Why you should follow everyone who follows you on Twitter
The debate over whether you should follow everyone who follows you on Twitter has raged on ever since the popular microblogging service gained traction. Some say following everyone eliminates the real value Twitter provides--connecting with others of similar interests. Others say that following everyone actually provides more value.
But if you consider some of the finer points of following everyone who follows you on Twitter, I think you might come to the realization, just as I have, that following everyone is not just a responsible move on your part, it's good of the entire community.
Nope, there aren't rules, but there is etiquette
There aren't any rules forcing you to follow your followers on Twitter, but that doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do.
If someone has found you compelling in some way, shouldn't you give them the benefit of the doubt and follow them back? It's not like you can't block them in the future if you think their tweets are inappropriate.
To me, Twitter is all about the community. And by signing up, that community has made the conscious decision to interact and share interests, ideas, and personal information. If someone follows you, they're saying, in effect, that they want to hear what you have to say and care about your ideas.
I don't see anything wrong in following them as a gesture of appreciation and confirmation that you're willing to hear what they have to say, as well. After all, if you want to become a part of the community, isn't it only right that you hold up your end of the bargain and give them the same respect they've given you?
(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn/CNET Networks)
The 'noise' argument holds little water
Whenever I discuss my reasoning for following everyone who follows me on Twitter, I invariably receive the same response from those who disagree: "following everyone is too much trouble and you can't find all the conversations you actually want to engage in."
Rubbish.
I currently follow over 2,400 people on Twitter and I've never had an issue finding really interesting and relevant information. Sure, some of it has nothing to do with me--discussions about grilled cheese sandwiches, for one--but there's quite a bit that my followers discuss that I'm interested in. I'd say that more than 80 percent of all the updates that flow through my stream are worthy of discussion. And I don't think I'm unique.
I simply don't see how users get more value out of Twitter by following a select group of people. I've tried it and it was disastrous. More often than not, that grouping is filled with co-workers and friends that probably share many of the same interests. If you ask me, that sounds more like a big, private chat room than a social network where you can communicate and interact with people from all over the world.
Call me crazy, but Twitter, to me, is an international community where interesting tidbits of information flows constantly. It's not a big party where my friends and I can enjoy each others' company. That's what bars are for.
The stream doesn't move that fast
Similar to the noise argument, I always hear from folks that following everyone causes their stream to update too quickly and it's easy to miss things.
I've never felt that way. I've always been able to find topics that interest me and discussing those with others has never been an issue, since replies usually filter in shortly after an update is placed. And even if I miss a few replies, I can always click on the "replies" tab and check them out.
Does the stream move quicker when you follow all your followers? Sure. But that stream is also providing a lot more value, since it's detailing more events, more articles, more news, and more insight into followees. I'm willing to forgo the ability to see every single update when I can see more updates from more people. I think it provides more value than seeing the same update in my stream for three hours.
Following many people doesn't hurt your follower count
Some say that following all your followers makes you look bad to the Twitter community and your follower count will actually decrease because of it. I'm not sure where this rumor started, but there's absolutely no evidence of that being true.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
In fact, online marketing firm Hubspot released a report titled "State of the Twittersphere" recently, and found that there's a "strong correlation between the number of people you follow and the number of followers you have."
It makes sense: Twitter is, by its very nature, a viral service. If you follow just one person on Twitter, you're then exposed to their entire list of followers and in turn, they're exposed to your list. Engaging each other in conversation puts you in front of more people, who then have the option of following you themselves. In the process, everyone adds followers and has the option of getting to know more people.
You shouldn't follow everyone, just your human followers
Yes, I know that I said you should follow everyone who follows you, but there is one caveat I should mention: Twitter is rife with spammers, PR junk, and companies that follow you in the hope that you will follow them back.
Don't follow them. You get nothing out of the connection with them and more often than not, they prove to be far too annoying and active to be of any value as a follower. That's why I don't believe in using automated services or scripts to add followers--I think you need to keep a watchful eye on your follow list to get the most value out of Twitter.
It's OK to let your Following list grow
As more people start following you on Twitter, it's inevitable that the number of people you follow will increase too. So what? Just because there are more updates and probably less time to see an individual message, it shouldn't matter if you believe (rightfully so) that the more people you follow on Twitter, the more value you'll get out of the service.
When Twitter first started, the comment was always made that it's nothing more than a platform where people tell us what they had for dinner last night. There's still some of that, but most of the updates I've seen over the past few months have turned the service into a viable news and communication platform. In fact, I've seen breaking news on Twitter before mainstream media outlets reported on it. And it didn't come from the CNN Twitter page, it came from a total stranger with ten followers and 2,000 updates who uses Twitter to communicate with others and share insight and knowledge.
I would have never seen it if I decided that out of all my followers, I would only follow a handful of folks I know. And that's just one example of the dozens of articles, stories, songs, and other information I'm exposed to daily by following all my followers.
It's easy to say that following all your Twitter followers is too much work and it takes away from the "good stuff," but I think that's a short-sighted view. There are over a million people using Twitter right now and about 5,000 to 10,000 new users are signing up every day, each with their own story and interests that they may want to share with you.
Why not let them?
Want to follow Don Reisinger on Twitter? Do it here!
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
In some cases, people I have met through Twitter have joined me in other settings and I have formed some lovely friendships and potential business connections through Twitter. The only thing on which you and I do not agree entirely is about Twitter as a party. To me it is a party, one at which I am both a hostess and a guest and I consider it my privilege and duty to ensure that people get to know one another and have a good time, whatever their reason for being in Twitter is. Even business can and should be fun - if everyone is looking out for the best interests of all parties, business improves and increases and work feels like having a good time too :-)
Just as you would look at the stream and bio information to determine if it is spam, the same can be said about following someone. I'll usually scroll through a couple of pages of their stream before deciding if I'll follow them. If all they have to talk about is how good their grill cheese sandwich was for lunch, I probably won't follow them.
If I follow 90 people, that's 90 people who are updating in my Twitter "stream" as it were (Twitter-hates, use that to compare to urine until your heart's content). I can actually follow these people and can get what the conversation is. When I hit my high of following 150 people, it was way too noisy. I missed so much. As I pare it down, I find the conversation is more interesting. Does that mean I'm blowing off the people who follow me? Hell no. I just may not have as much interest in what they're say as they have in what I'm saying. That doesn't mean I'm more interesting and it certainly doesn't mean I think I'm better than anyone. A lot of followers follow me and they are following thousands and have thousands of followers. To me that means they're just after the numbers. They're not a part of the conversation. But I follow a lot of people who don't follow me back and it certainly doesn't make me upset. It just means I find what they're saying interesting and they have far too many followers to follow back.
It's flattering when someone follow you. But it does not mean I need to follow you back. I immediately check out your Twitter page when I get notified you're following me but if you don't talk about the subjects I'm interested in then I feel no reason to follow you back. It's not personal, it's just keeping my sanity.
If you follow 2,475 people, do you even know what the hell is going on? What's the point?
why? because thats what i use.
i have not found any programs or heard of any for the PC that works good enough for basic use. in fact I also have the RSS feed just in case i miss something and the max it will download is 200 messages.
right now with the people i follow now i get over 150 messages a day, and i don't want to be getting too many more.
I want those I follow to be people I know in RL or people I know directly online.
Quality over quantity *always* creates better results.
Now some bullet points:
* I'd rather extract *quality* from a handful of conversations, that a *little bit* from 1000's.
* I'm only interested in people following me who are truly interested in what I have to say, not to just 'push up their numbers'. Will this cost me numbers? Sure! But I'd rather maximize quality over quantity.
* As drpr said above me. I can't believe for a second that if I were one of the 2400 people you follow (as part of this 'etiquette' idea) that you could give a flying-hoot about what I, or 2372 of the other people you follow has to say. To me, proper etiquette would be to really *value* the people you connect with, and what they have to say.
* When I see people follow 1000's of others, I am convinced it's largely just a way of gaming the system to boost their popularity. If the technique of following everybody who follows you wasn't so effective in 'artificially' boosting popularity, I don't think as many people would do it.
* I'm only willing to devote 10-15 minutes a day to Twitter (max.). That means I don't have the time to sort through the *quantity* of posts. As I mentioned earlier, I want *quality*!
* As for etiquette. When I go to a convention with 10000 people attending, to hear 10 speakers (similar to me following 10 people on Twitter in the Twittersphere), I'm not offended if those 10 speakers don't feel obligated to create a personal, one-on-one connection me, or everyone else at the convention. It's insane to believe this is practical or useful. Sometimes relationships like this are largely one-way. It's how the world works!
I could go on and on about this, but I need to get some donuts (which, BTW, is stuff I don't care to Tweet about).
There is so much information overload. Can't imagine devoting so much time to Twitter without taking out hours to sleeping, family, etc
I like your reasoning here, I have come to the same conclusion after trying the "disciplined" approach for about 6-9 months. And I would add to your list the fact that if you don't have time to closely monitor what"s going on on Twitter all of the time, it won't matter much that you're following only 50 people you deem "worthy" of following. It all washes by regardless, and the only reliable way to get stuff back out is to click on and peruse individual profiles for the nuggets.
Twitter could make things a lot easier by allowing subgrouping of your "followees" (so you can keep your inner circle, etc. closer if necessary), and improving search/sort/filter of both Follower/Followee lists and Tweets (search for keyword by user group, etc.). Currently those lists are pretty useless/unnavigable once they reach a few hundred each. And the fact that the 35 or so "following" profile images are mostly taken up by the same faces (earliest timestamp of joining Twitter appears to be the criterion?) doesn't help viral spread either.
The only workaround I have found so far is to use FriendFeed for the same purpose, but you have to first get your inner circle to join you there and explain FF in the process, etc.).
Otherwise, again I agree that it may be more appropriate to a social context to follow back, otherwise it is like saying from the get-go "I am not interested in you." Those practicing your "follow (nearly) everyone back" strategy seem to overall have greater success in building large follower lists in the 1,000s. Exceptions tend to be those that already came to Twitter with a measure of celebrity, etc. e.g. iJustine, Shaq, Twitter Founders, asf.
As useful as TweetDeck is, I just can't imagine using it to sift through Tweets from thousands of followers, many of which I KNOW will not be relevant.
I read some interesting ideas on following followers yesterday here: http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-follow-on-twitter-thoughts.html.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WecanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
http://twitter.com/wecandobiz
"Twitter: To Follow - Or Not"
http://moneypowerwisdom.com/twitter-to-follow-or-not/
I also complemented it with a poll on Squidoo, which throws up some interesting discussion too.
http://www.squidoo.com/twitter-to-follow-or-not
All success
Dr.Mani
(I tweet as @drmani)
Lisa Wynne
http://nearly-perfect-vegetarian.com/
If their twitter history does not interest me, I don't follow them.
I don't read blogs that don't interest me so why would I sign up to have similar coming into my twitter stream?
- by rgoldston May 9, 2009 8:34 AM PDT
- Don...I don't agree that everyone who follows a person they should follow. Some users are now approaching or have exceeded 1 million followers. Further just because someone finds value in what you have to say does not mean that you have to find value in what they have to say. For example I follow Tony Robbins. I get a lot from his Tweats. If he follows me that's great but I don't feel bad because he has not reciprocated. After all I followed him because I like what he has to say. He does not have to like what I have to say for me to receive value from his tweats.
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(25 Comments)I also think that the idea of following users just because the follow you encourages people to just follow in the hopes of growing the followership. I'd rather have a smaller more useful base of followers than a bunch who just followed me so I could follow them.