Twitter: To Auto-follow or not…
This post might not make me too popular, but I’m OK with that. I love that we all get to put our opinions out there and have conversations.
Social media is constantly evolving as new people come on board, new tools are developed and people find their voice and participate more. So here are just some of my ramblings on Twitter, hopefully those just getting started will appreciate the tips and those more involved will comment and share their opinions.
So this is the Twitterverse according to me. 
Auto-follow people:
For me, it’s a no go. I still like to look at every person and decide for myself if I want to follow them. I follow way more people than I used to and I’m loving it. However I don’t do it out of obligation, I check people out and decide based on certain criteria (which I’ll get to shortly).
Sure, it’s nice to return the favor and automatically follow back, but my problem with that is we all get inundated with people we are following, we don’t read most of the tweets and we aren’t really interested in any given person (or at least we don’t know if we are interested, because we didn’t check them out). I don’t want to dilute the benefits of Twitter and lose people in the crowd.
Auto-tweet when you get a new follower: Again for me, it’s a no go. I have not received one auto-tweet (no offence people) that I’ve really felt made a big difference to me. I check out the person’s Twitter profile page and website anyway, so I feel I get a glimpse of what they are all about and then I can choose to DM them if I want to.
I guess I just feel like I get inundated with auto-tweet messages that are either too salesy, too impersonal or uninteresting. Maybe I’ll get creative and think of a killer auto-tweet but for now, I don’t use them. Maybe I am missing out because of it, and maybe one day I’ll change my mind but for now I’ve chosen not to go there.
And now is the perfect time for my disclaimer. The more I tweet the more I learn. I often change my thinking and “twitter practices” so my disclaimer is this: These are my views based on my experience and knowledge today. Hey, it’s a girl’s prerogative to change her mind, right?
Numbers game: To me, Twitter is not a numbers game. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate and value every single follower and will work on growing my followers – however, I will not put into practice some of the techniques people are putting out there to just amass followers as quickly as possible.
I am OK with growing my base over time, when people are really interested in what I have to say. I just feel quality over quantity wins out every time.
I know the argument, with bigger numbers you have the power to reach more and you never know who you will connect with out of the crowd. That is true, I am not disputing that. I just think in many cases large numbers are misleading and not everyone is truly paying attention, they are following but not reading, responding, participating.
OK, now onto my personal criteria for following people….
1. Don’t protect your tweets. If you have cool/important/interesting stuff to share, let the world see it. To me protecting tweets from the general public defeats the purpose of Twitter.
2. Put up a pic. Sometimes logos or cartoons are fun but I almost always prefer seeing the person.
3. Tweet often at the beginning – feel your way through the learning curve. I know everyone is new and has to start somewhere but with no history of tweets for me to look at, it’s hard to say if I want to follow. In that case I use the description and photo to decide. Please don’t misunderstand – I know when I first started I didn’t have much of a history, I had to build it. I’m just sayin, get tweeting people! Build it quickly and they are more likely to come, and follow.
4. I also look at how many people you are following versus who is following you. If no is following you, and you are following tons of people, I wonder why!
5. If you have instant-cred cuz people I trust are already following you, I will follow.
6. I use guy instinct and decide if I like the profile page, the tweets, the description etc.
7. I am not likely to follow if your most recent tweets are all salesy and too self promotional.
8. Another reason I may not follow is as simple as I may just miss seeing a new follower and haven’t checked you out – so feel free to tweet me and introduce yourself!
One last thing – at first I didn’t really follow many people, I was learning and was mostly talking at people and not to people. It took me a while to really learn how to interact so learn from me! I don’t advocate being too focused on your own personal agenda. Be open, be honest, be fun and be open to the boundless opportunities and relationships out there.
OK, I know it’s long, thanks for hanging in and reading every last word. LOL
Comments please?!
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I totally agree with your attitude about twitter. Thanks for sharing your views, I know I’m not alone! So many people are talking about the numbers, and irrelevant sales pitches. I’m in it for the info and relationship building. Not interested in auto responses. Learning how to pick and choose, the first advice I heard, I’ve now discarded. I want to keep learning also, and will be staying with it to see if my perspective changes.