Should There Be A Rule About Following People On Twitter?

What’s the point? What is this about?

What a crappy article…

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StayBank Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:45 am

Here are the bigger questions: What’s your point? What are you about?

What a crappy moron.

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Ross Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:21 am

Momma always said – “If you don’t got nothing nice to say, don’t say nothing at all.”

I will take her advice. Carlos, you should too.

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Alonzo Reply:
May 7th, 2010 at 6:28 pm

I agree with the very 1st post – if you don’t like it don’t use it. The fact that anyone can follow anyone is the whole appeal of Twitter OR you can protect your tweets OR you can just not use it at all. you seem very nice but bad article.

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I liked the 3rd point mentioned by u……. Infact I love to learn from everybody………..:)

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Good morning Misty

This is a great post.
I feel you can learn from any one
but all so if your not using some thing
to manage your followers than it gets
to hard and out of control.

I say to each there own.

Bonnie

http://twitter.com/bonniessquires

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I keep Misty. I keep her not. I keep Misty. I keep her not. I keep Misty. I keep her not.

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Nice simple and sweet post Misty!

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I agree with Heather. What a nice simple and sweet post! Thank you!

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Thank you for your feed backs, I know some people might not agree with everything that we write about, but in my heart for as long as I know that there are people out there that benefits from our experiences and tips, we will push on. Thank you Diana, Heather, Bonnie, Stay Bank, div You guys are amazing and always inspiring

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Bravo! Misty, I believe you are so right (as usual) and we should each decide for ourselves what our policies are regarding who we follow. Just the other day I had an exchange with a follower of mine who distinctly disagrees and believes everyone that is followed should follow back, regardless of whoever the follower in question is or what they fill their Twitter updates with. If he follows someone and they don’t follow him back, he eventually stops following them, or else addresses them and tells them they better start. I told him I celebrated his freedom to have his own policy, but that he should respect mine as well. In any context (social media, life, etc.) whenever we start forcing our beliefs on others we are removing their personal freedom of choice. I think this is fundamentally wrong. I choose to follow people based on who they are and the content and interaction they share. But, as you so succinctly put, to each his or her own! Thanks for the post!

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Misty Belardo Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 7:48 am

Thank you Brian!! I did have the same experience early this week, hence, the reason for sharing. Respect begets respect. We are free to do as we please and should never be subjected to bullying! Love the way you expressed it here though, it was like taking my thoughts exactly and putting them into words! Truly grateful for your insight!

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I think people should use common sense when it comes to following, but should there be rules? Absolutely not. If people follow your pointers Misty they should get along in the Twitterverse just fine.

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What a nice post to read on a Friday! I’m one of those people who follow others on Twitter because I can. I totally agree that you can learn so much from others. My only pet peeve are the ones who follow you just to keep their numbers up. What’s up with that? Still, not many social media forums have the fun quotient like Twitter.

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Another great post, Misty

I have my own little rules that I use to decide whether or not to follow someone, as I think that most people do.

I have to, otherwise my stream would be completely unmanageable, as you pointed out. Yes, the tools help, but part of what makes Twitter a great experience for me is actually being able to keep up with the various (and oftentimes eclectic) posts from the people I follow.

I think the best rule – as you have said – is to use Twitter in the way that works best for you.

Unless you’re a spammer.
Then please don’t use Twitter at all.

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I wrote a similar post today: “To follow or not to follow, that is the question”.

I totally agree with you. Specially when you said that no one should be pressured to follow anyone if they don’t want to. I get from time to time tweets like “I’m following you, follow me back”. Like this is a must.

I always follow back if I find a person interesting or I have something in common with her / him.

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People sure do get their undergarments tangled up about who’s following who don’t they?! I wonder what Twitter would be like if that info wasn’t so public. What if we couldn’t even really see who was following us? We would only base our Twitter experience then on real interactions and the value of the info/exchanges we saw – not on how popular we perceive ourselves to be. How does your Tweeting change (or not) based on who, or how many are following? What’s that quote – ‘dance like no-one’s watching, sing like no-one’s listening, Tweet like everyone’s following?’ Something like that

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loripop326 Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 9:24 am

How about “Tweet like no-one is following.”

I think I like that better.
Seems more real

(Love your comment!)

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Yep, well summarized. Follow back if you want. Only truly follow who is interesting, meaning, you follow them, but only really read tweets from a select group of people you filter out.

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I never could understand why someone would want someone else to follow them if they knew that person had zero interest in the subject matter. What good is it to have 200,000 followers if no one is listening? LOL

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Thanks for this article. I have always felt I could follow whomever I choose. Feeling pressured into following people is like saying you have to be friends with everyone. Following doesn’t guarantee a conversation. I’m sure many others have had great interaction with someone, only to find out you weren’t following them. Or is it just me? Follow who you want, and unfollow those you don’t. Doesn’t make you any less “cool” in my opinion.

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I Follow who I want… I follow celebes with no expectation of them following back due to the high number of followers they already have yet some do respond to my tweets. I can respect that. I also have friends I tweet with all the time. I don’t follow back marketers or API accounts just because there is no social interaction with them and I hope they can respect that. If not to bad. To each their own I say too.
good article THX Misty

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I do not seek followers. I am primarily interested in following info sources and interesting or amusing people, even though I do tweet and the number of people following me has grown.

I would imagine that many of the people I follow would find my tweets boring, so I’m glad they seldom follow back. I certainly do not ask them to follow me. And I suspect some people who stopped following me are people I still follow. That’s OK by me.

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I totally agree. I think you should be able to follow and unfollow whoever you want as long as you don’t use any “auto” tools. I learned recently that I could get suspended if my ratio of follower to following is greater than 1.1:1. I had no idea! I have nothing to sell and don’t spam. I like to continue adding people because I’m always looking for something new and interesting and there are some specific peeps I haven’t been able to find…i cull what I want to read with lists. Now that I know there are all kinds of rules and Twitter Gods are watching me (and you), I have to be careful and keep my ratio down to 1.05-1.06:1. It’s ridiculous. Suspend porn accounts. Suspend spam. But let the normal folks do what they want. I follow-back because I think it’s the right thing to do. Period.

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[...] my own stance for those that have questions. My friend @mistygirlph also had a similar issue and wrote about it last week, which leads me to believe there is still a need for the [...]

Brilliant views on how one should deal with followers on Twitter. Thanks for posting!

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Thank you guys really appreciate your feed backs. Always great to know insights and views from all our readers. What I love about sharing of content and opinion is that we all have something to give, something to share in the conversation. Rock on!

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Yes, misty I agree
There should not be
Rules or ratios!
Twitter should be able to differentiate between spammers and tweeters.

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Interesting article and one worth talking about, as often I hear many talk about how to follow or not follow, then compare it to the Twitter Follow Ratio, once you get more then 2000 you follow… I agree there should be no limits but also understand, having owned and operated a website and e-mail server, the problem with Spam… Twitter does put limits on Follower/following…

But as a user, I think it really depends… I will follow back those I feel have interesting thoughts, posts or similar interests… I don’t follow back everyone… I often get upset at this Follow Ratio, as I have a large number of interests, added to those who probably will never follow back like major News Services… So I have to attempt to balance them, cutting out every few weeks more of my Interests of those who don’t follow back so I might be able to add another who does follow back…

This is often talked about with many in Business and the “Twitter Elite”… In business, some feel it is more about the numbers and then some feel it is more about “Direct Marketing”, aiming your posts to those who might be interested in your services… I have also been in advertising- with Newspapers and Tabloids, they often boast of their numbers of daily/weekly circulation of their printing- but one has to wonder too, just how many of those papers are being used for Puppy training, or at the bottom of a birdcage and where never read… They also don’t talk about the number of papers that they take back that weren’t bought or taken…

If one person has 200,000 followers and another has a following and followers that where truly aimed for direct marketing of only 5000- which is better? I would bet if you ask those who have those large numbers, how many really buy their services, it would be close to the same number the one with the smaller more direct following base has, and they will in the end have less work to…

So I guess it is just a point of view, unless someone has the abilities to truly show which is better for Business…

***I also agree with Ross, if you have nothing positive to say or to add, then don’t post… Quality critique is about the goods and/or bads of an article, not badgering in complaints showing ignorance in the subject

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It’s an important question, Misty, and I think you came to the right conclusion. Twitter is a tool in the hand of the user, to follow however many or few people they wish, for whatever reason.

I personally think the richest experience comes from learning from others with similar interests but, perhaps, different perspectives. Today I was exposed to yet another voice via Twitter, and her name is Misty! Thank you!!

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