I Trimmed My Twitter Fat

A few months ago, I joined Twitter. And like most Twitter newbies, I immediately started following everyone under the sun - including everyone who followed me. I was petrified that if I didn't reciprocate being followed, then, my followers would stop following me.

Well, after I'd been on Twitter for about a month and observing some absolutely ridiculous tweets, I finally asked myself, "Why am I following all of these people? It's not like I'm desperate for business!"

Besides, I could care less about flyfishing, or the best manure to buy. And I don't want to hear about how much you hate Barack Obama - or that you had sex with someone you met at a seminar. Yes, these are all tweets that I observed while following certain individuals. And those were some of the better ones.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind a little personal chit-chat every once in a while - within reason. But the main reason I joined Twitter was for business purposes.

Anyway, I decided to "trim my Twitter fat," so to speak. So, I slowly and meticulously looked over the list of people I was following - deleting names as I went along. And when I was finished, I had basically cut the number of people that I was following in half - to approximately 600. Then I waited for the other shoe to drop - a mass exodus of my followers.

Well, guess what. That mass exodus never happened. Sure, I lost a few followers. But for the most part, my followers stayed with me. I was both surprised, and relieved at the same time. Because I had erroneously heard that if you don't follow people back, they'll in turn stop following you.

Now I need to make one thing perfectly clear. I'm not suggesting that anyone here drop any of the people they're following. I'm not suggesting that at all. What I did, I did for my own personal reasons. It has nothing to do with you. We all have our own reasons for using Twitter. And if you enjoy a lot of personal chit-chat, more power to you.

That being said, if you have been thinking about dropping some of the people you're following, but were worried about the fall-out, if my experience is any indication, then, it's safe to assume that you can also trim some of your Twitter fat, without fear of any significant repercussions.

David Jackson

I have stopped following people for various reasons and I definitely don't follow everyone who follows me. That would be crazy! I would much rather people follow me because they are interested in what I have to say or in me as a person. I get a chuckle out of those that are following thousands of people because how in the world could you possibly be connecting with each and every one of them? Or maybe it's just me but anyway I think it's time I 'trim more twitter fat' soon too.

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Originally Posted by angienewton

I have stopped following people for various reasons. I would much rather people follow me because they are interested in what I have to say or in me as a person.

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Exactly. When I follow someone it's for the reasons you stated - I'm interested in what they have to say, or I like them as a person.

David Jackson

It is a interesting situation.
Some people believe if you do not follow back it is like not returning a phone call. I heard this on the Stompernet Social media call.
Now Perry Belcher with over 100k followers does follow back.
Mari Smith also follows those that follow her because she never knows who might be her next JV partner and it is a good point.
John Reese believes that if you auto follow then it is like a giant safe list and only follows friends.
In my opinion for a personal account, follow who you want or like to get the tweets.
I follow over 4k people and miss a lot of tweets that I want to see unless I use tweetdeck or grouping software.
In my opinion for a purely business account, there is really no reason to not auto follow everyone (and unfollow spammers and porn) and to also have scheduled tweets in Socialoomph and possibly a RSS feed with a few auto updates each day if it is good news for your customers and prospects. Then work to get as many followers as possible that meet the criteria of potential customers.

I operate my personal account as a business personal account combination. I do not like to auto follow and spend a lot of time to review every new follower one by one. If the last tweet is a promotion I usually do not follow. If they have too many RT or #FF on the page I assume it is a BOT and do not follow.

I have found that the clicks on any links I tweet has gone from 9 to 36 on average.
I imagine Perry Belcher gets about a 1,000 clicks on every link or more because he is often retweeted.

It is different for everyone. Check your twinfluence.com and see how far your tweets reach. I need more conversations yet my 2nd order reach is 18,459,393 and rank of #3,147 (98%). I like this stuff and realize the number of times I get retweeted determines my rank. So I quit saying what I was eating and try to put out really interesting retweetable things. I test and watch so I can advise others on how to improve the reach for their business. I am authentic, it's just that every tweet counts and you have to be in conversations with people.

Another reason to have lots of followers and conversations is for your Twitter Page Rank. When you get a high page rank, it will help in the search engines as you tweet about your business. Click on your picture so it only shows your tweets to check the PR.

I have never auto-followed anyone. When you follow someone, you are saying 'I am willing to read your tweets." You are giving that person permission to connect with you; so why would you purposely connect with a spammer (including the porn spammers!)? I never quite understood, or bought into, the auto-follow philosophy.

I would much rather choose to follow those who were in my niche, I had something in common with, or someone I knew from a mutual online group, event or whatever.

Folks can follow me if they want to, but that does not mean I will follow you in return. I'm selective about what information I'm going to subject myself to.

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Originally Posted by Clay Franklin

I do not like to auto follow.

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Me neither. I know you can always un-follow later on. But to me, that's creating unnecessary actions. Oh well, whatever floats your boat, I guess.

David Jackson

I actually read every message from everyone I follow on Twitter, which means I can't tolerate many of those mass block tweeters: many tweets coming from the same source, often automated. In fact, I believe automated tweeting is a bad idea, period. The convenience for the sender is obvious, but Twitter is really a personal medium and when you take the person out of the equation, it becomes just another spam/junk mail source. It doesn't take long to personally write 140 characters or less.