Why I am not following you on Twitter

Posted on by Mark

As I have said on many occasions, who you follow on Twitter really is down to your own personal choice. You should not feel as though you must follow people back. Again that is up to you.. However, my own personal view is that you should only follow people back that really add value to you for whatever reason that is….

So here are my personal criteria on why I am not following you back.

You  have no photo. To me this is where it all starts. Having no photo, or a very poor photo, tells me that you are not really commited to Twitter. Equally having a naked lady as your photo, tells me that you are here for different reasons than me..

You have no Bio. Again this tells me that you are not really interested or committed to Twitter. The Bio is 160 characters and should take you approx 5 mins to complete.. It should tell me about your expertise, how you can help me and as much personal information as you would like to share..However if your Bio is the mission statement from your business, something has gone wrong, and doubtful I will follow… 

Having no tweets… Why would I want to follow someone that simply does not tweet. How will you add value to me, or to my followers?

Your tweets are all automated…If you cant be bothered to personally put in any time or effort into Twitter, and just simply have a Twitter feed that is automated links from all sorts of news services, then again what value are you adding? I can subscribe to all of those news feeds myself… I dont need to follow you for that…

No Engagement… If you are just broadcasting, then it is unlikely that I will follow you.. However there are some exceptions to this.. Some services such as @breakingnews, and @bbctravelalert I would not expect them to follow me back.. They provide me with a news service.. But other than these type of accounts, I would look for engagement.. so that means plenty of @replies in your Twitter stream… If I dont see any… then I wont bother to follow you…

All of your Tweets are via Twitterfeed…. Twitterfeed is an automatic way for you to grab RSS content, and then send it out via Twitter. Now the word I would use is Balance.. The odd message going out via Twitterfeed is fine.. but if your whole Twitter stream is one long Twitterfeed, then again you are not adding value, you are not spending any time or effort, so why should I spend any time or effort with you…

If all you tweet about is sales.. Again the word that I would use is Balance.. If all you are doing is tweeting links to your buy now page, then thats boring, not interesting, and I would not follow you.. The odd message mixed in with social chit chat, being interesting, being interested in others, adding value, is fine..

Your 1st message to me is…follow me,  help me to promote my book, my website, my blog, my charity fun run, my product or service. I get a lot of people that simply dont strike up a relationship with me. They simply message me, and ask me to do one of the above things. Why would I do that?  You  have not taken any time to get to know me, and you are asking me to do something for you… I very rarely follow anyone that asks me to follow them.. If they are interesting, start engaging with me,  add value, look like fun, then there may well be a good chance that I will follow you….

Dont be upset If I dont follow you…… If I or anyone else decides to not follow you, dont get upset.. Its not personal. It does not mean you are a bad person.. It simply means that I felt what you were tweeting about was not for me.. however it does not mean that I wont engage with you or perhaps have a beer with you…. I engage with tons of peeps all the time, and so can you… although we are not following each other.

  • http://www.touch-code-magazine.com Marin Todorov

    Great roundup Mark, enjoyed so much :) I was thinking to put a page like that myself, but your list is great.

    Marin

  • http://www.anthodges.co.uk Ant Hodges

    Great post Mark. Nailing your colours to the mast and being transparent in social media is so important – I recently wrote about following tactics told by many pseudo experts on a post on my blog (inspiration came from one of your tweets) http://anthodges.co.uk/mass-following-on-twitter-is-wrong-0

  • http://raincoaster.com raincoaster

    Not to mention those who Follow just so you’ll Follow back, and then Unfollow to “improve their Klout” or other stats. There are far too many of these usetards, and they should be ostracized. Fortunately, Twitter is a place where ostracism is a serious punishment.

  • neville spiers

    Well done, Mark. You’ve put the whole thing in a nutshell.

    This should be compulsory reading for all new twitter accounts.

  • http://twitter.com/stuartflatt @stuartflatt

    So Mark, you are actually saying there are only 220 people on the whole of twitter who meet your criteria?

    May I be so bold as to say you you only follow people if you believe there is something in it for you?

    I just read one level of your tweets. And you only have self promotions and @ replies. Again most of the @ replies are talking about yourself or something you have tweeted.

    I would love for you to look at your page this second and honestly say if you would follow yourself? I am pretty sure you wouldn’t

    Rant over… ;-)

  • http://www.actioncoach.com/rogerpemberton Roger Pemberton

    Great post – thanks Mark. Timely advice for us all.
    Cheers
    Roger

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hi Stuart, thanks for taking the time to respond.. firstly i am not saying that there are only 220 people on Twitter that meet my criteria.. Thats the number that I currently follow.. that number changes as new people come in, and others go out.. I follow people based on my criteria.. Its not about whats in it for me… Its about do I learn from them, are they adding value to me or the people that follow me….

    If you take a look at my last 40 tweets… you will see a huge percentage are replies to people… so i constantly engage with people, yes.. I have promoted my free Twitter surgery in Barnet which is there to help people.. no money involved….and then the rest are talking about lunch, what I had and what others had, talking about where I have been going etc….

    So yes… in my opinion, I am doing what I encourage others to do… Yes.. I would follow myself..

    One of the cool things with Twitter, is that we can each do whatever we want as far as Twitter is concerned.. So I stand by my comments, you may disagree… thats fine…

    best

    Mark

  • http://fatideas.com Adrian

    Mark, I can’t fault the advice you give in this post, its useful, thank you for sharing it.

    However, the fact that you have over 12000 followers when you only follow 222 creates a perception (rightly or wrongly) that you are all about talking and not listening which is slightly at odds when you consider the way you self-promote being a “Twitter expert” Your ratio of followers:following is close to 60:1

    Occasionally, I put up with the magnitude of that type of ratio with the celebs but they don’t write blog posts entitled “Why I’m not following you on Twitter” I totally agree that we are all free to do as we please on twitter, but thought I’d point out the perception you are creating.

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hi Adrian, and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.. One of the huge myths about Twitter is that if you are not following people, you are not engaging with them… that is so not true… You do not have to follow anyone to engage with them…

    If you look at my twitter stream, you will see me constantly engaging with people, asking questions, and responding to other peoples answers… even though I am not following them….

    best

    Mark

  • http://twitter.com/adrianmelrose Adrian

    Mark, I’m not saying you don’t engage – that you certainly do but only with those who initiate the engagement with you. I’m afraid I agree with @stuartflatt – it doesn’t look like you’re in this Twitter thing for any wider community benefit barring the Mark Shaw fan club or better still to promote your last minute deal site! How on earth can you be listening to/engaging with more than 222 people unless they @mention you? I get huge value out of the content from the 1900+ people I follow – and tend to answer their questions and requests for help if I can. They in return respond to mine. I’d never hear those if I didn’t follow them… Even if I had good search streams. That’s how community works and Twitter is a community tool not a fanclub.

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hi Adrian, it really upsets me that you should accuse me of using Twitter as my fan club, and that I am only interested in what I can get from it… I have been using Twitter for over 2.5 years now, and in that time, have offered for free my ebook.. which well over a thousand peeps have downloaded, have offered free daily tips, again which well over 2 thousand have now subscribed too….

    I also run a regular twitter surgery to help people out, again all free… I also regularly offer free tips, advice, answer questions… all again with no thought of making money from people…

    But yes… I do have a 9 yr old to support, so i do need to translate some of my Twitter related activites into money… for which i do not apologise.. so yes there may well be the odd few messages aimed at driving me some new clients..

    I started the last minute offers Twitter account, approx 2 weeks ago.. My aim is to simply help UK businesses increase their revenues.. again I am doing this for free….

    So please… if you dont like my tweets, feel I am just about Mark Shaw, then simply stop following me… I sleep very well at night, knowing that I have helped and continue to help as many as i can be more effective with Twitter…

    best

    Mark

  • http://www.rachelwelford.co.uk rachel welford

    I’m just starting to get a grip on twitter so I might be wrong, but…. folk above seem unhappy that you only follow 222 people and so don’t listen. Surely if you were to follow thousands you’d either have to spend all day reading their tweets or otherwise would miss most of what they say due to volume. I would have thought it was easier to have meaningful dialogue with people if one follows a (relatively) smaller number. So I agree with you basically!

  • http://www.smartcoachin.biz Debbie Watkins

    just read your top guide to using twitter – its great really helped me get my head round twitter. already use facebook and linkedin. need to get to grips with twittering – looking forward to watching the master at work