you. Thank you very much.
I’m thoroughly confused how you came to that conclusion.
Not to mention the fact that I was following you until you just made a point that you weren’t following me anymore.
Please accept my sincerest apologies for that remark, it was impulsive and unwarranted. After re-reading your post I’m not sure how I came to that conclusion either. Perhaps it was over-sensitivity to popularity contests after too much red wine! Moral of the story: Don’t drink and post! In addition, I value your knowledgeable comments and photography input. Again, my sincerest apologies. ~ Anabela
Thanks for being big enough to apologize.
Fer crissakes, people. There’s nothing “too cool for school” about this post. It’s a round-up of useful tips that could potential deter people from following you on Twitter. Plain and simple. It’s a well written post on what does and doesn’t work in Twitterland and it seems to have hit achord with some overly sensitive types. Lighten up, lay off the hashtags, and tweet (within reason).
Twitter is a big party. And sometimes, you meet folks and you want to chat and other times, you wander off because there’s no connection. On Twitter, we spend time worrying and analyzing why that person walked away to talk to someone else. It’s not a good use of our time, in either context. Imagine if you tracked everyone who wandered off from a conversation and then fretted about why. That would be crazy making.
I’m sure I get unfollowed all the time. I’m ranty, political, opinionated. You know what? I wouldn’t be the list bit surprised if someone unfollowed me. And if I were tracking, I’d think no more of it than, “Huh, Roni’s not following me on Twitter. Guess he’s not interested in what I’m doing there. Okay then!”
lol, I think I’m inclined to do exactly that at parties…
It *is* “crazy making”.
Somehow, I’ve managed to get over my Facebook friend number fluctuations. That was a harder battle for me than Twitter.
if they tweet so rarely…a museum, a publication, a foundation