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Written by Michel Fortin
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Twitter Populated By Drones And Fakes?

Twitter Populated By Drones And Fakes?

followme 150x150 Twitter Populated By Drones And Fakes?Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a series of com­men­tary on the con­cept of Twit­ter aut­o­fol­low. After read­ing this post, I rec­om­mend you read the sec­ond one here. Thanks! – Michel Fortin

Twit­ter is a fan­tas­tic mar­ket­ing tool. I love it and I encour­age every­one to get on it. But I do have a warn­ing, because the way some peo­ple use it today is not only wrong, but it can also become poten­tially dan­ger­ous to its survival.

Twit­ter is micro-​​blogging, i.e., blog­ging in a shorter for­mat. It lim­its the posts to 140 char­ac­ters. The rea­son for the limit is, when Twit­ter was first intro­duced it was intended to be used for text-​​messaging (SMS) between mobile phones.

The SMS pro­to­col, along with most phones, limit their mes­sages to 160 char­ac­ters. (Twit­ter reserves the first 20 for usernames.)

I love Twit­ter because, as a copy­writer, it’s also a great tool to force you to be pithy, test head­lines and sub­ject lines, and cre­ate a per­sona around which you build your brand.

How­ever, there’s one thing that seri­ously irks me and my wife, Sylvie Fortin, to no end. That one thing is in the process of destroy­ing one of the best tools to come on the Inter­net since the inven­tion of email. And that’s rec­i­p­ro­cal fol­low­ing.

First, I don’t use Twit­ter for telling my fol­low­ers every bit of minu­tia of my day. I think that’s ridicu­lous and absurd.

If I were a celebrity, sure. Fans love to hear about the daily activ­i­ties of their favorite stars. We live in a voyeuris­tic soci­ety. That’s why real­ity TV shows have exploded, and the whole con­cept of social media along with it.

Auto-​​following is where you auto­mat­i­cally fol­low some­one who fol­lows you. There are many ben­e­fits to rec­i­p­ro­cal fol­low­ing, such as giv­ing your fol­low­ers the abil­ity to send you a pri­vate, direct message.

But to me, auto-​​following is, at its core, no dif­fer­ent than post­ing your web­site URL willy-​​nilly to a bunch of free-​​for-​​all link farms, which was wildly pop­u­lar at the early onset of the Inter­net. And we all know how that turned out to be as a mar­ket­ing tac­tic. ;)

In fact, FFA links only really ben­e­fited the owner of the link farm, because no one came to their web­site with the intent to read or click on those bazil­lion links. They only came to post their own link. And the FFA owner would there­fore be able to build a list they can eas­ily email to.

(Sounds famil­iar?)

I use Twit­ter for busi­ness — not for mar­ket­ing or sell­ing per se, but to share prob­a­bly the most impor­tant aspect in mar­ket­ing, social media, and the Inter­net in gen­eral (in fact, it’s the rea­son the Inter­net exists in the first place).

And that is (hold on tight, here it comes)…

… Infor­ma­tion!

(Crazy, huh?)

Yes, I love to “tweet” about web­sites I’ve vis­ited, which may be of inter­est to my fol­low­ers. I love to post quick tips and links to arti­cles I’ve stum­bled across that I find fas­ci­nat­ing or inter­est­ing. And I love to blog about prod­ucts, soft­ware, and pro­grams I’ve used or dis­cov­ered, which I believe my fol­low­ers would cer­tainly appre­ci­ate know­ing about.

And yes, I do insert from time to time an affil­i­ate link or two. But I wouldn’t post it if I didn’t think it would be of ben­e­fit to my fol­low­ers. My goal is not to make money with micro-​​blogging, or even blog­ging in gen­eral. It’s a byproduct.

But in terms of auto-​​following, I’ve always been against it. And yes­ter­day, I felt vin­di­cated, because I came across this remark­able short video from Seth Godin, who arguably is one of the lead­ing experts on marketing.

In it, Seth addresses the entire “social media for busi­ness” in a sim­ple state­ment. In fact, he did it in less than two min­utes. Basi­cally, he said that busi­ness is built on rela­tion­ships, not on how many fol­low­ers you have.

Seth calls it “fake net­work­ing” as opposed to real net­work­ing. What mat­ters is real rela­tion­ships, the rela­tion­ships you cre­ate, cul­ti­vate, and care about. Not num­bers on a Twit­ter account that only boast how pop­u­lar you are — or try to appear to be.

I believe most peo­ple use auto-​​follow in an attempt to inflate their num­bers, either for pure ego­tis­ti­cal rea­sons, or at most, for spam­ming their followers.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a case in point.

Auto-​​follow is often enabled through var­i­ous third-​​party soft­ware. But Twit­ter once had this fea­ture — some users still have it to this day. Well, just yes­ter­day Techcrunch reported a bit of news in which Twit­ter itself will aban­don the whole auto-​​follow process. And per­son­ally, I think it’s about freakin’ time.

Twitter’s CEO said it beau­ti­fully: “We’re going to dis­con­tinue aut­o­fol­low because this behav­ior sends the wrong mes­sage. Namely, it is unlikely that any­one can actu­ally read tweets from thou­sands of accounts which makes this activ­ity disingenuous.”

When I sent this link to my friend Armand Morin via a dis­cus­sion we were hav­ing within our mas­ter­mind coach­ing group, his reply was noth­ing short of bril­liant. He said…

I totally agree.

I think that is my biggest prob­lem with Social Media Marketing.

Peo­ple are fool­ing them­selves think­ing their num­bers of fol­low­ers or friends is an indi­ca­tion of their poten­tial income generation.

Why would this work?

Most peo­ple are fol­low­ing or becom­ing friends with strangers for two reasons.

1.) They want to build their own “LIST”

2.) They are fol­low­ing these peo­ple with the false illu­sion that they are going to be their “friend” and get FREE mar­ket­ing infor­ma­tion. Which they don’t real­ize is the per­son they are fol­low­ing is only inter­ested in OPTION #1 I listed above.

So are they really on your list want­ing to be mar­keted to?

The answer is obvi­ously no.

Now, I’ve dis­agreed with my friend Ed Dale in the past. But recently, Ed posted a video on the Twit­ter auto-​​follow non­sense, and this time I must whole­heart­edly agree with him.

In fact, just a cou­ple of months ago my wife and I were engaged in a fierce, con­tro­ver­sial debate online about the non­sen­si­cal nature of the whole auto-​​follow process. I want to share with you some of the high­lights from that debate here.

I can­not paste what oth­ers have said for copy­right rea­sons. But let me paste some of my tweets below. Most are from Twit­ter, but some are from Face­book since my tweets are simul­ta­ne­ously posted to my Face­book “wall,” which often gen­er­ate inde­pen­dent con­ver­sa­tions and addi­tional comments.

Under­stand­ably, some tweets are parts of con­ver­sa­tions. So to help you under­stand the con­text, each group of tweets are pre­ceded by a side­note to explain the his­tory behind it and give you some back­ground information.

SIDENOTE: The tweet that started it all…

  • Auto-​​follow? Not me. My phi­los­o­phy is, I fol­low those who reply to @michelfortin as to engage me. It’s like say­ing “Hi!”
  • What’s your fol­los­o­phy?* Auto-​​follow? Fol­low those who reply to you? Fol­low only follow-​​worthy? Fol­low “x” followers?

*By the way, “fol­los­o­phy” was coined by Har­ris Fell­man, not me.

SIDENOTE: Some peo­ple said that NOT auto-​​following defeats the pur­pose of “social media.” Because a bad ratio of “fol­low­ing” vs. “fol­low­ers” means your con­ver­sa­tions are one-​​sided. One even said that non-​​followers who tweet “one way” (i.e., they don’t fol­low as many fol­low­ers) are usu­ally tweet­ing unhelp­ful, “spammy,” or “soap­box” tweets.

I dis­agree.

  • “Help­ful” could also be defined as appre­ci­at­ing other points of view to sup­port or chal­lenge your own. Even soap­box tweets.
  • I said this many times, would you auto-​​follow every­one who propo­si­tions you in a bar? (Rhetor­i­cal ques­tion. Don’t answer, LOL!)
  • Twit­ter is the Internet’s water cooler. At least you know the peo­ple you work with to talk with them at the cooler.
  • Lately there’s an onslaught of peo­ple who clearly use auto-​​follow so they can claim “I have a huge list”. It’s B.S.
  • Ulti­mately, it seems to me that auto-​​follow is one per­son pre­tend­ing to lis­ten, and it seems fake and insincere.
  • It’s like “I’ll show you mine *IF* you show me yours.” Paul Myers said it best, “Inter­net mar­keters are a bunch of inces­tu­ous cannibals.”
  • With social media, peo­ple have a dis­torted sense of what “friend” means. An acquain­tance, a con­tact, or a fan, doesn’t make them a “friend.”
  • Same with Face­book. I add friends who add a mes­sage to their friend requests. They make an effort to intro­duce themselves.
  • I ignore sim­ple friend requests, espe­cially if they’re peo­ple I don’t know. Which is the point!
  • Most peo­ple on Face­book, who add you as a friend with­out any intro­duc­tion, are usu­ally net­work­ers who want to pitch you their “opportunity”.
  • Face­book caps their friends lists to 5,000 because it’s vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble to have 5,000 “friends.” Think about it.
  • Once you’ve reached Facebook’s limit, they tell you to start a fan page instead so peo­ple can become fans, not friends.
  • Facebook’s pol­icy is clear: you can­not use a per­sonal pro­file for pro­fes­sional or pro­mo­tional pur­poses. I know, they’ve told me.
  • If you want to enter a con­ver­sa­tion, use hash­tags or @ replies, not auto-​​follow.
  • Twit­ter is a big cock­tail party*. You don’t fol­low every­one in the room who merely looks at you.

*By the way, “cock­tail party” was some­thing my wife coined sev­eral months ago, way before Seth Godin men­tioned it on that video I posted ear­lier. Back to the tweets…

  • We need to dis­tin­guish con­ver­sa­tional vs. social media. Being in a crowded bar doesn’t mean you’re being social.
  • Con­versely, being in a crowded bar and talk­ing to no one doesn’t mean you’re being anti-​​social, either.
  • Watch­ing every­one in the bar inter­act­ing with one and other doesn’t mean you’re lis­ten­ing in on every con­ver­sa­tion, too.

SIDENOTE: Some have tweeted that “auto-​​follow” is a way to intro­duce your­self, like a “hand­shake.” They say you should auto-​​follow to be approach­able. I disagree.

  • Auto-​​follow is NOT an intro­duc­tion. A dis­cus­sion or con­ver­sa­tion IS. It’s all about RELATIONSHIPS.
  • Which is why I pre­fer to fol­low those who reply me, because they’re mak­ing an effort to intro­duce themselves.
  • I *am* approach­able. That’s why I’ll respond to tweets with @ reply to me. I might even fol­low them.
  • But I won’t auto­mat­i­cally fol­low peo­ple who sim­ply fol­low me with­out say­ing a word.
  • Hand­shake? If a ser­ial killer shakes your hand, would you befriend them? Not unless you get to know them first.
  • Yes, auto-​​follow is creepy. To me, any­way. I’m not against it, it’s just not my phi­los­o­phy. I don’t like it.
  • Hon­estly when fol­low­ing thou­sands, the only way to have a con­ver­sa­tion is via the @ reply!
  • But not auto-​​following doesn’t mean it’s one-​​sided! Want to enter a con­ver­sa­tion with me? Just @ reply to me. Simple.
  • TV or radio are one-​​sided. Twit­ter is muti­fac­eted by its very nature — fol­low or not. Hash­tags is a great exam­ple of this.
  • Peo­ple who fol­low you (with­out an expec­ta­tion of a return fol­low) are gen­uinely inter­ested in what you have to say.
  • I’d rather have hun­dreds of real, seri­ous fans who care, than thou­sands of curi­ous onlook­ers who don’t.

SIDENOTE: One said that auto-follow’s sin­gle ben­e­fit is the abil­ity to direct mes­sage (DM) each other. I agree, which is pre­cisely why I don’t auto-​​follow. Here’s what I mean…

  • Bot­tom line, I fol­low those who make an effort to intro­duce them­selves to me and whose tweets are valuable.
  • Return fol­lows grant you access via DM. I don’t like that. I pay a sup­port staff to han­dle stuff like that.
  • If I fol­lowed thou­sands of peo­ple, I’ll get bom­barded with DM’s and sup­port requests.
  • It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t have time answer­ing DMs, which takes my atten­tion away from serv­ing my pay­ing clients.
  • If I don’t respond to DMs by say­ing “please con­tact sup­port,” which is time-​​consuming, I’ll be accused of not lis­ten­ing anyway.
  • Peo­ple who auto-​​follow and want to DM are look­ing for free advice. A free lunch. I don’t do free lunches.
  • Here’s a great article/​video by @perrymarshall to explain why I, too, don’t do free lunches: http://​is​.gd/​g​o5P
  • Would you sub­scribe to everyone’s blog who com­ments on yours? Of course not. Micro-​​blogging is no different.
  • I don’t sub­scribe to everyone’s blog who com­ments on mine. But I do reply to their com­ments. Twit­ter is micro-​​blogging. But it’s still blogging.
  • Again, I fol­low peo­ple because I want to FOLLOW them. Not because of an expec­ta­tion of a return follow.
  • Social media is about inter­ac­tion. Dis­cus­sion. Con­ver­sa­tion. Hence “social.” Not rec­i­p­ro­cal STALKING.
  • Final note, if I fol­lowed a gazil­lion peo­ple, I still won’t know you exist… unless you intro­duced your­self to me with @ reply.
  • Besides, I know you exist when you @ reply me (that’s what I mean by fol­low­ing after you approach me). That’s what I do.

SIDENOTE: Some peo­ple said that if the “gurus” don’t auto-​​follow, you can’t access them. You bought their prod­uct, and there­fore you have every right to access them. They say that, if they don’t fol­low back their cus­tomers, their deliv­er­ing bad cus­tomer ser­vice. I’m not only dis­agree­ing with this, I’m also disgusted.

  • Just because you bought someone’s stuff doesn’t give you access. Do you expect Bill Gates to fol­low you if you bought Microsoft Windows?
  • Pre­cisely. It’s about rela­tion­ships. I mean, would you auto-​​follow every­one who propo­si­tions you in a bar?
  • It’s like being in a crowded sta­dium, when everybody’s talk­ing at once, and pre­tend­ing that you’re lis­ten­ing to what every­one is saying.
  • Yes, friends have dis­cus­sions. It’s like being on stage at a sem­i­nar vs. being at the back hav­ing a 1-​​on-​​1.
  • Exactly. Look at it this way, would you respond to every piece of junk mail with a let­ter say­ing “thank you for mail­ing me!”?
  • Fol­low­ers can either be a “fan” or a “friend.” That’s the point about “fol­low­ing” in the first place.
  • I FOLLOW because I’m inter­ested in WHAT that per­son has to say. I don’t fol­low sim­ply because I want that per­son to fol­low back!
  • I’m THEIR fan. I fol­low with no expec­ta­tion. That’s the point. There’s a dif­fer­ence between “fan” and “friend.”
  • Right. You fol­low? You’re a fan. I fol­low back? You’re a friend. I don’t want fol­low­ers. I want fans.

SIDENOTE: Chris Bro­gan, who fol­lows as many peo­ple who fol­low him (and that’s in the sev­eral tens of thou­sands), said to me that if you don’t aut­o­fol­low, you appear as a snobby bas­tard, so there’s no win­ning. My answer…

  • It’s all in the intent. There’s uncon­di­tional rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion. And then there’s extortion.
  • I guess I’d rather be per­ceived as a snobby bas­tard who doesn’t care than a lying one who fakes that he does.;)

What do you think?

Finally, I’ll leave you with one of the best posts on the sub­ject of Twit­ter. Copy­writer Randy Gage, who I’ve been fol­low­ing for many years, posted one of the best man­i­festos on the use, pur­pose, and ben­e­fits (and down­sides) of Twit­ter I’ve ever read.

UPDATE: Click here to read the follow-​​up post.

About the Author

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker, and consultant. Visit his blog and signup free to get blog updates by email, along with response-boosting tips, tested conversion strategies, the latest news, free advice, additional resources, and a lot more! Go now to http://www.michelfortin.com. While you're at it, follow him on Twitter.

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Tags: Blog, copywriter, follow, Internet marketing, marketer, marketing, selling, social, social networking, twitter
This post was written on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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  • Hiya Michel

    I was going to buy you a coffee until I saw that you don't support Tim Horton's ..... shame on you! That coffee will just have to wait until I come to Ottawa in the summer...All good wishes to you and to Sylvie

    SUZE
  • Good post albeit a bit long.

    I turned off auto follow a couple of weeks ago and also turned off the "here's my gift" message that was in the auto-tweet.
  • Definitely linking to this. I have my whole FB spam thing up and this complements it perfectly.
  • Excellent article, Michel. I tried auto-follow once and promptly turned it off. I had followed a bunch of people I really didn't want to follow! Plus, it made it difficult to keep up with the people I actually DO want to follow.

    As I've tweeted multiple times, I'd rather have 500 followers who are genuinely listening than 10,000 who don't read/hear a single word I say.

    Ryan
  • Mel Menzies
    Quite agree! You've voiced a grievance I've long felt - that simply building lists is a vaccuous and dehumanising practice. No - I can't possibly *know* all my 500+ followers, but adding them gradually gives me a far better chance of interaction with them than a cynical quest for numbers at all cost and at all speed. I suppose Prince Charles' comments about buildings which are out of proportion to humans is a parallel: *list-building* on social networks should follow the same gradual parabola as the building of a real-life off-line customer base.

    Thanks for this Michael.
    Mel Menzies, author of A Painful Post Mortem
  • I've been hemming and hawing about auto-following and auto-DM for awhile now. I never went with the auto-follow route because of some of the points you mentioned above and I recently stopped the auto-DM feature. Although I understand the arguments for both in the end for me Twitter is about building relationships vs. just adding followers. In the end that is why I stopped visiting MySpace because about 99% of the "friend" requests were just bogus. I would hate to see Twitter go down that road.
  • Hear, hear Michel!

    Loads of great points in this rant. May it be tweeted far and wide...

    Sheila
  • Michel - Recent article on Techcrunch points to auto-follow being disabled on Twitter and possibly throug third-party api. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/31/twitter-to...

    Also, you are not limited to 140 characters on Twitter, you can actuall send a "SUPER TWEET" of up to 250 characters. http://einfo.blogspot.com/2009/03/supertweet-wh...
  • Great article Michel. When I was starting on twitter and didn't really get it, I used an autofollow and auto-dm. Quickly learned that I didn't like getting auto DMs, so I'm sure most of my followers felt the same.
    The autofollow thing ended quickly for 2 reasons: 1- there are just too many spammers on twitter now, and 2- a lot of my followers weren't talking about anything that I was interested in having a conversation about. Hey, that's great that they're interested in what I'm tweeting about, but that doesn't mean what they say holds the same interest to me. They're free to engage me with an @ reply and maybe I'll follow, but twitter isn't about reciprocity, it's about conversation and relationships.

    Dave
  • Brilliant, Michel! Couldn't agree more.

    Your post actually had me over on Ed Dale's blog looking at his video. I'll say here what I just posted there: "Yes, it's gotten out of control. I just turned off my auto-follow. Been thinking about if for the last month, but you just helped me to make the final call."

    'Nuff said.

    ~JP
  • Shanika Journey
    Very strong and direct article.
    Think many people should definitely read it.
    I have never used auto follow. I don't really believe in it, but it is crazy to hear how some people use the feature and in a way "abuse" the social marketing atmosphere.
    Worth the retweet.
  • Michael, I couldn't agree with you more, twitter is a huge place that everyone is vying for a piece of the 15 minutes of fame. Isn't it strange how ever shred of integrity, decency and politeness has slipped away from our "web 2.0 world" and gone into a shouting match.

    It's funny how people will follow anybody online yet when they are presented with something offline, people freak out because they have become attached to a virtual form of reality. Actual face to face and relationships for many are for lack of a better term obsolete.

    Which brings me to another point, If we are all following anyone, tweeting anything and revealing our souls to anyone who wants to catch a glimmer of someone Else's day when do we have time for our regularly scheduled program . I recently found a video on Glen Burkes website and it was so hysterical I had to share it with you http://www.glennburks.com/blogs/glenn/anybody-r...

    Make it a fantastic day...
  • I'm only following about 11 or so people on Twitter even though I have quite a few followers now. You're right, it's about who you want to pay attention to, not some kind of unspoken bond.

    But seriously, this post had a TON of repeating statements and information. Sounded kinda schitzo, too with all the "Right." "Exactly." etc that sounded like you were talking to yourself or some invisible person across the room :)
  • Excellent article as always. I look to see who is following me and if their profile matches my interests I will follow them, otherwise I ignore them. People with 1,000's of followers cannot and will not read your tweets, and your tweets quickly get lost in the flotsam and jetsam of twitterville.

    Mahalo
  • After I posted that, I went back and caught the part about Twitter turning autofollow off anyway. Nice. (Missed that previously.)

    NOW, can they put a ban on anyone discussing how many followers they have and how many more they need to reach X amount? Drives me crazy.

    The people who I see "tweeting" constantly -- like every time I log on -- many of them are beginning to seem like nothing more than the little mascot behind Twitter: the BIRD. As in they appear flighty -- flittering about chirping and yapping, but at the end of the day, saying absolutely nothing of importance except "look at me!" Narcissism is ugly.

    And I completely agree with Seth Godin's point about fake networking: These "relationships" people say they are building. UM...we're on the Internet. Much of this "networking" is like building a house of cards. Not a whole lot of substance to many of these relationships. As I said earlier, it's out of control -- and for many people, it's proving to be nothing more than a means of procrastination and a time suck.

    ~JP
  • I have never used autofollow prefering to take a few minutes and look at the profile of one who has followed me. Someone doing product or affiliate spamming does not get followed. That includes those who do a stream of tweets bordering on nonsence. I don't understand why they followed me in the first place.

    Lately I have started un-following indivudals who posts are primarily re-tweets (RT). Some RTs are helpful. But when you see over 50% of the tweets are RT then its of limitied value. Plus as frequenhtly as some folks tweet (and RT) you know that they are most likely not doing the tweeting themselves. So where is the value?

    Great post as always Michel.

    John
  • @Greg Thompson - I understand, Greg. But I didn't want to post entire conversations, since many were responses within various conversations.

    It sounds disjointed, I know. But some of my responses (and some of those who were part of the conversations) were brilliant. Which is why I prefaced that section of my rant by saying that I'm only posting some tweets/responses instead.

    Glad you agree, though. And thanks for commenting.
  • Hi,

    Mike Beletro from Marketing TNT here.

    The real problem is imho not "autofollow" or not.

    It's the more or less absurd and unreflected utilization of the concept of "relationship marketing" in Internet Marketing.

    Relationship marketing might work well for instance in a defined business-to business marketing context, where a (key)account manager bonds with a group of major clients ( which are limited in numbers).

    But Internet Marketing ( i don't talk about coaching etc here) is mostly a numbers game and aims to reach a lot of prospects / buyers etc. (scalable business).

    Now ask yourself how many close friends and non-superficial relations to others do you have in your "offline life"?

    Bonding and nurturing a relation takes time and effort, and as our time is limited, so will be the numbers of true and valuable relationships we can have.

    Technology, the Internet, Microblogging, Twitter etc. won't change that.

    Oh yes, you can have a big list or thousands of followers etc. But how many of these people do you really know. To how many of them can you really relate?

    And too how many of them could you - as Internet Marketer - really "provide value"?

    In the end, isn't your aim just the opposite?

    Aren't you just trying to break their sales resistance by pretending to be (not only an "expert" in whatsoever niche) a "friend" whose expertise and recommendation they can trust.?

    While all the time your final goal is to get them draw their credit card and "provide value" to you ...

    Wake up Internet Marketers, stop playing "Trojan horse" and start using your brain instead.

    I still have hope we'll see some genuine thoughts and concepts in Internet Marketing in the future. Instead ending up as a bunch of monkeys mimicking each other to dead, filling up the inernet with auto-generated information garbage ...
  • Michel,

    I couldn't agree more.

    I am an unapologetic Twitter Snob. Not cuz I'm a rude guy but because my time is valuable. I don't have time to listen to 3000 people. Neither does anybody else who has a real career. All this autofollow nonsense will be a quaint memory of the late 00's, just like FFA pages of 10 years ago.

    Yin: Each new media grows faster than the previous ones. We've all heard the stories about how it took XXX years for Radio to get 100 million people and then XX years for TV and only X for the Internet.

    Yang: Each new media matures faster than the previous ones. There's always a shakeout and it'll come within a year for Twitter.

    Perry Marshall
  • Hoooray! I was waiting for the day that I would be able to disagree with you. I LOVE autofollowing!
    I'm a bit of a passive twitteree. I actually like to see the daily additions of followers and enjoy to follow their exploits.

    Autofollow is a great and painless way to expand my universe of reality. I get all sorts of people ( most of whom would take some time explaining to my wife) sending me a wide variety of content. I don't know how they found me, but so far, am glad that they did.
    Oh yes I am savvy to all the economic/marketing schemes. But underneath it all there are humans, reaching out to connect. And, if I may say so, in ways that are VERY different than anything I have explored....to date.

    Still love both of you....
    Colin
  • I think you're spot on Michael. I switched off autofollow a long time ago. I almost want to have a sign on my twitter profile saying "please only follow me if you're interested in what I have to say - not if you want me to follow you back".

    UK comedian Dave Gorman (author of the book Googlewhacked & others) wrote on similar vein recently recounting his ludicrous experience at ending up with furious followers threatening him because he hadn't followed them back: http://gormano.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-twitte...

    Ian
  • Another great rant!

    I was wondering why I auto-followed, probably because I thought it was the polite thing to do. I have now turned it off.
  • I started out using these principles and then started to get the idea I was wrong. Your article confirms everything I inately thought but had begun to doubt. What a relieft! But honestly I could not have said it better than you. I never used auto-follow but I did actually have over a month's worth of unanswered "Follow" notifications and for a while I did start trying to answer them all. I was trying to at least just check the profile to see if it was a real person who might share similar interests, not a jerk, not a spammer, etc ... but honestly it takes too much time!

    Originally I didn't even bother, if someone was following me out of the blue I just said "okay, fine, follow me. I will follow the people who's tweats I am curious about!" Then in the last couple of months I started to doubt.

    Another thing I really don't like is auto-DMs. Especially when they are written to confuse or trick you as to whether they are real or not. "You have a very interesting life, I can't wait to find out more about you." Such BS.

    I think the bottom line is that BS and Social Networking just don't mix in the long run. It can only last for just so long.
  • @Perry Marshall - Thanks, Perry. I think you are among the few people I follow, and the even fewer I admire, trust, and deeply respect in this business. If anyone wants to follow anybody worthy of learning from, it's definitely Perry Marshall.

    http://www.perrymarshall.com/
  • Michel,

    You are right-on as usual, and it's long been a gripe of mine too. Worse, are the ones who think because you opted to follow them that you want lots of follow-up emails. *ugh*

    Personally, I've never adopted the auto-follow thing - I manually accept/choose/follow each person and I agree about using the @you function.

    Thank you for a great post - wish I could buy you coffee but I can't even buy my own right now... but I'm not giving up!! God has shown me over and over that when one door closes, a better one opens up down the road. :)

    My very best to you and Sylvie - you are both 'aces' in my book. I wish I could meet you both some day, and perhaps it will become possible.

    Blessings,
    Donna
  • I agree entirely! I am not on twitter to sell anything, pimp anything or to gain a 'list'. I am on twitter to develop relationships based on my interests. Period. As it happens, I follow both you and Sylvie because you give me value for following, but I am under no illusions you would follow me - unless one of your pet cats (or dogs) are in trouble. That is my expertise. The people I follow, I generally have some kind of relationship with. If they need info from me, I give it. The folks who follow me, get the same benefit.

    I sometimes let my followers know about a new blog post. But they are not required, once in my blog site to do anything other than learn or experience. I have unique knowledge which I choose to freely share.

    I always look at new followers. If they are seemingly, only marketing, I don't re-follow. Sometimes I get a follower that looks interesting and I do follow back. Nothing is automated though. I need to know that there is the possibility of a relationship, before I follow back.

    Once I find that someone I have followed is only in 'Marketing Mode', I unfollow. I'm sorry - but I get spam in my inbox, spam on the phone, spam in my snail-mail box. So when I can actually choose to block spam - twitterspam is the first to go. Whoo Hoo!

    When I do eventually get into marketing mode, I will always choose 'relationship marketing' verses 'spam marketing'. You and Sylvie, and a few others, will be my model then.
  • H Michel,

    I couldn't agree more.

    I thought it was a bloody stupid feature for all of the above reasons.

    What I find almost as bad, is spending an entire day following random twitter-ers just so they will follow you.

    A few of my colleagues have come to me recently saying, "I just got 1000 followers today"!

    When I asked, " Wow! Great... How did you do that"?

    The response is. "I followed a bunch of people from so-and-so's follow list and most of them auto-followed me".

    So my reply is, "Oh... how lame..." (and then they wonder what "my" problem is with that)

    Thanks for the rant and giving me some vindication on the issue.


    Cheers,

    Mark.
  • Hello Michael -

    You have a thorough, well-thought out and written article. Thanks. I disagree.

    Your main premise is that auto-following is somehow not in the best spirit of this social tool, because it is fake networking. Here are some counter points:

    1. Your case rests on the premise that Twittering is completely about networking. How about just research? Suppose, for example, I am interested in "tuning in" to people's thoughts about establishing an LLC, so I auto-follow those passionate souls putting out relevant ideas. Where's the harm in that?

    2. What about using auto follow to seek out like minded individuals with whom you wish to engage? I mean, come on Michael, your argument sounds a bit like asking everyone to introduce themselves -- personally -- before entering a chat room. Even in the real world, sometimes you enter a party place and choose people to talk with by their demeanor -- and choose not to speak with others after overhearing their comments without meeting them. Why not in Twitter? And how would I gauge people's "twitter value" without auto-following for a while?

    3. Where's the foul? Suppose I auto-follow a couple hundred folks talking about entrepreneurial issues regarding forming an LLC, then decide to ween that number back to the thought leaders I can see have value-- for me. How does that harm anyone? Where's the beef?

    Bottom line: I agree that spammy advertisers and unscrupulous types using the auto-follow techniques are not desirable. But I think you have missed a number of ethical, practical, and helpful ways to use the service. I don't get it -- can't you just "unfollow" those who are not presenting what you want?

    Scott
    WebFadds.com
  • Amen to this Michel!

    Thankfully this is only in the IM niche. In the sweeter, truer niches I have yet to see it.

    I am really happy to see you talking about it, reporting on it. A great read.

    Cheers, Laura
  • I see no reason to follow many people. Not when you can subscribe to search twitter or use tweetdeck to track converstaions and questions. I track for example wordpress questions myself and try to give help when I can.
    I also follow more people than I have in my follows list using TweetDeck and Search.
    Probably gonna clean my follows list again.
  • @Scott Frangos - Scott, I appreciate your comment. But here's where I digress with your points. Let's take a look at each one:

    You said, "How about just research?"

    Must you follow everyone who follows you for research purposes? Do you absolutely have to follow an equal number of people who follow you simply because they have relevant ideas on a specific topic?

    Again, as I stated, that's why you have hashtags and @ replies that do the same thing. You can use search, summize, tweettrends, twistori, and a great number of awesome websites/services out there that do exactly what you propose, and then some, without having to auto-follow everyone.

    You said, "What about using auto follow to seek out like minded individuals with whom you wish to engage?"

    Isn't "auto follow" and "seek out" complete opposites? When you auto-follow, you don't really "seek out" at all. In fact, what happens if you auto-follow just a bunch of spammers who have no interest in you, no interest in a relationship with you, or no interest in telling you what you want to know? They are not only redundant, but they can also become detrimental.

    "I mean, come on Michael, your argument sounds a bit like asking everyone to introduce themselves -- personally -- before entering a chat room."

    Wrong. When you use "Twitter" you are in effect in the chat room already. Many people just lurk and listen. Others engage in the conversation. That's what the @ reply does on Twitter. And, like in a chat room where you have the ability to add individuals in your contact list, you can engage them one-on-one. But you don't automatically add everyone in the chat room, immediately upon entering it, to your contact list.

    You said, "sometimes you enter a party place and choose people to talk with by their demeanor (...) and choose not to speak with others after overhearing their comments without meeting them."

    Right! Precisely.

    You don't automatically follow them. You CHOOSE who to talk to, even if it's just by their demeanor. But if you automatically follow them BEFORE you get a chance to at least hear what they say, are you not removing that choice?

    Another way to look at it, based on what you're saying, is, auto-follow EVERYONE in the party place and choose NOT to talk to them by their demeanor.

    Which ties in with what you said, "Can’t you just “unfollow” those who are not presenting what you want?"

    Sure. But that's work, isn't it? My time is valuable. Especially if you have thousands of people following you. Your statement isn't any different than saying, "if you don't want my spam, then you can simply hit the 'delete' button." Ugh.

    Spam is spam is spam.

    "Where the beef?" The beef is that, like spam, it clogs the twittersphere. It becomes one big noisy stadium in which you appear as if you care when you don't. And, as Twitter itself stated, it's against the very nature and intent behind Twitter in the first place.

    When you try to game something online, chances are it will: 1) become expensive since they now have to charge for it in order to reduce the noise-to-signal ratio, 2) change their algorithm to circumvent the gamers, or 3) die altogether.

    My 3 cents.

    Anyway, glad you posted your comment. I appreciate you.
  • Michel, this is brilliant. The math of Twitter has always bothered me. Once everyone is following everyone, won't that negate, or at least minimize the value of the site? My guess is that we're looking at Twitter 1.0 and at some point they'll be a critical mass backlash. All the folks who are now in the list building mode will start looking for a more intimate experience and the next great social media thing will be born. Meanwhile, it's a fun ride. We live in very interesting times!
  • I completely disagree on this one. I don't think autofollow is the problem, it's people abusing the autofollow is the problem, but at the same time people still abuse the manual follow. I could see where auto DM could be a problem and DM inbox filler, but that's where the real problem lies.

    Terrance Charles
    www.terrancecharles.com/blog
  • Took way too long to make your point. I thought you said one of the things Twitter was good for was teaching you brevity. ;)

    Once you get to the point that you've got several thousand followers you will get hundreds of new followers or even thousands of new followers a day. How do you propose that someone who finds lots of people interesting enough to follow go about manually vetting 500 or more new followers a day?

    With your plan, either you only follow friends and people you know or you follow no one because there sure isn't any way to manually weed through hundreds of followers a day finding the gems. I guess that's why you only follow a couple hundred. The problem is that I wouldn't follow you because I don't think you're any more interesting than lots of other people but mainly because I know you wouldn't follow me back and frankly, I ain't following anyone that doesn't follow me back. How many people do you think won't follow you because you don't follow back or unfollow you when you don't?

    We all have different priorities and uses for Twitter but it bugs me when people preach absolutes like their in charge or something. Oh, and auto following isn't going to kill Twitter so that over-the-top statement made for shock value is rubbish.

    BTW, I don't auto follow but I do use TweetLater's semi-auto vetting tool which allows me to vet a hundred followers in a matter of a few minutes. I can auto reject the ones with no avatars, no updates in the last x amount of days, and several other criteria. That way I can follow most of the people who follow me but know that I'm not following spammers and idiots.
  • Originally Posted By Hugh Birss
    How many people do you think won't follow you because you don't follow back or unfollow you when you don't?


    Only those who don't care what I have to say.

    And that's fine with me.
  • @Michel Fortin -

    I started following Michel becuase I wanted to see what he had to say. If he followed me back great, if not that was OK. The same reason I read this blog, for the value.

    John

    PS. got to love these comments.
  • I've been telling people for a couple of years that having internet "friends" on these sites is NOTHING like having an email list.. I've seen so many people trying to build a business on "friending" tactics and it's plain goofy and a waste of time.

    Sure, I'll follow back someone who looks like they are doing something cool. As long as the guy isn't masquerading as a hot chick or just tweeting random affiliate links I'm pretty open to giving a person a shot at checking out their tweeting... but if they tell me what they ate for breakfast or otherwise behave in an idiotic fashion too many times they are gone.

    Twits indeed.
  • This is hilarious. You're complaining about people using Twitter in ways that bug you and yet I just got your email spam. Where in the world is it disclosed that by posting a comment on your blog I've somehow opted in to receive your email? You think that's okay but auto following on Twitter is bad. Talk about double standards.
  • @Hugh Birss - Hugh, it's right below the comments box you filled out, which is checked. You can uncheck it before hitting the submit button.

    But don't worry, I've unsubscribed you. Just make sure, if you comment again, to uncheck the box where it says "subscribe to blog updates, news, and more?" on the bottom left (right beside the submit button).

    Thanks.
  • @Terrance Charles - Right, but auto-follow doesn't mean automated. You can manually follow people back, and it's still auto-follow.

    To be more specific, the point, which was better said by Ed Dale, is "follow me and I'll follow you."
  • I just found out about auto-following today. I chose to link to one person, and suddenly dozens of people wanted to be my "friend". I checked out a few of these people - a couple had 65,000 "friends". It makes no sense.

    My response is like yours: I don't want 65,000 people cluttering up my inbox.

    Also, like you, I don't want to hear what people had for breakfast, if they floss their teeth, and so on and so forth. What's the point, except to turn people off?
  • Interesting to see how much twitter, twitter is causing. Never used the auto follow, if you want to follow, great, if not, great. No love lost.

    So much for all the twiterature that's been flooding the IM arena. How many things can you possibly do with this thing anyway? Whatever.

    Hey Michel, you're not a celebrity? I'm sorry, I only follow celebs ;-)


    Thanks for the article and the consistent value you provide.
  • How many Twitter apps are getting around now to facilitate all this (and worse) as well. It's such a waste of time.

    It will all be a thing of the past soon when the Twitter rules change yet again.

    I agree with everything you mentioned in your post.

    I only follow those that I deem are worthy of listening to, and that I know give value with their Tweets and hence value my time as a reader.

    That being said, Michel I'll now start following you.

    Aaron
  • I totally agree Michel. About 3 weeks ago I stopped auto-following because it really didn't make much since in the whole realm of things. I lost about 120 followers but that's alright because now I understand and know that I'm building more, sustaining relationships.

    ~Mike S.
  • Michel,

    Thanks for ranting (on my behalf - LOL!). You asked "what's your follosophy?" Below is my response....

    TWITTER:
    I too am using Twitter for business. I do not auto-follow. I manually follow back if the person shares my background and interests (based on profile, URL or last page of tweets). But also if someone I respect and know (b/c I've been tweeting with them) recommends the person on #followfriday. Granted they need to provide a reason other than "they're great". I believe in mindful following not mindless following! Often I send a note like "my friend @recommender suggested I follow you." Then I make a comment that shows we share XYZ in common. This is all within one tweet. I also follow someone if we've had an interesting exchange on Twitter or they @ me.

    When I first joined Twitter I unknowingly got excited because a few large-following tweeps wanted to follow lil' ol' me. Yeah right! Now when someone with 5-digit followers initiates a follow, I laugh and ignore. It'd be different if they said 'hello'. But instead, I perceive them as fishing for another pair of eyeballs to read their tweets. Don't they have enough? After 2 days of ignoring they unfollow me.

    I'm always looking for better ways to manage my relationships and cultivate specific ones much more deeply. Dave Stech talks about the Power of 6: "Doing fewer bigger deals with fewer better people" to get leverage. And unless you connect, engage and interact with your followers, you may just miss out on a win-win-win opportunity (you, them and the client).

    FACEBOOK:
    Like you, I use Facebook to develop relationships. You're going to laugh at this...in one day I received 30 "add a friend" invites. A few from big-name internet marketers. Funny! How can I even begin to know if we're compatible when you never told me what we share in common. It's like shoving a business card in my face and leaving, without even saying hello and introducing yourself (that's how it feels to me).

    My apologies for the long response and appreciate you allowing me to indulge, especially since this is my first comment to your blog community!

    Cheers,
    Marian
  • @Julie Perry - Dead right! I'm so frustrated with what x had for lunch, where y is flying to tomorrow and what colour hairball z's cat sicked up. Sadly, several people I follow who I believe have a lot of good things to say fill up my mailbox with the sort of info only a loving grannie would be interested in. If I want the interesting stuff, I have to wade through the mush. Maybe like grannie, I have to just be thinking "that's nice dear" and wait patiently for the good bits.
  • I love Seth Godin's comments about building relationships. I also know that Dell put a special coupon on Twitter and saw a 50 million dollar increase in their computer sales. I am sure this would not have been possible with just relationship building. There is something to be said in today's world for numbers. At any one point in time, only 3% of the population is ready to buy a particular product with 7% more considering a purchase. Compare 3% of 100 verses 3% of 1000. That makes a huge difference in sales!
  • Fantastic, Michel.

    Now, for your next post, share your thoughts on 'Automated DM' on Twitter.

    I did - here: http://Niche2.com/TwuckYou.htm

    :)

    All success
    Dr.Mani
  • Will Riley
    Michel,

    My solution to the whole problem is this...

    Add a restriction to the number of people everyone can follow - I think a maximum of 100 or so would be fair (I don't know too many people who would have more than 100 friends, family they talk to on a regular basis).

    By limiting the number of people we can follow, they are forcing us to be selective and genuine in our choices whilst maintaining the integrity of the network. A win-win for everyone. And lets face it, the only people who are going to moan about this limit are those who are using Twitter for a purpose other than what it was designed for.

    Now, what about those who want to use Twitter for business?

    Easy. I suggest Twitter create a new type of profile called a Business/Celebrity profile. These profiles can be used for the purpose of tweeting about your business or yourself (if you are a celebrity). There will be a monthly charge to run a business profile, something that will deter a lot of the spammers and nuisance Tweeters, and prevent people from creating hundreds of different accounts.

    Due to the opportunity Twitter presents for legitimate businesses, they should have no problem paying the minimal fee per month. Business accounts should also have the 'follow' feature disabled so they cannot go out randomly following people in order to build a fan base. They can only be followed by people who choose to follow them.

    There should also be a search function so users can search all the business profiles in order to find businesses they may want to follow. This will help fans find only the businesses they are genuinely interested in.

    We could even take this a little further. Each time someone decides to follow a business, the business must approve that fan and allow them to follow their updates. Now, instead of having a flat fee per month, Twitter could charge businesses based on the number of followers they have that month.

    What do you rekon?

    P.S. There has been much debate over how Twitter was/is ever going to monetize their site. Here is a perfect way to get started. I don't think there is anything wrong with charging a business to use a service like Twitter - the value it presents when used properly is, well... priceless.
  • I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post Michael. I've been thinking along these lines for quite some time now and have often asked myself the question,- "how can anyone possibly follow 36, 873 people?". You've just nailed it so succinctly with this post and all the cross referencing. I'll be linking to this one for sure. Thanks for going into so much detail and with such clarity.
    Cheers!
  • Thank you for this post Michael. I loved Ed's video (thank you for the link). I was guilty of auto follow but am now in the process of weeding out those who only create noise. It will take a while but the benefits will be huge. Some days I don't open tweetdeck just to let me get some work done.

    Kathy
    PS - how does it feel being a non-smoker :)
  • Great post michel.

    I totally agree, "Auto-Follow" is killing twitter. I used to Auto-Follow my Followers. But, i turned it OFF some weeks ago.
  • What gets me is the attitude of those who say it's ego that keeps me from following those who follow me. No, it's one of two things: either I don't find what you say interesting (often because you haven't posted any tweets or have a profile) or I'm prioritizing and limiting those I follow to get the most value out of the time that I have to scan my timeline.

    In actuality, it's arrogance that says "I'm following you, so you must follow me back."
  • Mel Menzies
    Will Riley suggests limiting social users and charging business users. What about those, like myself, who come into neither catagory? There are some of us (I'm an author) who have a genuine interest in reaching as many people as possible because we believe we have something of worth to say; something that will benefit our readers; something for which there is no charge and which, therefore, would be too expensive for us to maintain were we to be charged a fee.

    I thought the whole concept of the world wide web was the FREE exchange of information?!!
  • I do use auto follow. I have found that, yes, there are people who misuse the system, but there are others who do not. The reason I use the autofollow, is so that I do not have to spend hours going through all the new followers profiles. I watch their tweets and if they are talking rubbish, I will unfollow. And when I get some spare time, I will go through the profiles of my followers and unfollow ones that are of no interest.
    I have found many people through the autofollow that have very interesting comments to make and I would not have found them without it.
    It is the same with everything in life, there are good people and bad people.
    Just my opinion. :)
  • Jim Beasley
    A GREAT read. Thanks.......... very enlightening to a newbie, and thanks 2 for the link to Randy Gage
  • Originally Posted By Shirley Grant
    I do use auto follow. I have found that, yes, there are people who misuse the system, but there are others who do not. The reason I use the autofollow, is so that I do not have to spend hours going through all the new followers profiles. I watch their tweets and if they are talking rubbish, I will unfollow. And when I get some spare time, I will go through the profiles of my followers and unfollow ones that are of no interest.


    But that's the same argument spammers use. "If you don't like my spam, you can simply delete my email." The only difference is, it's harder because you have an interest in doing this in the reverse way, as the number of spammers spamming you are your "friends" and help make up your "list of followers."

    Again, it's work, and my time is valuable. I'd rather use some of the many websites/services that cull topical tweets, trends, or profiles that meet my criteria, and follow them only, before I simply follow everyone who follow me, forcing me to wade through a ton of crap to kill off the undesirables.

    I think autofollow-then-unfollow is ridiculous, but that's just my opinion. Once you reach 10,000, 20,000, 30,000+ followers, come back here and tell me you can still do what you suggest without any problems, and that you are (genuinely) listening to tens of thousands of people.

    Twitter themselves say it is disingenuous. And I agree.
  • @Mel Menzies - I agree. I don't think limiting the number of people you follow will solve anything.

    Instead of being like MySpace (which is just a bunch of spammers, without any restrictions), I think they can do like Facebook, and limit the number of people following you (Facebook caps it at 5,000) -- and once you've reached a limit, charge you for it or force you to open a special "celebrity" account (just like friends profile vs. a fan page on Facebook). But on this celebrity account, change the following/followers ratio.

    Just a thought.
  • @Peter Koning -

    WOW I had NO idea those were autotweets! I'll be removing some people, that's REALLY uncool :(.


    I'm against the whole auto-follow too. There are some good points in this article, which I considered way back when I heard of it [auto-follow]. I mean, sure, it could get me more followers....but do I want to follow them too? I've also spoken to a few people who have it on, and they said they cannot unfollow people, and they get heaps of follow requests JUST because of the auto follow....and then those followers unfollow...so these guys are ending up with a mass of people they're "forced" to follow. I feel bad about that, but then again it could be Twitter Karma ;).

    I've started being more selective with who I follow recently too. I tend to follow those who interract with me, and remove those who dont :). Unfortunately there are some I would like to remove for not being interractive, but don't because their tweets are actually useful to me lol.

    @BunnyRabbitSex on Twitter :)
  • Will Riley
    @Michel Fortin -

    Michel,

    Yeah, something like that makes a lot of sense. You're right, limiting the number of followers one can have would be a better way to do it - I didn't think that through properly :-)

    I would love to see Twitter continue as it is however it is pretty evident that it is quickly becoming a favorite tool for the cash hungry. When I see accounts created like 'GuitarReviewer' and so on, I start to have Déjà vu.

    I have no problem with people using Twitter for business purposes or to help spread some meaningful information, however a lot of the accounts I see being created today are just one-way conversations. They have no interest in interacting with any of their followers - they are there to do only one thing. For a social network to thrive it needs interaction.

    I guess the easiest way for us to all help the situation at the moment is to only follow people whom we really know and are genuinely interested in hearing from - none of this "I'll follow you if you follow me."
  • Thanks for the post! For those of you who dislike autofollow, you might be happy to know this piece of information, taken from WebProNews site:

    "While there are third party apps using autofollow, Twitter’s own quietly offered service will be no more. From an email sent out to users by cofounder Biz Stone:

    We’re going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous."

    Here's the link: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/04/01/tw...
  • Hi Michel,

    Although I've never used "auto-follow", I would follow back many of my followers because I thought it was the "polite" thing to do. I will no longer be doing that.

    I've been planning to do this for some time because the "noise" got to be too distracting, which for me made using Twitter less fun, helpful and useful as it used to be.

    After reading your "rant" and watching @Ed_Dale's video, I used http://www.mytweeple.com to go through the list of people I follow and unfollowed: snobs who never respond to tweets sent to them - look at me blowhards - and those who made me wonder "what the heck was I thinking when I followed this person".

    I also unfollowed many that did not follow me back, unless of course I follow them simply because I enjoy reading and learning from their tweets, like you Michel. ;-)

    When I was finished with this exorcism I had removed 356 people from my follow list. I'm already noticing a reduction in the noise-to-signal ratio, which will enable me to give more attention to those who truly find me follow-worthy.

    Which brings me to something else. While I was at it, I also blocked dormant accounts, over-zealous "marketers", and follow bots, from the list of people that are following me.

    Of course I paid a price for my Twitter cleansing, because many of the people that I unfollowed also unfollowed me. Add to that the people I blocked, and my list of followers dropped by 137. But that doesn't bother me, because at least I know that the followers that I now have are "genuine."

    Before closing I would like to respond the question above...

    "How many people do you think won’t follow you because you don’t follow back or unfollow you when you don’t?"

    As of right now, @michelfortin is currently following 246 and has 4,763 followers, so I think that question has already been answered. I follow Michel, he doesn't follow me - but - he has always responded to any tweets I've sent to him.

    @SharonMcP

    P.S. To address the suggestion that Twitter limit the number of people we can follow to 100. I come from a large family and if each one of them decided to follow me, there would be some that I would not be able to add to my followers list. I would also have to open a separate Twitter account just for my friends, customers and associates.

    And what about companies that use Twitter to interact with their customers? I can only imagine the grief that @comcastcares or @zappos would get if they were limited to having only 100 followers.

    Something that people seem to forget is that Twitter users are worldwide, which means different time-zones, so the chances of all the people I follow bombarding my Twitter stream by sending Tweets at the same time is non-exsistant.

    And with resources like tweetdeck, http://search.twitter.com and now the "mentions" function that Twitter has implemented into our home pages, being able to follow AND socialize with more than 100 people is managable, when you cut out the unnecessary noise.

    Unless of course, you're @britneyspears.
  • Perfect timing!
    I recently hosted a free teleseminar " 'I've Got 1000 Friends on Facebook' is NOT A Visibility Plan" and had a record turn out. The Social Networking for business crowd is hungry for more informaion on this.

    For some reason people are misled to believe that the numbers can somehow influence the results. As you quoted Seth Godin, "fake networking" will never work. I don't know how anyone can possibly keep up with tens of thousands of followers.

    Thanks for a great post.

    Nancy Marmolejo
    Viva Visibility
  • Interesting post. I personally don't use Twitter that much. I still haven't figured out what to use it for and don't feel like talking about every little thing I do in my life. I think Twitters who do Auto Follow, as you mentioned, trying to build a "list" are mistaking it with Email marketing. Even email marketing can be spammy if you don't do it properly. I like email marketing because it allows you to differentiate betweent he people who are just browsing the net for entertainment and quick read, between the people who are REALLY interested in your work. I don't think it matters how many people you have on your email list, but instead of the qualityh of those subscribers. The same approach should be used with Twitter. As you stated, building relationships are important. Thanks for the great post, and it was interesting reading your Twitter conversations. Lol, now I'm going to go try and figure out how to use Twitter.
  • Interesting post and lots to digest. We don't autofollow...because we like to DM each new follower.
    Yes, it takes more time and we might lose some followers because we can't check in all day long to reply so people may get impatient and un-follow.
    But in the words of Nora Ephron/Meg Ryan from one of our favorite films (You're Got Mail), we believe that "Whatever else anything is, it ought to start by being personal."
  • EDIT:
    Interesting post and lots to digest. We don’t autofollow…because we like to DM each new follower.
    Yes, it takes more time and we might lose some followers because we can’t check in all day long to reply so people may get impatient and un-follow.
    But in the words of Nora Ephron/Meg Ryan from one of our favorite films (You’re Got Mail), we believe that “Whatever else anything is, it ought to start by being personal.”
  • Very timely post, Michel. I am new to Twitter and have been confused about all the followers I get whose interests are completely unrelated to my interests. If the majority of my tweets are going to be about how to make your web site better, then why would someone whose primary interest is football want to follow me? And why would I want to follow them? For far too many, it seems like it is all a numbers game. I will no longer follow those whose interests don't match up with mine. I was thinking also that it might be a good idea to have separate Twitter accounts for different interests. For example, I could have an additional Twitter account that would be dedicated to my love of reading fiction Christian books.
  • Tiffany Dow just posted her rebuttal and why she prefers auto-follow. I replied in the comments section, and I think her post, and my answer, are interesting. Go take a look and tell me what you think?

    http://www.tiffanydow.com/blog/main/i-have-to-d...
  • Hi Michel,

    Relationships is what its all about with me also, and I've never been an auto-follow
    advocate myself. Those Tweet Streams that I choose to follow I've really looked at
    their Bio, and It's serious observation for me because I've focused on sharing Sound
    Principles as being a virtue of our Twitter Page, to be helpful to those that choose to
    follow our Tweet Stream. That is a Brillant Idea to discontinue the auto-follow feature
    at Twitter. Maybe really Paying Attention means something for real. Your Rant has
    some real merit too about that. Thanks Again, Be Blessed always...Peace!
  • Ed
    There are a few who can follow everyone. Chris Brogan is the master.
    He genuinely engages everyone.
    But he is the rare exception. And that's a choice he's made as part of his business life.

    I agree with you, and Ed Dale.

    Tipped off to your post by Brian Clark (@CopyBlogger)
    What if Brian followed every one of his 20,000 followers automatically?
    What would happen to his exceptional blog?

    Or Evan Williams (@Ev) Twitter CEO? 400,000 followers dm'ing while trying
    to run the most popular growing ship in sound?

    I can tell you he'd rather be conscientious with the 900 he does follow,
    than people please 1/2 million.
    And some people dm back and forth with him A LOT!

    Think about that. He has 900 personal friends alone! Plus all his major Silicon Valley
    contacts, plus all the NYC major contacts, plus his inlaws and family, plus
    30+ employees, plus the heads of everything from Google to their midwife
    looking for him.
    Not to mention he's a human being who may want to use a spot for dm's
    from his favorite band, or the owner of @21stAmendment dm'ing that
    Twitter's private label beer is ready for taste test?

    He's the CEO.
    VIP's don't want email. They want to be followed by the head of the house, IN that house.
    He doesn't!
    And if he doesn't follow 2,000, who has to? Who should?

    Let's not review @Jack who conceived Twitter and is the Chairman of the Board.
    He just reached following 400 and has massive obligations to follow VIP's.
    He doesn't.

    Best,
    @Ed
  • Mel Menzies
    There's been a lot written about numbers of followers. What I want to know is how the Google ranking (or Twitter ranking?) is arrived at? Like everyone else, I started with no followers but almost immediately had a ranking of 8/10. Now, with only 500+ followers, I switched on this evening to discover that I've gone up to 9/10. It's very gratifying - or at least it would be - if only I knew why?
  • Another thing that occurs to me (and maybe someone has already said this in other words): if you're following me because you expect me to follow you, then you're not following me because you're interested in me. Good riddance if you auto-unfollow.
  • Before reading this, my response to the 'accusation' leveled in the title would be, 'Don't pay the rusty joints any mind; just be the change you long to see in the world.'

    But reading it assures me that you know the way to go!
  • "I guess I’d rather be perceived as a snobby bastard who doesn’t care than a lying one who fakes that he does.;)" - only a Canadian (or Brit) could get away with saying that - a Yank wouldn't dare!
  • I have just recently joined twitter and find it great. I do not autofollow for sure, as I have had some unknows follow me already and I choose to 'follow back' if their bio and tweets are of interest. If they are not, then I am suspect that they are just building their list and are looking for me to follow to bulid theirs.

    If their line of business or their life is of no interest to me I cannot follow, too many other interesting people I want to get to know. :)
  • Bob
    The real problem is Twitter is too mixed up in this countries obsessive fascination with the minutia of others lives. Its not a marketing tool, its not a relationship building tool. Its US, People Mag, The national enquirer, entertainment tonight, etc

    Our societies ridiculous fascination with the details of others lives will be our downfall for sure. IS ANYONE that important, that intelligent, so full of genius, continually spouting wisdom and information that we can't do without, let alone wait a minute for?

    NO

    And yet we twitter away, granting inflated self importance to those we follow, and bestowing superior status to them, meanwhile hoping to inflate our own self worth by wallowing in their details and snippets of wisdom instead of creating some of our own.

    Get a life, live your own life and leave the twitter behind.....
  • Hi Michel,

    Great post. I was about to do some research on how I can use twitter for my business and
    Vuala! i happen to go to your site and saw your post. Its very informative, thank you.
    I guess, its a social network that allows you to meet/tweet a lot of people that could
    be potential clients later on.

    Will absorb everything i read from your post and get to it right away.
    Again, thanks for the insight.
  • Another excellent article, Michael.
    I do agree with the whole 'auto follow' abuse and it's really gotten out of control.

    You're right about the process though...
    it's no longer "the money is in the list" it's "The money is in the RELATIONSHIP"

    I'll be following you here and on Twitter. Thanks!
  • I just put in an autofollow. Now wen people follow me, I send them my free training manual. I've used this successfully develop a mailining list. I've seen people do this on twitter. So I'm thinking this might be a good way to generate a good following. I use my newsletter to generate traffic and to build up a loyal customer base. I'm wondering if this will work the same way with Twitter. On my squeeze page, I've put in another option to subscribe to my newsletter. One way is through email, the second way is through twitter.
  • Dan
    I have to agree with you about relationships and the way it seems todays users are more concerned with constant chat than actual genuine friendships. I am a very introverted person in many ways and I just don't want to broadcast to the world every second of my life. I do follow you as well as a few others and I never expected to be followed. It made no sense to me. You had no idea whom I was and I just followed you because I was in the span group, the wandering lost group, or I wanted to get to know you or your products or found your "Tweets" useful for my own personal pruposes. Anyway, thanks for letting me let off a little steam. I have almost sworn off all social sites because of the bombardment of such wannabe friends. In some ways I hate to see the follows stop, but also am glad. Isn't life just the oxymoron of all.
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