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10 Reasons I Stopped Following You on Twitter
Posted on August 8th, 2009 in Life and Family, Social Media, Technology by Fred McKinnon
Today I continue my 2-part series on Twitter. Yesterday’s post discussed my “Revised Twitter Follow Strategy“. I talked about how the use of “Auto Follow” caused my Twitter feed to explode with irrelevant, irreverent, and spammy tweets. Despite the fact that I could always overcome this by simply adding people to a special “group” in Tweetdeck, I still couldn’t stand seeing myself as a “follower” of all those various accounts.
As promised, today I bring you ten reasons I would stop following someone on Twitter. These reasons are listed below and are not in any specific order.
- I see words like “social media expert”, “social media marketing”, “SEO” in your bio.
- You have no bio, no profile pic, or your time zone is “Quito”.
- You have a sensual, swanky profile pic.
(sorry, this guy is a guy, and wants to be holy, and not tempted) - You have no Web URL in your profile for me to view your site and learn more.
- The source of your tweets say (via API).
- Your tweets are about affiliate accounts, making money online, teeth whitening, spam, etc.
- Your profile and tweets are in a foreign language that I can’t read.
- Your tweets are non-stop @reply to the same few people all day long.
Get an IM Program, will ya? - Your tweets are from “get more follower” programs.
- I don’t know or recognize you, and when viewing your profile, nothing on the first page of tweets is in my area of interest.
Are you guilty of any of these? Do any of these reasons resonate with you? How about you – what causes you to unfollow someone on Twitter?
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13 Responses to “10 Reasons I Stopped Following You on Twitter”
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Thanks for this series. I have had to look at my list again, too. (Of course, I don’t have NEAR the list as those I follow.) Also, I have had to learn to be OK with ‘blocking’ people. It gets easier with every spammer.
I’ve started blocking people who are using @reply spam, even if they aren’t following me – that way, at least they can’t follow me later!
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10 reasons why people stopped following someone on Twitter. Good points. Usually I follow the same strategy. http://short.to/m2uz
10 reasons why people stop following someone on Twitter. Good points. Usually I follow the same strategy. http://short.to/m2uz
Those are pretty legit standards you’ve set for yourself. I generally check out who all follows me on twitter and sort of approve of their following me. I’m always weary of those with no profile pic.
Slamdunkness! Pretty much the criteria I use… Great two-part series Fred!
I love this. I think I will follow you now.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The only thing I might add is retail stores in other states. I’ve got no immediate need for them.
#5 confuses me. Why is it so bad if someone posts via API? API is merely the Application Programming Interface that Twitter provides for non-web clients to connect, like TweetDeck or Twitterfon. Not all apps pass along the app name to the API, so some will appear “via API”.
So…why is that a reason to unfollow someone?
James, #5 is simply one reason … and none of these are exclusive and binding. My experience is that almost ALL via API posts are junk. I’m sure you are right, some apps may not pass their name via the API, but all the main ones do, including tweetdeck, twirl, seesmic, etc.
If I scroll down my “all friends” column quickly and scan for “via API” … almost everytime, it’s something I can unfollow.
Clearly, if I check it out and it’s releveant, of course I wouldn’t unfollow.