Hey @halfbrown, Why Aren't You Following Me on Twitter If I'm Following You?
I used to be real picky about who I'd let follow me on Twitter. I knew about private tweets, but I didn't want to go that route with my @halfbrown account in case someone who might have otherwise followed me chose not to. No judgement if you do go private, it's just that I fully embrace the "social" aspect of social networking and setting that account to private didn't jibe with how *I* want to use Twitter. The problem with being picky is that it's time consuming. Between work and play I'm online 10+ hours a day on average anyhow, and I don't need to spend any more time online than I already am. So... after a while I decided to only filter my followers once week (give or take). However, if the mood strikes me during the course of a day, I may look at any new followers and immediately prune based on the following: - Blatant spammers. I don't mind people marketing themselves or their products, but I don't want to see *only* those kinds of tweets. If all you do is talk about what you've done or what you sell then I'm not going to be interested.
- Hardcore porn. No judgement at all; I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't need to see that stupid Britney BJ pic any more. Also most of the porn accounts I see seem to be blatant spammers, so see the previous item for more background on that. OK, so those are the immediate spam report, block and/or non-follow rules. After that I look to see what a person and their tweets are like. This is the part where it gets interesting. I try to give anyone who seems real the benefit of the doubt, but I might not follow them right away. Here are a few examples of folks I wouldn't follow (not immediately, at least): - Non-tweeters. I don't mind following someone who only has a few tweets (we've all been there), but I need to see some consistency before I'll follow. With most Twitter accounts having less than a dozen or so tweets (ever), I don't want to follow someone who isn't active. Often times I'll add someone to a list before following them to see if they are follow-worthy or not.
- No profile pic. While it's not a strict requirement, it's not going to help if you don't have one. It's 2010, people, there's no reason to not have a picture. Even if it's not one of you, something that's funny, intriguing, or in some way interesting... get a picture.
- No bio. I've seen people with a few pages of mostly RTs, LOLs, or some other kind of tweet that doesn't tell me about them. The bio is a great place to put a little something about yourself: what you do, what you like (or don't like), and who you are.
- Repetitive tweets. Seeing the same tweet over and over (hello, "Don't pay for white teeth" people!) is not only annoying, it's not what I want to see. They say that "variety is the spice of life" for a reason. That's really it, for the most part. I have a wide variety of interests and there are a lot of different people I'll follow, and for a lot of different reasons. If I'm not 100% sure about someone I won't block them, but I won't follow them immediately either. I check back to see who is following me using friendorfollow.com about once a week and review everyone I'm not following for the above and go from there. If I'm not following you and you think I should, just @ me on Twitter and I'll check you out. :)
- Hardcore porn. No judgement at all; I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't need to see that stupid Britney BJ pic any more. Also most of the porn accounts I see seem to be blatant spammers, so see the previous item for more background on that. OK, so those are the immediate spam report, block and/or non-follow rules. After that I look to see what a person and their tweets are like. This is the part where it gets interesting. I try to give anyone who seems real the benefit of the doubt, but I might not follow them right away. Here are a few examples of folks I wouldn't follow (not immediately, at least): - Non-tweeters. I don't mind following someone who only has a few tweets (we've all been there), but I need to see some consistency before I'll follow. With most Twitter accounts having less than a dozen or so tweets (ever), I don't want to follow someone who isn't active. Often times I'll add someone to a list before following them to see if they are follow-worthy or not.
- No profile pic. While it's not a strict requirement, it's not going to help if you don't have one. It's 2010, people, there's no reason to not have a picture. Even if it's not one of you, something that's funny, intriguing, or in some way interesting... get a picture.
- No bio. I've seen people with a few pages of mostly RTs, LOLs, or some other kind of tweet that doesn't tell me about them. The bio is a great place to put a little something about yourself: what you do, what you like (or don't like), and who you are.
- Repetitive tweets. Seeing the same tweet over and over (hello, "Don't pay for white teeth" people!) is not only annoying, it's not what I want to see. They say that "variety is the spice of life" for a reason. That's really it, for the most part. I have a wide variety of interests and there are a lot of different people I'll follow, and for a lot of different reasons. If I'm not 100% sure about someone I won't block them, but I won't follow them immediately either. I check back to see who is following me using friendorfollow.com about once a week and review everyone I'm not following for the above and go from there. If I'm not following you and you think I should, just @ me on Twitter and I'll check you out. :)
