Why I unfollowed (almost) everyone on Twitter... Should I follow you?

Sounds a lot like what I have heard about twitter and marketing. It's useless to following ppl if all you are going to get is spam and affiliate links....

I feel quite close to all 3 of my followers, but thank you!

Talking of bit.ly...

Did you know it gets 1billion hits a month? billion as in b.

Steve

Hey, that's my rule! Here are some others I use.

1. If I see the same tweet from you more than four times, you're gone.

2. If you tweet more than four things at a time, buh-bye.

3. If you DM me a link more than twice, sayo-freakin'-nara.

Actual advice I got from a Twitter marketer: "Send links in all your tweets. This conditions your audience to click your links. When you send them your marketing offer, they'll click it!"

When I said "I unfollow people who send URLs in more than half their tweets," he said "well, then you're missing out."

As if I will somehow suffer by not clicking his link!

Don't purge me, Tina...please!

I will say something interesting one day ...

Hey Cherilyn,

I am SO happy to see this starting to become a bit of a habit amongst people lately.

Alot of people are just WHACKING their mass follows

I think Mike Filsaime started it off and I loved the blog post he linked too about it, did you read that?

It is ALL about quality not quantity and people really forget that on Twitter. I have actually been shocked to see some intelligent people who would never spam under any other circumstances actually effectively spam on Twitter.

Its due to the fact its a pretty new medium and some people dont understand it yet.

Its all about creating relationships and networking. The most important thing is to ADD VALUE!

I have an unwritten rule, I will post at least 7 times about myself/others/talking to people or somehow adding value or building relationships before I send ONE link to anyone to click on.

I think thats a good ratio to keep in mind. (But in actual fact its more like 20 to 1 for me so I dont have to worry!)

Once you build relationships on Twitter and add value regularly I think you start to see some good results in other areas too.

For example, I only have about 1,300 followers which is tiny compared to some people! But whenever I send a link out I usually get quite a few RT's and around 40 to 100 clicks of that link, from those 1,300 followers. I know people with over 40,000 followers who get less clicks.

This goes to show, NEVER Spam, regardless of the medium, always privide REAL VALUE and lastly, its not quantity its quality!

Saying all that, if you dont want to get rid of all the people you follow but are suffering from the noise, you can use a twitter client to create groups just for your friends.

I did a blog post about it here if anyone wants to read it:

How to set up Twitter friend groups | Josh Bartlett Blog

I won't get into the "how to use twitter " debate . While twitter is a nice resource, if I was banned tomorrow ,oh well no big loss. Twitter is a quick way to get traffic and build a list but it is not a business model . At least not for me .

I will warn you that twitter will ban you just as quick for mass unfollowing as they will for mass following . About 300 to 400 changes in your follow or unfollow count ( or a combined count ) will get you noticed by twitter . Noticed too often will get you banned .

oh yeah I forgot to answer your last part of the question about should you follow me .

Probably not a good idea :-)

I couldn't agree more. I'm relatively new to Twitter and went into it thinking I would be able to connect with all kinds of cool people. Well, all I'm connecting with is people who never bother to write anything REAL but just tweet link after link. And along the lines of CDarklock's post, what's up with tweeting the same thing 50 times like some do? Or doing all of the day's tweets in the same 30-second span? Really annoying. Really, really annoying.

Right from the start, I've only followed people back who seem to have something interesting to say, but I've been disappointed quite a few times.

I'm trying to be the kind of Twitterer that I would like to follow. I have yet to tweet an affiliate link, and I'm finding a balance between business and personal, I think.

I love twitter. Marketing on twitter is easy if you have thousands of good followers. Unlike me, I didn't unfollowed unless they have a sexy picture attached on it

You should follow me because I don't follow people who do exactly as you said - send me tons of links and garbage.

I tried to unfollowing myself but just went in circles trying to catch up.

I hear ya Cheryl. I've dumped the incessant promoters too. It's like they think I'll just put my mouth over their firehose of promotion and swallow it. I won't.

Should you follow me? Well, my latest posts have been about dinner and dealing with kids during the summer months. I don't directly promote on Twitter. It's up to you.

Hi, Cherilyn. Interesting. I can understand your point of view, and I've also unfollowed several of the big marketers (though I'm not quite sure now why I followed them in the first place ).

I'm curious, though, about your 75% rule.

I tend to tweet a fairly high percentage of links, but they're certainly not affiliate links. Never. They're mostly links to news stories and blog posts that I think will interest my followers. Most of them are related to the use of Information Technology in general and its use in small & medium business in particular. With a bit of spice thrown in every once in a while.

I tweet these links because they're things that interest me and I believe will interest others. Am I trying to target folks who may one day need a consultant like me? Sure. But I'm certainly not being aggressive about that aspect of it. Quite the contrary.

I rarely just tweet something about what I'm doing or what I'm thinking. In fact most of my linkless tweets are quotes from medieval Persian poets or from philosophers. I suppose those are reflections of parts of my inner life, come to think of it.

Anyway, what I'm taking a lot of words to get at is that I may not pass your 75% filter, but I'm also not a Twitter spammer. At least I don't think I am. Can you clarify the reasoning behind your rule? In other words, what can I do to interest you in following me in spite of my "bad" Twitter pattern?

Steve

I don't care what anyone says...twitter is a big fat waste of time when it comes to marketing to other marketers. What you get is a bunch of people trying to lead each other god knows where. In the case of non internet marketing niches, it may be a completely different story though. But personally, I have been able to network with people I find interesting much more easily through the plain old, plain old email or phone. Call me old school but it just feels more genuine when someone has to spend more time than a 100 and something character jot down.

Not a fan of twitter other than when I am feeling like wasting time....never have been and never will be.

I think TipDrop.com is a nice way to get the best of both worlds. Tipdrop is microbloggin venue to find or share tips on any topic, and each tip can be voted up or down. Extreme spam with just get voted down or even flagged. I set up a tipsheet on wordpress plugins there.

I studied the whole "How to build followers as quickly as possible" thing and found a really effective way to do that which could be nicely automated, but the value? Hmm, dunno. I like the idea of getting back to real communication instead of it being just a spam-fest. Nice idea Cherilyn(!).

Hey, Gregg, knowing how foreigners can more easily cross paths in the far east, do you know a very eccentric guy by the name of Benjamin living in Japan? He's weird enough that people would likely notice him. Sometimes appears on Japanese TV talk shows. Very odd individual.

It really is about what one's intentions are with Twitter. I have a spam-reception account pretty much to just see IM product/service trends, looking for patterns more than try to sell stuff or make friends.

I also have more niche oriented Twitter accounts and follow people based on very specialized keywords to find likely target markets.

I just did a mass unfollow right now and picked my top few to keep... you're right, it feels great!

It would be nice of you if you follow me on my twitter. Thanks in advance.

If any fellow warriors want link up with me on twitter I'd be more than happy.
I will not bombard you with links I promise. I do usually send a link when I update my blogs but generally thats it. http://twitter.com/andybeveridge

Andy Beveridge

I now only follow people who talk, I don't automatically follow those who follow me. If I go to twitter and find one person has taken over with useless tweets then I unfollow them.

You (anyone reading) should follow me because I "speak human".

[Edit] I'm loath to mass-unfollow...even though they "speak and do not listen", having a bunch of "followers" is good for the ego....hehehe....

BTW, that reminds me of the Simon & Garfunkel song, "The Sound Of Silence". Part of it goes...

People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share;
No one dares,
Disturb the sound of silence.

Only, here the sound of silence is thunderous because of the noise. Sigh...

Provocative question (not specifically for you, Cherilyn):

"Why then don't you UNSUBSCRIBE email subscribers who aren't responsive?"

Hmm....

Dr.Mani