Dear Twitterers,
I’m just curious to as whether or not you follow all those that follow you? This issue has submerged up on several popular blogs; about Twitter-users abusing the system; and are just out to get the most number of followers possible. What’s the point of following 10,000 users if you won’t even read but a handful of their tweets? I might sound a bit irrelevant, but let me raise a concerning issue..
Ever since the online-world saw the likes of Twitter; it immediately became a marketable service. Many people tried to “optimize” it to meet their goals; whether to divert traffic to their websites or just to create some relationships (on all sorts of levels.) Today, Twitter obviously has the dominance that was so well-predicted but when it comes to the basics – what are we doing?
If Twitter is about following people and sharing short messages with them – what is the point of following so many people that every time you login your account; there are hundreds and hundreds of Tweets that you just can’t be bothered reading?
Twitter is being abused. In fact most people are committing the crime of Twitter-arbitrage.
Let’s be honest here; do you really comb through every page of tweets every-time you login? I sure don’t, because that would just take a lot of time… and I don’t see any benefit of doing so.
Many marketers and “experts” talk about many marketing techniques; to getting the most out of Twitter and one of the main focuses is to create a large follow-ship. Now this makes sense, right? The more people you have following; the stronger your reach. Instead of working hard and earning your followers, Twitterers have adapted this lazy technique of mass-following and following all those follow you. Hence, defeating the main purpose of Twitter.
Tweeting on Twitter is like talking to a wall; and just waiting for people to pass between you and that wall. Then just hoping they would turn around and take notice of you. It has seriously come down to that. Unless you have followers that are honestly interested with what you have to say – it’s not much of a use.
I might sound like a hypocrite because we follow in excess of 3,000 Twitterers on the Blogussion Twitter Account but let me explain. I would say we have a large twitter-followship (both following and followers) but amongst the crowd – we have some really contributing Twitterers too. Therefore we aren’t all just talking to ourselves; we communicate. Having said that, I know most contributors to Blogussion are tech-savvy and understand how to use services such as Twitter to its potential.
We all know Direct messaging, Re-Tweets and discussions are a common sighting to those accounts that have been set-up properly. Those of us take the easy way out and mass-following usually end up talking to themselves. That’s just my opinion; what do you think about this?
My Question;
Do you follow everyone you can or carefully select your followers?
I know this post here won’t even make a dint in the Twitter-community; but rather raises the question here in our community and see what our readers personally think. There’s no right or wrong answer clearly, so leave your opinion in the comments below! 
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I’ve also been looking into growing my Twitter follower count. Although for like an hour, I was tempted and just started mass following random people, later I quit and unfollowed the majority. Yeah, the Twitter spam is really growing out of control.
Remember Osen Kamura?
I do indeed remember Osen Kamura, but his “scheme” to mass-follow is questionable. Many say it was for statistical purposes; to see how likely people follow you back, others say its a random act of stalking and many more theories have evolved too.
Whatever his/her reasoning was behind that infamous Twitter account, I believe it relates direct to the question I’ve tried to raise. Just looked at his profile now and he’s following 36,000+ but surprisingly he/she is followed by 11,000
Given the background of Osen’s account; just proves how eager people are to follow people they don’t know anything about. 11,000 out of 36,000 that’s nearly 33% that overlook and ultimately defeat the purpose of Twitter.
I unfollowed everyone for this reason, but now, I’m doubting If I should’ve done that. I’ve lost a lot of followers since then. I think, the pefect-only solution would be to continue to use the Follow Back strategy and use TweetDeck to select to only receive tweets from tweeters groups that you make (friends, family…etc). So this way, you wouldn’t have to read all the spam tweets. I’m still thinking if I should go back in the ‘Follow Back’ game or not.
That is interesting.. but what worries my, Abdul is that what if everyone started using these filtering programs? Then what would be the purpose of this “Follow Back” game?
Would it be easier to only follow people you want to follow than mass-following then filtering out their tweets? Just my thoughts about it, but I guess in a world of fierce marketing; sometimes you have to do what is required on your behalf to achieve your goals.
Personally I follow practically everyone who follows me. As I’m a relative newbie at Twitter (around 800 followers), if I didn’t follow anyone, LOTS of people would unfollow me. The way I see it, if I can find just a few quality Twitter users amongst those 30 odd that follow me every day, that I connect with, it’s a very very worthy thing to do
I would say your a newbie as such, Simon because 800 is a pretty solid base
I would be happy with 800 myself, but since Alex manages our Twitter account the most he’s forced me to raise my standards too 
Getting back to the post, this is exactly what I was trying to get across. Twitter has become more like a competition to get the most followers that to genuinely share valuable information.
Just like you said, as you unfollow people they immediately unfollow you – it’s such a pity, because the service had great potential. I guess it is what Twitter has evolved into =[
Great post.. well written and well explained.
I myself don’t follow everyone who follows me.. just incase some one is worth being stalked or is really interesting tweep !
Enk.´s last blog ..30+ Creative Wordpress Login Pages
Thank you, Enk.
Haha, and nice way of reasoning your ideas
Just curious, to whether you keep a distinct following-to-followers ratio?
If you don’t mind us following you; give us your Twitter URL. I couldn’t find it over at your blog =[
I carefully select who I am following on @Farrhad.
But for my @webmasterpeers account I follow everyone as I never read tweets from that account.
Farrhad A | The Marketing Park´s last blog ..How to Build the Ultimate Email Marketing List
Farrhad, I think that’s the only solution that will solve this dilemma! having two different accounts for Business and Personal use will work perfectly.
Makes me think how long will we have this freedom though? Personally I think Twitter will start placing restrictions on accounts sometime in the future.. to “better their servers” or something; like one account per person/email – who knows?
Then again, its only small 140 character-texts that are being sent across; I’m sure those aren’t that CPU-Intensive
I’m going to have to agree with you here. There are ton’s of websites and groups dedicated to getting more followers for everyone. In my opinion not everyone should have 1 million followers and personally I can’t keep track of more than 50 people. I think ideally you would want your business to have lots of followers WITHOUT whoring out follows in return, but hey until I get super famous that’s what I’m gunna have to do. Oh well
Matt´s last blog ..Earning Money Online Is Childs Play
That’s so true, Matt – unfortunate but true =[
Still famous Twitterers (say ProBlogger or JohnChow) for example still whore-out their follows too. In fact ProBlogger follows more than 40k people! I mean, I’m not accusing them of anything, what they do with their accounts is totally up to them -but maybe being famous still wouldn’t solve this issue?
I usually see how many updates he had before following him or her, you see people do not update their tweet so why the hell I care. if his or her twit is less then 300 and the followers is less then 500 I will not follow. That’s just my own rules so not something you should follow. It’s all up to personal…
The Bad Blogger´s last blog ..Did Michael Jackson Faked His Death ?
That’s a fair guideline, and I also use that every now and then. A quick check of a user’s past tweets and number of followers do help given an indication of the Twitterer.
Any reason behind the 300 tweets/500 followers? I might start something like this for our Twitter account too..
I check their profile to see if they are genuine or fake. If I don’t see anything unusual only then I follow them back.
How do you judge if a profile is genuine or fake?
Do you look for anything specific or just a general overlook of it? \
Personally; besides the tweets and avatar, and perhaps the background – there really isn’t anything else to look at… maybe I’m missing the bigger picture
I definitely follow way more people than I should. Ideally I think people should only follow people they have talked to or plan on talking to. I usually follow about 1/2 the people who follow me based on their bio and latest tweets.
On the other hand, the more followers you have, the easier it will be for people who want to find you to find you. You’ll show up higher on directory listings like Twellow.com and your following could grow exponentially.
It’s tough to balance but I think Farrhad was spot on with the difference between a personal account and a blog/business account.
Yup, that balance is the key! However, if you really want to put in the work to build a proper Twitter profile – you can actually create a large followship without actually jeopardizing the actual connections you make with Twitter.
THen again it doesn’t seem to be worthwhile to put so much time working on your Twitter profile, when you can invest that in much more critical areas in your blogging.
So, ultimately Farrhad’s opinion is probably our best solution to making the most out of Twitter
Over time, the value of relationship in Twitter have been greatly deteriorated. The one to blaim, well, our side of the internet obviously (bloggers, marketeers, companies etc.). Those who just use twitter as “social networking” have been greatly affected by the ones who ones to use “twitter” as a “tool”.
Liane ´s last blog ..Beginners Can Now Build Lucrative Websites For Free
I think if I remember right, you commented here that you used Twitter to just chat regularly with other people. Looking at Twitter now, seeing someone using it as an instant messenger seems unlikely! I agree, it has become a marketing tool rather than a place to make friends. But that’s not to say you can’t make friends from there still.
I would be interested in seeing Twitter just be a place to actually meet friends, but it’s just proven to be such a hit marketing tool, I can’t even avoid labeling it as that myself.
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only
Twitter was never meant to be a promotional and marketing tool. But despite that, you can leverage quite a lot of traffic to your website by wise tweeting.
I do not see any sense in mass following users and expecting them to follow you back. Even if they do, its useless, unless the followers are your targeted clients, interested in your products and services. Research has pointed out twitter being a rather stagnant community, with only a few top percentage of users making up for the bulk of activities on it.
You should aim for people following you because of your influential in a particular niche, and not you begging to be followed….
Richael | Domain Marvelous´s last blog ..Domain Registration Length – Does it Matter?
The way you described, that is how I treat my personal account. I only follow those who can provide value to me. However, on the Twitter for Blogussion I do use some strategies where I target my audience of those who use WordPress and blog on it, and do a variety of things (include a technique you listed) to build my Twitter audience and promote my content.
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only
I have never understood the reasoning of people who just follow everyone to get followed by everyone and get more than 1000 followers in a couple of days.
These people who follow you, already have thousands of subscribers themselves already and surely don’t read any tweets – like Alex mentioned in this post.
My firends who actually use this method – simply do it for marketing products which involve spamming affiliate links all over.
personally, only follow people I really want to hear news from, like certain VP’s on Google, the adsense tweet channel – and people in the PHP community.
I actually love reading their tweets.
Tzvi´s last blog ..Economic crises and Personal crises
I alos think that Twitter has become a dustbin for Spammers but then again I have 2 accounts. The one I mass follow and have over 2000 followers. This account is to promote my blog and I get loads of traffic to it. I hardly ever read tweets on this account. The second account is reserved for people I really communicate with and there I only have about 40. I can’t see how long twitter can still go on with all the junk being circulated
Jacques´s last blog ..Funny – Is This What Low Cost Airline Means
My pressing concerns:
It is rude not to follow back?
IMHO: To create an organic following you should engage the people who choose to follow you. Some Tweeple you connect with, others have a different agenda and that’s ok. They can still follow me.
I agree with Richael. Twitter was never meant for marketing, but that’s what the market made it to be.
It just goes to show that so many tweets go unread. I don’t tihnk Twitter will sink. The market will push it forward and over time, we will learn the proper tweet etiquette.
Personally I follow those people who have a avatar and those people who have more people following than followers.
Harish | Blogging Kid´s last blog ..This Blog Finally Is For Sale
That’s definitely a common guideline many Tweeps follow
You have raised a question of genuine concern.Do we have a meaning to our work when we blindly follow those who follow us, If just increasing the web traffic is one’s motive then let me tell you that in long run its not going to help you at all.at the end of the day what matters is that how many genuine visitors you have and those who are really interested in your work.Now does that make sense?
It sure does make sense to me, Amy but I’ve come to realize that not all webmasters (and bloggers alike) are not interested in actually building a successful, nor a community – they just in it to make a buck.
Which is fair to say because we all have different motives. So, I guess if your motive is just to drive traffic to your site then convert it to $$ – spamming social media networks; is a popular “technique” of getting that done. (Though, I doubt spamming will any help anyone.)
It’s a shame, that it ruins it for the rest of us that really want to relive the true experience of blogging.. =[
Janith: I have been using twitter to connect with ‘friends’ and I believe it’s just great. I have found my latest chartered accountant from twitter when I left a question for my friends to suggest one in my city. Twitter has a lot of potential and evolving trends can sometimes get me hooked to the search screen (I did that during Mumbai attack for the first time).
Of course, I find myself hooked on Twitter Search too! It’s a plentiful resource for so many things; everything from just getting update to even building a study case on news-trends!
Just like you’ve said; I’ve actually used “data” from these trends to come up with some of the posts I’ve written for Blogussion
Twitter can be a great tool and many people are using it at its potential, but as time goes on (as said in many of the comments above), we see more and more spammers destroying it =[
I have random people follow me, even if they had only one or two tweets in their Twitter accounts. I don’t get it. There should be some way to “reject” or “refuse” people who you don’t want to follow you.
Loy´s last blog ..Please Vote For My Entry for the “My WordPress Story” Contest
Hmm.. but isn’t that a benefit? Well, a benefit so to speak, that you are building your followship without “whoring-out” the no. of people you follow. Perhaps I didn’t get what you meant, Loy – hope you can fill me in
I certainly don’t follow everyone who follows me. To be fair though, I have less than 100 followers so it’s hardly a concern for me.
Alex´s last blog ..Weekend Round-Up 7/04
You are so right. Twitter seems pointless now. Everyone seems to only care about promoting themselves. Many don’t look at any tweets at all. Twitter needs to change!
Jake | Web Journey´s last blog ..Logo’s Are More Important Than You Think ( And You can a Free logo)
Twitter, although created for the masses, I think is really only good for businesses, celebrities, and website owners. For everyone else, Facebook is loads better: You don’t have lots of random people following you, and you wants to deal with anyone but their real-life friends online anyway?
I imagine people WOULD read their favorite celebrity’s thoughts on Twitter. However, for the most part, I figure Twitter is really only a good tool for businesses or website owners trying to reach other businesses or website owners, plus a limited tech-savvy audience. It has been said before– Twitter is a GREAT networking tool. But I don’t see a lot of future potential beyond that.
I don’t use Twitter, not because I don’t think it’s a great tool, but more because I don’t think my audience is there. My blog, Teen Lawn Care, is geared more to people who are less likely to use Twitter. It isn’t geared toward the tech-savvy population.
Will Twitter sink? I don’t think so, but I think it will probably morph into something directed less at the masses and more at my before-stated entities (celebrities, website owners, businesses).
Just a few of my thoughts on the subject
Ben´s last blog ..Lawn Estimation Calculator – Figure Out How Much Money to Charge Lawn Customers
I only follow people that I know will have good and useful updates.
I don’t twitter is being abuse because you can block anyone you do not know but hey we all have different opinions. Great Post!
Marcell´s last blog ..How To Upgrade Wordpress Manually
Twitter is more of spam now. But it will improve and every service face such problems. Twitter will never sink for sure. Who has time to write a full post?? I’ll rather use 140 characters and be lazy. That’s most of the budding bloggers will think.
I don’t follow all who follow me. I carefully choose them. For me twitter is food for my knowledge. I cannot read all tweets but since I follow those who interest me, I end up fulfill my hunger.
Now.. Would you like to follow me?
http://twitter.com/TheNonsenseBlog
Guttu´s last blog ..Dreams For Success
New to your blog (found it while researching thesis designers) and I’m fairly new to Twitter as well. I made a tweet a few days ago about this same subject. I only have a little over 100 followers and about 30 fewer that I follow. I try to look through bios and see if the people I follow are likely to offer anything of interest or value. I’m finding that all I’m getting are IMers posting links. I started with the intent of documenting my own journey in IM and developing some hopefully helpful relationships along the way. But I don’t find all the links and wild claims to be appealing at all. I like the idea of separate personal and business accounts, that seems to work well on FB. I think I will retwink…I mean rethink
my approach to Twitter. Thanks for not being afraid to question the validity of something that is getting so much positive press. I think you are right track with this question.
Keith “Hoglanta” Hogsed
I believe most people haven’t consciously determined what Twitter means to them. For some it’s a matter of promoting what they do, be it a business, their blog, or just themselves. Sometimes it’s for a conversation and to keep up with friends. Sometimes it really is a microblog. I think that the flexibility of Twitter to do this makes it so great. Unfortunately this also means that as Twitter gains more mainstream popularity, the noise ratio is only going to increase as the common user may not put any significant thought on why they use Twitter.
In all of this I had to determine for myself how to best use Twitter. That determination made it easier to me to determine who to follow and who not to. In fact, I formed a policy of who I follow and who I don’t. I have it posted on my Web site so it’s public knowledge. That way if someone reads my site after following me (or the other way around), they know what to expect when it comes to following me. It’s kept my sanity so far without having to worry about follower counts that may be ultimately skewed.
Your post is right on target. I’m a newbie, but I quickly noticed that many of the people following me had thousands of followers, though their tweets said the same thing over & over about some vitamin or sex video, or whatever. I had no interest in following them, as it would have been like saying, “Yes, I LOVE those junk coupons that are in my mailbox day after day, wasting tons of trees. Please send more”. NOT. I also realized that all those “followers” had to be bogus because I don’t know ANYONE who says they love junk mail!
It’s made me wonder if Twitter will be worth my time to genuinely promote my upcoming novel & to engage in real quickie communication with real, interesting people. None of those mass follow types are going to care about my genuine communications – why would they? – they don’t care about their own form of communication?
Thanks for your post. Keep up the good work!
Only stinks if marketing to the youngins.
I rushed here so quickly to be the 5000th person, that my brain has stopped functioning. Am I making sense?