Following Up On The Auto-Follow Fiasco

I rarely do this.

But after my last blog post on the idea that Twit­ter is pop­u­lated by drones and fakes, Tiffany Dow posted a spir­ited rebut­tal to my blog post.

A gaunt­let has been thrown down.

I felt com­pelled to respond.

In fact, I posted sev­eral com­ments. But that’s not what I meant when I said “I rarely do this.” (I always love a healthy debate.) What I rarely do is repost my com­ments on its own blog post, which is what I’m doing now.

Why? Because I believe they’re rel­e­vant and impor­tant to this discussion.

So here are some of them, with a few addi­tional edi­to­r­ial com­ments here and there. (Yes, I know this blog post is long, and I apol­o­gize in advance. But I think you’ll find this dis­cus­sion insight­ful, if not some­what interesting.)

First off, I appre­ci­ate other points of view. I’m always open to new ideas and, yes, the pos­si­bil­ity that I might be wrong.

If you’re engag­ing me in a mature, rea­son­able debate, and bring me sen­si­ble and log­i­cal argu­ments to jus­tify the other side of the issue, I will always con­sider it. Always.

I may be a per­son of con­vic­tion, but I’m never too stern to make me so inflex­i­ble that I won’t con­sider the pos­si­bil­ity that I might be wrong. And some­times, I am.

I don’t pre­tend to have all the answers. And it’s also nice to see spir­ited dis­cus­sions and healthy, pro­duc­tive debates based on facts and substance.

In this case, I com­mented on Tiffany’s blog because I wanted to address some of the points she made, which I felt were mis­lead­ing. She also mis­quoted me a few times, per­haps unin­ten­tion­ally, and I wanted to clarify.

By the same token, I wanted to voice some of my con­cerns openly and pub­licly. Because, and keep this in mind, it’s not Tiffany who I’m try­ing to con­vince, here. It’s those peo­ple on the fence who are read­ing my com­ments, think­ing about apply­ing some of these tac­tics I believe to be wrong.

At the very least, I want them to think.

OK, enough pre­am­ble. Here’s the discussion.

Tiffany said: “I believe (auto-​​following is) extremely impor­tant — espe­cially for social mar­keters who are cre­at­ing a fol­low­ing them­selves.” Exactly. I agree.

But would you rather cre­ate a fake fol­low­ing of peo­ple who fol­low you only because you are fol­low­ing them? Or would you rather have peo­ple fol­low you because they are gen­uinely inter­ested in what you have to say?

I ride on the latter.

“In my opin­ion,” she added, “it’s like hav­ing some­one wave ‘hello’ to you and you just stand­ing there star­ing at them. Kind of rude.” This is a myth, and I’ll come back to this.

I fol­low those who make an effort to say “hello” in the first place (by intro­duc­ing them­selves and engag­ing me with an @ reply), and/​or whose tweets I find of value. Not just because they’re look­ing at me or stalk­ing me around the room.

That is kind of rude too, don’t you think?

If you fol­low some­one with the only expec­ta­tion of a fol­low back, with­out any intro­duc­tion or con­sid­er­a­tion, is just as rude in my opinion.

Actu­ally, this point dri­ves me bonkers.

The auto-​​follow pro­po­nents seem to imply that not fol­low­ing back is rude, but to me fol­low­ing some­one expect­ing a fol­low back is just as rude. Why would this be good for the goose and not for the gan­der, as the adage goes?

To me, it’s hav­ing a mis­guided sense of enti­tle­ment.

Do you deserve a fol­low back just because you’re fol­low­ing me? Something’s not right, here. I believe one should earn the fol­low, not extort it.

Tiffany then said, “I don’t have time to scour through and see who’s rel­e­vant and who’s not at that moment.” But, isn’t this exactly what choos­ing your fol­lows does?

In fact, the counter-​​argument the auto-​​follow pro­po­nents have used is, “I will auto-​​follow every­one, and then after­wards choose to weed out and unfol­low the undesirables.”

That’s akin to say­ing, “I’ll allow all the spam in my inbox, and I’ll sim­ply take the time to read them all and delete the unde­sir­ables.” (That’s what spam­mers say in their defense. They say, “If you don’t like my spam, you can just hit the ‘delete’ but­ton!” Ugh.)

Or bet­ter yet, a bet­ter anal­ogy is, “I don’t care about opt-​​in. I pre­fer an opt-​​out pol­icy. I want every­one to spam me. And I’ll sim­ply opt-​​out of all the spam I don’t want to receive.”

To me, that’s a heck­u­valot more time-​​consuming, no?

My time is valuable.

I don’t have time to weed out the undesirables.

That’s why I pre­fer to fol­low only those peo­ple who engage me, and have some­thing worth­while to say in which I find value. I mean, isn’t that what true rela­tion­ships are all about? Or bet­ter yet, isn’t that what a true “fol­lower” does?

The next tid­bit irked me even more.

With regards to my con­tention with the idea that a ben­e­fit of auto-​​follow is that it allows direct mes­sages (DMs) between Twit­ter­ers, Tiffany said, “(Fortin) says he has a sup­port staff for that — and I say, ‘Then get the sup­port staff to respond to those DMs’.”

Sorry to dis­ap­point, but my Twit­ter account is me.

It’s really, really me.

It’s not some ghost­writer, staff mem­ber, or some­one pre­tend­ing to be me.

If some­one gets a direct mes­sage from a staff mem­ber from my Twit­ter account, then that would make all my tweets sus­pect, which defeats the pur­pose of trans­parency and social media (and post­ing per­sonal details on Twit­ter) in the first place, methinks.

She then said, “Do it so that you’re not hurt­ing anyone’s feel­ings or block­ing them from the direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion they deserve as your cus­tomer and prospect.”

Admit­tedly, this shocks me.

Based on that logic, then every­one deserves direct con­tact with me because they’re a poten­tial prospect? Wow. That’s some heck of a sense of entitlement.

First of all, not every­one is my prospect.

Think­ing that every­one who fol­lows me is a prospect is naive.

Sure, some of them may be. But chances are, those peo­ple who fol­low me because they are gen­uinely inter­ested in what I have to say, with­out any expec­ta­tion of return fol­low, are likely real prospects. Prospects for my prod­ucts or ser­vices, not me, that is.

(Sorry, I’m not for sale.)

As I’ve said on Twit­ter, if you don’t have any inter­est in what I have to say, then it’s highly likely that you won’t have any inter­est in what I have to sell, either.

As for the false expec­ta­tion of a direct con­tact, it’s ludi­crous. It’s like say­ing, “Just because I may be inter­ested in Microsoft Win­dows (even if I haven’t bought it yet), I fully deserve to con­tact Bill Gates per­son­ally and privately.”

No, most peo­ple who want to DM me are not my clients, or even prospects for that mat­ter, as implied. (Real clients have other ways to access me, anyway.)

No, peo­ple who want to directly con­tact me, with­out engag­ing me or cul­ti­vat­ing a rela­tion­ship with me, are freebie-​​seekers. Or they expect free advice.

Sorry, but I run a busi­ness, not a charity.

That argu­ment is like say­ing, “If you’re in busi­ness then you must pub­lish your home street address, your mobile phone num­ber, your per­sonal email address, etc. Why? Because we’re your prospects and, by gosh, we deserve it.”

That’s absurd. It’s an open invi­ta­tion to stalk­ing. Plus, you do typ­i­cally get cus­tomer ser­vice from all the big cor­po­ra­tions, no? Even if you can’t DM all their CEOs? Of course, you do. So why would this be any different?

My Twit­ter inbox is just as pre­cious as my time. And if you really wanted to ask me a ques­tion, then why not @ reply with, “I have a ques­tion, where can I ask?” or “could you fol­low me please? I have a ques­tion I wish to DM you about?”

In fact, if you engage me, you enter into a rela­tion­ship with me, and we fol­low each other and are then able to DM each other, then because of that rela­tion­ship I’m not only open to your DM but I also wel­come it and look for­ward to it.

To me, you’re at least mak­ing an effort to intro­duce your­self, and if that were to hap­pen, in many cases I would fol­low back. Either that or do what I can to help you if I can’t do it via DM. Because, yes, that would be the real cour­te­ous thing to do.

“What Fortin fails to real­ize,” said Tiffany, “is that to many new and even sea­soned mar­keters, he is a celebrity in his own right.”

Read Randy Gage’s arti­cle I’ve posted at the end of my ear­lier blog post.

When you are a celebrity, peo­ple are inter­ested in some of the minutia.

Just not all of it.

Besides, I’m too busy serv­ing my clients to waste time post­ing every sin­gle time I sneeze. It’s non­sense. I don’t think peo­ple would be inter­ested in know­ing what I had for lunch — and per­son­ally, I don’t care about hear­ing it from those I fol­low, either.

Again, micro-​​blogging is micro-​​blogging, but it’s still blogging.

You don’t fol­low every­one who com­ments on your blog, do you? But you do reply, and you also choose who to reply to. Why should micro-​​blogging be any different?

She then added, “They just don’t like doing it on Twit­ter, perhaps.”

Of course we do!

But there’s a dif­fer­ence between minu­tia ver­sus post­ing what inter­est­ing book I’m read­ing, what fas­ci­nat­ing web­site I’m vis­it­ing, what new­fan­gled soft­ware I’m testing.

I even post per­sonal things, like songs I love, when my band (in which I am the drum­mer) writes a new song, when my daugh­ter posts pic­tures of her new apart­ment, or when my mother and my wife are strug­gling with the after­ef­fects of their breast can­cer.

But, there is such a thing as “too much information.”

(I would ven­ture to say that those peo­ple who are keenly inter­ested in the minu­tia of my life don’t have a real busi­ness or value their time. But that’s just my opinion.)

I said I’m against “minu­tia,” which doesn’t mean I’m for the com­plete oppo­site, such as “Twit­ter should only be used to post pro­fes­sional, cor­po­rate information.”

No. In fact, I love giv­ing peo­ple an inside look at my life. I love giv­ing peo­ple a chance to see the real me. Me, a human being. Not just a blog­ger, copy­writer, or CEO. It’s about trans­parency, and it’s the basis for cre­at­ing relationships.

And trust.

But there’s a dif­fer­ence between tweet­ing the occa­sional per­sonal blather ver­sus putting a spycam-​​in-​​print in my house like in “Big Brother” fol­low­ing my every move 24/​7. Eek!

“Part of these minute details the Fortins are starv­ing their Twit­ter fol­low­ers from,” Tiffany added, “are the very moti­va­tors that many as yet unsuc­cess­ful mar­keters love to use for inspi­ra­tion.” I not only dis­agree but also vio­lently oppose this notion.

This sense of enti­tle­ment seems to imply as if we’re the wretched ones who are mer­ci­lessly starv­ing these poor folk from that which they so rightly deserve. Huh?

We’re not starv­ing any­one. Peo­ple starv­ing for minu­tia aren’t really starv­ing for details, as was implied. What they’re really look­ing for is free advice. They want a free lunch.

Sorry, but I don’t do free lunches.

Sure, I do post about my inter­ests, my strug­gles, my fail­ures as well as my suc­cesses. Just not every sin­gle, silly lit­tle detail. And that is what I meant.

Again, go back to my blog post. Watch the video from Perry Mar­shall I linked to. It’s very good! In fact, it might make you real­ize why you’re not suc­cess­ful yet, if that’s the case.

She then said, Twit­ter is good because it’s “forc­ing you to choose and use your words care­fully thanks to char­ac­ter limitations.”

Here’s a big­gie. In the same vein, I say Twit­ter should also force you to choose your friends care­fully thanks to char­ac­ter — that’s per­sonal char­ac­ter — limitations.

As an exam­ple of “per­sonal char­ac­ter,” I don’t have the desire to pre­tend to be someone’s fake friend. Being a true friend, or some­one who is gen­uinely inter­ested in what you have to say, is indica­tive of someone’s true per­sonal character.

Now let me be very clear, here.

I don’t mean to say auto-​​following makes you a fake. Not at all.

It’s that the pro­po­nents of auto-​​follow have per­pe­trated this bla­tant myth — i.e., that not auto-​​following makes you a snob or that you’re being rude — pre­cisely because they wanted to cre­ate peer pres­sure so they can build their giant lists.

This ties in with what she said in another com­ment, where she said, “The num­ber (of fol­low­ers you have) doesn’t mat­ter — but social net­work­ing cour­tesy does.”

Fol­low­ing that argu­ment, I guess then you must follow-​​back a crazed, psy­cho­pathic stalker, just because they are fol­low­ing you, as to not appear “rude.”

Er, I don’t think so.

Cour­tesy is a virtue, not some innate right or enti­tle­ment. Said in a dif­fer­ent way, the lack of a follow-​​back doesn’t mean one is being dis­cour­te­ous, either.

And that, ulti­mately, is the myth that’s being wrongly propagated.

Some peo­ple look like they’re heroes when they are fakes, while oth­ers who gen­uinely care about their prospects and clients are made to look like they’re bad people.

And that, to me, is really sad.

Cour­tesy is what intro­duc­ing your­self does. Cour­tesy is what fol­low­ing some­one with no expec­ta­tion does. Cour­tesy is what cre­at­ing, build­ing, and nur­tur­ing a rela­tion­ship does.

There­fore, mak­ing the effort to intro­duce your­self to me is just as cour­te­ous, isn’t it? Why should I be expected to be cour­te­ous and you not? In other words, why shouldn’t you be just as cour­te­ous by intro­duc­ing your­self first in order to earn my fol­low back?

Cour­tesy is a two-​​way street.

And fol­low­ing some­one with the sole expec­ta­tion of a return fol­low is not, in my opinion.

In fact, if you fol­low me with the expec­ta­tion of a fol­low back is just as dis­cour­te­ous if not more so. And being “social” doesn’t mean fol­low­ing or befriend­ing, either. Being engaged in a con­ver­sa­tion is being social, isn’t it?

Tiffany men­tioned that fol­low­ing allows you to see who a per­son really is and if they’re wor­thy of a con­tin­ued fol­low. This assump­tion of fol­low­ing some­one to see what they’re say­ing is B.S. (And it’s part of the myth being per­pe­trated by the auto-​​follow zealots.)

You don’t have to fol­low some­one to see their his­tory of tweets.

Also, Tiffany pointed out that, when I said I don’t do free lunches but since I already offer tons of free advice, then why wouldn’t I fol­low reciprocally?

I think this is ter­ri­bly misleading.

Because I didn’t say that, since I don’t do “free lunches,” I wouldn’t give out free advice. I sim­ply pre­fer to do it on my own terms. There’s a dif­fer­ence between giv­ing free advice when I can, ver­sus giv­ing it on demand.

Tiffany, com­ment­ing on my ear­lier Bill Gates argu­ment, said, “You can bet if I walk into a com­puter store and am about to con­tribute to Mr. Gate’s bank account, he’ll have some­one there — a clerk or whomever — will­ing to answer my questions.”

Yup, I agree. That’s why it’s called a helpdesk.

She then said they deserve my follow-​​back because “they’re con­sid­er­ing invest­ing time and money into you — into what you teach.”

Ahhhh, now there’s the difference.

Peo­ple inter­ested in con­tact­ing me are buy­ing my prod­ucts or ser­vices, not me or my time. That’s why we have a sup­port team, a helpdesk, and a toll-​​free number.

In fact, I find this argu­ment insulting.

The per­son who cre­ated a com­pany or is the voice of the com­pany is not expected to be 100% acces­si­ble to every­one, all the time, just because oth­ers are inter­ested in their prod­ucts or ser­vices, or are merely fol­low­ing them on some social site.

“Hav­ing to ask to be fol­lowed? I doubt most peo­ple would, but what­ever floats your boat,” she added. Well, if you’re sin­cerely inter­ested in get­ting in touch with some­one or their com­pany, wouldn’t you make the effort to do so?

If most peo­ple wouldn’t, as Tiffany said, that’s fine. Because they’re not really inter­ested in con­tact­ing me. But if you asked me to fol­low you specif­i­cally for the pur­pose of ask­ing me a pri­vate ques­tion, I would con­sider it. And yes, some peo­ple have.

And I did.

But if most peo­ple wouldn’t ask me to fol­low them to ask a pri­vate ques­tion, then that pre­cisely under­lines the fact that most peo­ple who would only fol­low me to access me would do so just for the free advice — not for legit­i­mate sup­port or sales questions.

After all, if they make an effort to con­tact me, then they are serious.

Tiffany then said, “I feel like you’re mak­ing peo­ple jump through hoops to con­verse with you on a social site, which to me is not what web 2.0 is all about.”

Yup, it’s not what it’s all about. It’s about encour­ag­ing inter­ac­tion, not demand­ing it or expect­ing it, espe­cially with a mere follow.

Then, she said, “Even celebri­ties stop and sign auto­graphs, you know.”

Again, this is prop­a­gat­ing the same myth.

In this case, it’s that celebri­ties who don’t sign auto­graphs are made to look as if they’re being mean. Some celebri­ties do sign auto­graphs but it doesn’t mean they are oblig­ated to sign all of them, all the time, for all their fans — let alone to fol­low them home.

This is com­ing up alot, and I get a sense that peo­ple who con­tinue to argue this point feel they are enti­tled to my fol­low sim­ply by fol­low­ing me.

No. They are enti­tled to my respect. If they’re a pay­ing client or a prospect, they are also enti­tled to my con­tin­ued sup­port, my pro­grams and ser­vices, and my cus­tomer service.

Big dif­fer­ence, here.

If they do have to “jump through hoops” to con­verse with me, as Tiffany said, then that means they are really inter­ested in meet­ing with me and in what I have to say.

Here’s the most impor­tant point in all this.

The thing to under­stand about this argu­ment is that peo­ple like Tiffany who are gen­uine about their intent with auto-​​follow are giv­ing spam­mers the oppor­tu­nity to have their way.

These spam­mers have zero intent to lis­ten to the peo­ple they fake-​​follow, and give the false, mis­lead­ing impres­sion that they care. They are abus­ing the whole thing.

In fact, they want peo­ple like Tiffany, spread­ing the myth that auto-​​follow equals cour­tesy or “true social net­work­ing.” Because it serves their purpose.

(And won­der­fully too, I might add.)

Some pro­po­nents of auto-​​follow might have good intent, and I respect that. But most peo­ple don’t. They only pre­tend they care — and that, to me, is mis­lead­ing. They are mis­lead­ing not me but their fans, their real friends, and their true prospects and clients.

It’s an out­right dis­ser­vice, in my book.

Heck, I would even ven­ture to say that soft­ware and ser­vices that auto-​​follow and seek out the Twit­ter­sphere for fol­low­ers to auto­mat­i­cally add to their ros­ter is no dif­fer­ent than a spam­bot scour­ing the Inter­net look­ing to scrape email addresses to spam to.

The fact is, if I fol­low some­one, it means some­thing. (At least, it should.)

And if I don’t, it doesn’t mean anything.

And I resent the idea that it does.

Because this is exactly what’s mak­ing many of the good guys/​gals look bad.

To me, that’s very sad.

By the way, dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion Robert Puddy posted this tid­bit: “By being selec­tive you may be miss­ing out on some­one you could gen­uinely become friends with.”

Again, that’s a mis­lead­ing state­ment. If I find some­one I’m inter­ested in know­ing more about, I’ll either fol­low or engage them in a con­ver­sa­tion. I wouldn’t be miss­ing out.

After all, their tweets are pub­lic, and I can eas­ily go back and check their his­tory, their fol­low­ers, who’s fol­low­ing them, top­ics they’re inter­ested in or have tweeted about, etc. I don’t have to fol­low them to learn if they are worth fol­low­ing — let alone not following.

Will I miss out? Maybe. But if I do miss out, that’s a small risk com­pared to the big­ger one of hav­ing to fol­low, then deal­ing, with every­one who you will never be real friends with.

It’s like say­ing, “By being selec­tive with my spam I may be opting-​​out of a spam list which might have a good offer for me down the road a year from now.”

A final word.

One of the prob­lems in this debate is that peo­ple feel they have a sense of enti­tle­ment. I think that’s the real issue, here. (And I per­son­ally find it appalling.)

Peo­ple feel enti­tled to a fol­low back, to access some mar­keter or celebrity, to get free help or advice, etc.

I’m sorry, but those things are earned, not auto­matic. They shouldn’t be taken for granted nor be expected.

What I’m about to say is prob­a­bly the sin­gle most impor­tant con­cept I want to impart onto you in this whole debate.

And it is this…

If you feel enti­tled to any­thing, then you are block­ing your own growth and suc­cess, because you will never feel able to truly earn it. Your delu­sions come out from a scarcity mind­set rather than a pros­per­ity mindset.

Per­son­ally, I find it insult­ing that some­one would feel enti­tled to my fol­low back, let alone to my time or atten­tion, sim­ply because they are fol­low­ing me.

And guess what?

If you really, really, really want to make money in this biz, so should you. (I’m speak­ing to every­one read­ing this blog post.) Yes, so should you feel insulted, stop auto-​​following, and start valu­ing your time, your efforts, your­self, and above all, your real prospects and customers.

If I fol­low you it’s because, and get this…

… I want to fol­low you.

(What a neat con­cept, huh?)

I’m fol­low­ing you because I’m gen­uinely inter­ested in what you have to say.

In fact, auto-​​follow is the exact oppo­site. It’s disin­gen­u­ous.

Remem­ber, Twit­ter itself said it. Not me.

I believe auto-​​follow is killing Twit­ter. Will it die? Prob­a­bly not. (It would be naive of me to think that it would.) But it might become another free-​​for-​​all waste­land like MySpace where every­one wants to be your friend, “just because,” and spam­mers roam freely.

No one, as of yet, has pre­sented me with any log­i­cal, tan­gi­ble, rea­son­able jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to sup­port the whole auto-​​follow argu­ment, let alone per­suaded me.

I’m still all ears. But so far, those who con­tinue to fight this argu­ment are using extra­ne­ous con­cepts, sense­less filler, and irra­tional myths to prove their delu­sions. Such as the mis­guided idea that it’s dis­cour­te­ous or it hurts other people’s feelings.

Actu­ally, this last point is important.

I’m shocked that I’m made to feel respon­si­ble for everyone’s lit­tle insecurities.

And shame on you if you try to make me feel so.

And folks, that’s the myth that’s being prop­a­gated. Espe­cially by spammers.

It’s not my responsibility.

I’m a mar­keter, not a psychologist.

And using this as an excuse?

Oh, please. Grow up.

I guess that’s the same as some­one who loves to receive spam, because get­ting a lot of email makes them feel spe­cial. C’mon on.

Con­tin­u­ing to debate this topic is dif­fi­cult when it’s with peo­ple with a vested inter­est in win­ning such a spe­cious argu­ment — espe­cially if they have, for exam­ple, a prod­uct for sale in which they rec­om­mended auto-​​follow, or have preached about its ben­e­fits, and rather than accept­ing the fal­lacy in their argu­ment or the plau­si­bil­ity in the other, they keep fight­ing in order to save face — then it’s a los­ing battle.

So I give up.

I’ll end this here.

But please, think twice before you fol­low (no pun intended) anyone’s advice. Use your heads. Use logic. Use com­mon sense. And go enjoy Twit­ter in what­ever way you like to.

As @chrisgarrett said so elo­quently, “Tweet peo­ple as you would want to be tweeted.”

About the Author

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