{"id":2056,"date":"2010-11-30T18:54:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2010-11-30T18:55:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:55:20","slug":"seven-reasons-i-wont-follow-you-on-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/seven-reasons-i-wont-follow-you-on-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the past few weeks, the blogosphere has been abuzz about various philosophies for choosing whom to follow on Twitter. Mitch Joel<\/a> and Mark Schaefer<\/a> recently dueled on their opposing approaches<\/a> \u2013 be selective in who you follow or follow (mostly) everyone. Gini Dietrich also weighed into the debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although people are quick to point out that there are no \u201crules\u201d in social media, there are certainly best practices. Determining how to use the tools to your benefit is certainly up to you and what best aligns with your social media goals.<\/p>\n

Because I use social media to develop relationships and to build business, I follow most people who follow me. However, I don\u2019t use an automated system to follow people back. I look through every person who follows me. That\u2019s right, I take a minute or two to look through the profile of every person<\/strong> who decides to follow me. I think it\u2019s important to get to know the people who care what I have to say online. And most times, I will follow people back.<\/p>\n

But there are also some reasons I absolutely will not follow someone. For instance, I will not follow you if:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You don\u2019t have an avatar<\/strong>. An avatar is the picture or image associated with your account. If you have the Twitter goose egg there instead, I won\u2019t follow you. I want to see the person or business behind the account.<\/li>\n
  2. Your bio is incomplete. <\/strong>The bio is only 140 characters. Take a few minutes to say a little bit about yourself. If you leave this blank, why should I get to know you?<\/li>\n
  3. Your avatar is a picture of money. <\/strong>I avoid get rich quick Tweeters like the plague. If you are all about \u201cmaking money online\u201d (the spammy way), I won\u2019t come near you. Sorry.<\/li>\n
  4. Your avatar is something even less savory. <\/strong>Twitter has cleaned up the spam quite a bit, but for a while, it was common to get followers with some inappropriate photos. Those followers, I block\u2026and fast.<\/li>\n
  5. You\u2019ve never tweeted. <\/strong>It\u2019s amazing to me how many people open up an account and let it sit. Don\u2019t let analysis paralysis keep you from tweeting. Put yourself out there and say hello. If you don\u2019t say anything, why should I follow?<\/li>\n
  6. You\u2019ve never replied to your followers. <\/strong>For me, the point of twitter is to build relationships. If you\u2019ve never @replied to your followers, it shows me you don\u2019t care about a two-way conversation. There are some exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking, I want to connect with people who are going to talk back.<\/li>\n
  7. You only promote yourself. <\/strong>Plenty of people simply use Twitter to promote their own stuff non-stop. It almost turns into a 24\/7 RSS feed of their blog. If that\u2019s your thing, that\u2019s fine, but I\u2019m not tuning in.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One sure-fire way to guarantee I\u2019ll follow you back? Engage with me. One of the main reasons I\u2019m on Twitter is to build relationships. It\u2019s amazing how many wonderful people I have made in-person relationships with all because we struck up a conversation online.<\/span><\/p>\n

    So, if you want to connect with me or anyone else on Twitter, say hello. Chances are, the person will talk right back.<\/p>\n

    What are the reasons you choose not to follow someone? Is there anything we should add to the list?<\/em><\/p>\n

    Laura Click<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In the past few weeks, the blogosphere has been abuzz about various philosophies for choosing whom to follow on Twitter. Mitch Joel and Mark Schaefer recently dueled on their opposing approaches \u2013 be selective in who you follow or follow (mostly) everyone. Gini Dietrich also weighed into the debate. Although people are quick to point … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,859],"tags":[838,340,860,402,244],"class_list":["post-2056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-lauraclick","tag-follow","tag-following","tag-philosophy","tag-reasons","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2056"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2060,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions\/2060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}