Who to follow on Twitter
“How do I know who I should be following?” “I’m following X but they don’t follow me back, why shouldn’t I unfollow them?”
Twitter is a strange medium and there are lots of great web-posts, documents, books, webinars and seminars on ideas on how to use it. Here’s some of my experiences.
I have a new follower – what do I do about it?
Looking in my own stream here is one of my latest followers ..
This user has put a good description of what they do, who they are and a ‘coded warning’ that maybe some of their stuff may be off topic. Lets look at their profile in Twitter and some of their recent tweets. Simply click on their highlighted name to see the details on the right hand side.
Then click on ‘View Full Profile’ to see more.
We can see they have a reasonable ratio of followers to following and have a reasonable number of tweets. Getting 1,000 followers with 1,000 tweets is very good. His job title helps plus he’s probably saying useful stuff. Look in the stream of his recent tweets to check how relevant and interesting you find his conversations.
In my case this Tweeter has a lot of relevance for me so I’ll follow him. (I’ve not copied his conversations here, they are just a snapshot and may feel less relevant when you see this post)
That feels like a result.
I’m following someone but they don’t follow me back – do I ditch them?
The sad truth here is that they are likely to be saying things which are more interesting than what you have to say. How you handle this devastating news is up to you.
The duff way – cut your nose to spite your face – go ahead and stop following them.
But wait. Are they saying interesting things, and adding comments or links highly relevant to your situation?
You can take the view that you’re receiving advice, training and solutions. (Aka consultancy).Free. And you want to stop. Okay.
What do I do to develop my skills, communications and interactions to “win the follow back”
Look at the tweets from these people. How relevant are they to you? Can you give a positive reply which adds to their comment. If you know your subject the answer should be yes.
Engage with them – don’t expect a reply to every one of your comments.There are some excellent, helpful people out there with in excess of 100,000 followers – they can’t reply to all tweets and keep their sanity and authenticity.
Who do I NOT follow
This update had to wait – until I found a suitable specimen. Right on time, the rock rolled away and the specimen appeared.
Here’s their tweet to me -
That’s fantastic – he’s even been kind enough to send me a link to something useful. DO NOT click the link – instead click on the tweeter’s picture to see their bio.
He – or she -or they? Seem to have a reasonable ratio of followers / followed and fairly reasonable numbers of tweets. There is a give away*.
But first look at their timeline – the tweets they’ve sent out.
They’ve been kind enough to tweet links to lots of other people. So – block them and report them as a spammer. Good-bye.
* The give away is their Klout score. With that number of followers and following you’d expect to see a fair amount of activity and relationship building. Klout measures this score. If you’ve allowed Twitter to link to Klout, then Hootsuite (the application I’m using in this example) will show the Klout score.
Thirty-nine? Not good.
Here’s the Klout score from a headteacher
Here’s my klout score (on 3rd September)
And here’s the same information for a very active Tweeter in the US of A who provides fantastic information and involves themself with people who respond
How did they get so many followers? Probably using auto-follow applications.
- They’re probably using an RSS reader – check ‘Listening Post’ on our social media tab.
- They find an RSS feed or tweet with one of their trigger words
- They make an auto-follow or an auto tweet (or both)
- Some of the people they hit have auto-follow applications.
- They generate a large number of automated followers
- They build no long term relationships (I reckon I’ve physically met TEN PER CENT of my Twitter followers)
- They re-bottle the snakeoil and re-print he business cards
- They are now a social media expert whose DM feed is completely junk
I’d like to thank @unmarketing for his help, ideas and thought-provoking book and blog.
Have you used these ideas? Have they worked for you? What other strategies have you found helpful?