I was trawling the web looking for posts/articles that would make me smarter (a long process) when the post “10 New Twitter Tools That Will Make Your Life Easier” caught my attention. I’m really getting into the whole Twitter thing, and anything that makes my life easier, must be good.
One of the tools that the post mentions is “ManageFilter”, and describes it as a tool that allows you to “unfollow Twitter accounts that don’t follow you back“.
My first reaction to reading this was “what a bloody passive-aggressive thing to do”. Sort of “Huh – if you won’t follow me, I’m not going to follow you.”
My second reaction was “Why do you follow someone in the first place?”
For me, it is because I am genuinely interested in what the person is tweeting about. I follow some really first class people, and I learn a lot from them.
I know that Twitter “etiquette” dictates that it if someone follows you, it is polite to follow them back. I say “Screw that“. Don’t get me wrong, I am really happy when people start following me, but I really want to get value out of the people I follow.
Every day I get notified that “someone” has started following me. When I check their profile – sometimes with a photo of a beautiful girl, but often no photo at all – I often see that the particular “person”: is following a lot of people; has maybe tweeted 5 times; and might have a small number of followers (I’m guessing that these are people who have followed back automatically). And, if not followed back, unfollows after a very short amount of time
As I mentioned, I am more than happy to have people follow me. And I also try to add value. I try to share with others in my “area of interest” things that might be of value to them. I admit that, sometimes, I tweet something totally “off-topic”, or something with a bit of humour, but generally I keep to a relatively narrow area of interest.
However, if it is obvious that someone has followed me, just so that I will follow them back…well, sorry, but I have to disappoint you.
Here are the 10 Twitter Commandments according to John Antonios
And…his guide to following people on Twitter:
