Why I Don’t Follow Back on Twitter, and You Shouldn’t Either
Tune in to the Twittosphere at any day. Very likely you will see arguments about whether Tweeple / Tweeps / Twitterers (what’s the new Twitter word for today?) should follow back everyone who follows them or not.
It seems like people will be polarized forever, so instead of jumping in on such topic, I usually choose not to.
But still, my Twitter followers deserve an explanation about my stand about this issue. Here’s my perspective right now, which I think is very unlikely to change, but who knows…
Determine Your Twittering Purpose
It amazes me how people would argue endlessly about such topic without knowing the intention of others on using Twitter.
You know, purpose is everything.
Personally here are the reasons why I tweet:
- Network with influencers. I do it slowly but surely because I’m not a master networker by any means. Twitter is a learning platform to grow my networking skills.
- Communicate with my audience. I’d like to reach people at the medium that they prefer. Twitter seems to be all the rage and many of my ideal customers are there. Communication happens with or without me. Although I feel the need to join in as many conversations I can afford, I decided a while ago that relationship is more important.
- Reach my blog readers or whoever interested in what I’m doing professionally (mostly) and personally. That’s why you will also find me retweeting interesting links and tweets. I want to make the followers who read my tweets feel they have made the right decision about following, or better still, following me on Twitter is worthwhile. Once they pay attention, I could also promote my stuff once in a while as long as they are highly relevant.
If you are wondering, yes, they are in that exact order.
But, Isn’t It All about Communication and Interaction?
Exactly. Communication and interaction are not equal to being nice or stretching yourself too thin. Let me elaborate.
People fall into the misconception that just because it is about communication, you have to take up any offer to connecting with random people who add or follow you.
There is nothing further from the truth. Those who defend that Twitter is about communication, thus everyone is worth following, get it incorrectly. Contrarily, because I value communication, I made the decision to follow select people.
Well, I admit. Sometimes it is irresistible. I still find myself following others whom I shouldn’t, but I know that the next time I do house cleaning, those people will be unfollowed. In case they don’t know, the reason is never personal.
Why I Only Follow People Who I “Care”?
Think about your real-life network. For me, I have a dad, mom, girlfriend, close friends and business partners. When it comes to receiving information, I carefully choose books, blog feeds and articles. My life has been almost without tv for more than a decade. For entertainment, I watch a handful of movies. Trust me, I’m very picky about movies.
And here’s what’s important. Which books, articles and movies I read and watch depend heavily on recommendations from people I interact with regularly.
Let’s take this to Twitter and Internet at large. At the download speed I have right now, suddenly I am able to listen to more thought leaders and people who otherwise could only be read through books and articles. At the ease of @reply, I can get back to them and start quick conversations.
Things start to be overwhelming though. I still have 24 hours a day but now I can tune in to endless tweets, as much as I want. If I don’t try to sift and sort information before they reach me, who will?
Some Tweeple will argue that with the right Twitter software, you will be able to group Twitterers as you wish. Those on your team deserve special attention, so a group is created and a few people are added to the list and so on.
I want to take this to the next level though. Filter those information before they swamp me. Use groups to zoom in and focus even more on current conversations.
I Tune in to What / Who I Want to Hear
First of all, networking is still my main purpose of using Twitter. In order to communicate effectively and build relationships, in my opinion, quality is more important than quantity. Heck, quantity will only distract me.
So the first decision is to choose carefully who I follow. I never expect they follow in return, although that may help in getting my other messages through. I doubt it though because most people’s Twitter screen resembles a haystack. And my tweet is just the needle.
Again, by following only select people, the signal to noise ratio increases tremendously. Now I’m able to @reply and try to get my message through. Mission accomplished.
To continue with my analogy about real-life network, with higher signals, I can be assured there is less tweets that I miss. If it is from a friend whose taste in movies is similar to mine, I don’t want to miss that recommendation.
Also in this world we live, rarely does a stranger come to you and immediately converse as if you have been close friends for a long time. At the same time, I usually don’t do the same thing to random people.
When I start a conversation, most likely I do it intentionally. There are also times when I can’t resist, but that’s a different story. Most of the time, s/he would be the person I want to approach. Your mileage may vary. Unless you know your goal in using Twitter, that may or may not make sense for you.
You may also look it from another perspective. In the real world, even though people talk to each other in the street (tweets available publicly) you still don’t stop randomly to hear what others are talking about. Or do you?
The majority of people don’t, I presume. We are too busy with their business and pursuing their goals.
I guess that people who follow me already know me from one way or another. Perhaps through my blog or other marketing channels. I put out a lot of content, so content marketing certainly plays a great role here.
“What about the rest of the people who follow you?” I hear you ask. Does that mean I close my ears and eyes for them?
Well… not that they don’t matter. They do. A lot.
Pick the Right Tool / Software to Get the Work Done
This is why picking the right Twitter software is utmost critical. TweetDeck is currently my favorite. It is a memory hogger — more than 200MB of memory usage right now, but it is well worth it. Your mileage may vary, I have 2GB RAM so I have quite plenty of RAM to waste.
Twhirl was my pick. I still like it because it supports FriendFeed. The thing is, I now prefer TweetDeck because of its interface. Internet users have wide screen nowadays so at least you may have at least 4 columns at once, which is pretty neat if you ask me.
I’m not to start another war about your favorite Twitter client. Whatever works for you better, use it.
The right Twitter tool will help you achieve your twittering purposes.
Here’s a screenshot of the first 3 columns of my Tweetdeck configuration:
The columns display All Friends, Replies, and Direct Messages, respectively. I told you above how by filtering the noise I’m able to focus on my main goal. With that, I avoid wasting the space for the first column — and also a lot of time processing all tweets.
TweetDeck displays all replies (from those who I follow or not) in the second column. With that, I will never miss a single tweet that mentions my Twitter ID somewhere in it, as long as it is a @reply.
Some people are now surprised because although I may not follow them, somehow I am also very responsive at Twitter. This is the secret.
Twitter users who are interested in the content that I offer could follow me. And if they want to get back to me, @reply is just one tweet away. Did I mention that I am responsive to @replies?
I also want to take a glance at direct messages from people who I follow. Perhaps they want to message me about something that I @reply early on.
Openness to Interaction
People who try to approach me knows that I am not hard to reach personally, at all. I always tell my newsletter and e-course subscribers that they can reach back to me by clicking the reply button. With Twitter, I am as approachable.
So, if you have something, shoot. @reply and I will notice. The technology allows me to do so without any more effort.
Again if I want to zero in further to conversations, it is good to know Twitter groups are there for me — also part of TweetDeck.
What do I miss with this strategy? None as I know of, except noise from spammers, promotions from overaggressive marketers, conversations that I don’t really want to know, and something along that line.
And if you have been paying attention, you should realize that I have saved a lot of time in return to do whatever I want with my network and business.
What do you think about this? Do you follow people who follow you? If so, why? How do you keep up with all those tweets — and most importantly — conversations?
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