Lately I’ve been getting a lot of twitter followers which is great, but I’m not always going to follow you back. I have my own personal guidelines and preferences for following people back. This got me thinking – What do other people do when they’re deciding to follow people on twitter?
So what do you do when someone starts following you?
- Do you auto-follow people?
- Do you have email notifications when someone adds you to twitter turned on or off?
- Do you immediately engage with the person that adds you on twitter or just add them?
- Do you have an Auto DM message set up when someone adds you?
- What are your personal reasons why you would add someone?
My following guidelines/preferences
I get emails of people when they add me to twitter. I check out the twitter page of EVERY person that adds me. To be followed back I will make sure they’re a real person on twitter and not an automated machine just posting links with no interaction with others what so ever. If they have a picture of themselves and link to a blog and are conversing on twitter – then you’ll be added.
The perfect combination is:
- You’re into blogging and/or have a blog
- You interact with others and don’t just pop out links which obviously seems like it’s an automated account.
- Personal unique image and background – Not one of those premade twitter ones. Personalise it.
That’s my approach when I see new people following me on twitter. What are yours?
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Hi Sarge,
I don’t necessarily follow someone if they follow me. Typically I will follow them if I know them already, which oftentimes happens. Twitter is a fairly new phenomenon for me so I’m still getting the hang of it. I inadvertently started tweeting a number of people the other day and got a direct message from someone saying that this could be taken as spamming. So I learned a lesson that day. One of these days I’ll get the hang of it.
I hope all is well with you..
Best,
Bob
I have similar parameters but some differences – I follow those who:
1. Have a blog or Web site that is in my interest areas (self growth, which can span many content topics)
2. Are legitimately and actively creating content
3. Have interesting tweets!
I’m not as concerned about how many followers/following they have, although I do like to look at others’ devotees to find additional resources to learn about and link to.
I’d love to hear more about the questions you ask about how to respond – what the pros and cons are of automated resopnses, or even manual acknowlegements. I find they don’t add a lot for me, since I have already looked at the person’s Web site if they follow me…
C’mon Sarge, I don’t know how to create a personalized twitter background! Maybe you could show me:)
I have twitter email me every time someone follows me. I always check their page to see what they are about.
Like you, I want to make sure they are a real person and not trying to sell me something, but it goes farther than that. I have to find what they are saying interesting enough to read it every day. I’ve even been known to not follow a RL friend if their twitter stream was uninteresting.
Good question – I’ve only just started interacting with people on Twitter, but already have a few followers I don’t know. Some are obviously spam followers, but others are in my fields of interest and probably found me because of the people I follow. I check out their Twitter/site/blog and follow back if I’m interested in what they do or say.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of auto-following. I’m sure people have their reasons for doing it, but to me, it make your connections seem impersonal. I won’t feel as ’special’ being followed by Blogger A if I know Blogger A auto follows anyone who follows him/her. There’s no real connection there.
Another reason for not following just anyone who follows you is that the people you follow are almost like the people you recommend. I often look at the followers of people I find interesting in order to discover new interesting people. For example, If I sift through the list of people you -Sarge- follows, and find that half of them have no tweets or are spammers (which isn’t the case!), I’m not going to put much credibility in your list.
Just my two cents
Hi Sarge,
Sweet website. I like to follow people that generally are creative and offer something interesting, whether blogging or music marketing. I’m open to meeting people even out of my set preferences as long as they are willing to chat and bounce ideas
I don’t follow users that have no @replies on their timeline or ones that just force an free ebook or promo into your inbox, before even chatting with you. Overall, I’m pretty lenient.
Most times I can tell by the person’s user name if I know them or how they came to know me. Many of my followers are fellow vegans – that’s normally the first sect, then we have the pet /animal lovers, some Christians – not that many….I may be too relaxed for the uptight and legalistic ones, very few political followers because I lean not to the left or the right so it’s hard to figure me out and finally, the bloggers and they follow me simply because I was the one who initiated the interest.
If the user name doesn’t help me to identify them and they don’t seem too suspicious, I will look at their bio and determine from there if I’d like to be a friend or remain a star.
I enjoyed your post too. Interesting.
Hey Sarge, I’m getting tons of new followers all of a sudden too. I rarely follow people back unless they are members of Blog Engage.
Here’s my criteria:
If I go to their page on Twitter and I don’t see my avatar under “following” I know they are mass following people so I ignore them
If they have some good Tweets (not all RT’s)
If they have a good following/follower ratio
Lastly, I visit their site if they have one
I get emails when I get new followers and I would never use any kind of auto tweet service. I see some people saying thanks for following me go to my website – I’m like Dude you don’t think I followed you without going to your site first do you?
Thanks for this discussion, good one.
@Bob – What were you posting that the person considered it as spam? Twitter is a tool – you should use it however you wish – there is no right or wrong way. Some people have been around the twitter game for a long time and have a good idea of what works well for them in order to achieve their goals so it’s always good to take in their advice then maybe apply some of it to yourself. But remember – it’s just a tool to communicate with others with. Use it how you wish, you may come up with a totally new way to use it which works wonders!
@Linda – I think the biggest one for me is make sure they’re interacting with others. I just had a few more people follow me this morning and the first thing I do now is see if they have @replies and they’re genuine conversations. Next is to see if they have a site – if it’s a blog then I’ll add them. I honestly wish the followers/following numbers disappeared. I use lists to manage who I actively engage with on a regular basis and I see and usually respond to all my @replies I get. It’s my no1 column I’m looking at and probably the easiest way to contact me. Even moreso than email.
I have a post in the works about auto-DMs you may be intested in so stay tuned
But in regards to acknowledgment I think the best way is to send a genuine @reply.
@Debbie – send me an email of what you would like on your twitter background. Maybe we can sort something out. I’m thinking a video tutorial of how to create a background using free software based on a design I create for you
@Adrian – Exactly – there’s not point following their twitter account if they’re not posting anything of value to you. Even if they are your best friend.. haha!
@An – I’ll admit I could probably take more care of who I am following on twitter. I know when I first started out I was trying to follow anyone and anybody pretty much because I wanted to make some quick friends/connections. Now I follow the guidelines that I posted above and have been doing that for quite some time. My follower account is high but that’s because my guidelines are pretty loose for me to follow you. I follow anyone back that is interacting that has a blog so that’s a lot of people!
@Mario – Thanks for stopping by – glad you like it. Sounds like we have a similar following guideline going on. It’s funny though isn’t it – even though someone is offering you a FREE ebook we still don’t want anything to do with them. It just goes to show how much being personable and being REAL is worth these days.
@Kissie – I’ve often wondered if having the twitter name ‘beginnerblogger’ would turn off a few people. It may seem a bit ‘business’ oriented than personable. Which is why I put a picture of my goofy face on it to show I am a real genuine person and not just an automated twitter account.
@Ileane – Glad you enjoyed the discussion. You’re very committed to blog engage which is great! Some people that are adding you may be random people that found you through your blog but don’t comment!
I follow someone on Twitter when:
I see that they are talking about something I care about or something that affects me personally.
They have a profile picture that they’ve cared enough to customize.
Who they follow are legit real people.
Lastly, basically if I feel good about who they seem to be and what they have to offer.
With the Internet you can’t be too careful and I want to follow people who bring good into my life. Anyone can follow me but I will follow back when I feel they add value to me.
Whoa, now I want to follow Eric!
I always check out the people who follow me…
I block them if:
*They are following a large amount of people and
*I don’t know them or
*They don’t appear to have anything in common with me
I follow them if:
*They have something in common with me
*I know them
*They have taken the time to put a personal photo up
Great post.
I normally do the same thing. Its a lot of work. Some days I get anywhere from 20 or 30 requests and others I may get over a 100. When I am not busy, I will check them just as you do. Sometimes I add bots if the post are good and I find it useful. But I MAKE sure its not a spammer. Most of the time I generally wait till I get home from work or school. Once I opened several as either email or jumped to their site w/o looking at their email. I then get burned if its has a NSFW icon. Now I wait.
If someone follow me on Twitter, I turn to him and say “HEY WHY YOU ARE FOLLOWING ME?”, and I start to suspect him .. Naah.. Just kidding!
for me I take it the easy way, just follow back till check what he is twitting about!
It’s interesting to read that element 321 can attract up to 100 new followers in a day. How do you do that element? too many of the people who start following me are women whose accounts have been blocked by the time I check them out. I can’t imagine why.
@Eric – Yep, it’s all about value. No point adding someone if they offer no value to you or you can’t feel you can help them out.
@Caron – Do you block them or do you just not bother adding them? I don’t think I’ve ‘blocked’ anyone before. I only would if they continued to spam me/annoy me.
@Element – Wow over 100 requests a day – that’s HEAPS!
@Hesham – I like your approach – willing to give anyone that bothered adding you a fair go. You’re not closing any doors on anyone that way. Only problem is that there are bots that automatically add people but I suppose the only harm in that would be an increase in the number of people you’re following. It’s not like you HAVE to talk to them just because you’ve decided to follow them back. Which is why I would love it if the number of followers and people you’re following you was actually hidden. Personally I use lists to manage people I talk to on a regular basis and I respond to all my @messages (if they’re to respond to) So I’m not ignoring anybody.
@David – I too am curious Element
I have an auto follower set up. But if I like a blog or Twitterer then I manually follow them. I hate science and crunching numbers. So the number of followers etc is of no real importance to me, at least not at this time.
@Ms. Freeman – I’m with you about the twitter numbers. In fact your comment has inspired me to set up my own auto-follow (thinking about it at least) because I set up LISTS to communicate/follow those that I care most about and I see everyone that @messages me so I’m able to contact with others in that way.
I go out of my way to talk to people on twitter that I care about, just adding someone then not doing anything (not engaging) isn’t making a connection.
Hello there Sarge. Thanks for adding me on Twitter.
I’ve exactly the same personal guidelines to follow my followers. Apart from that, I mostly follow users who’s blogging or have a site in my niche to narrow my community.
To be honest, you’re the first person whom I added on my new blogging Twitter account.
Let’s keep in touch!