We don’t have to follow each other on Twitter, and it’s not poor form if I don’t follow you back or vice versa.
That’s the point of followers and followees and not friends. It’s not a connection like Facebook or LinkedIn. Just because I follow you doesn’t mean you are required to follow me back, nor do I feel snubbed if you don’t.
And if I don’t follow you back, take no personal offense, because I mean none. It’s just Twitter.
The power of Twitter is in having people create their own personal networks of people they follow. We each have different reasons why we follow people or we choose not to follow people. The main people I follow, for instance, are journalists, but they aren’t the only people I follow.
I also follow social media types, bloggers, podcasters, tech people and other people who interest me. The thing is, they might not be interested in my predominately journalism-centric tweets (often journalism + social media and new media). I get that.
Conversely, I get people following me who are interested in how I go about social media (which is distinct from my thoughts on social media) and the links I post about social media. What they tweet about, may have little interest to me and my goals. We all have different reasons for why we might want to follow someone.
I follow Starbucks, Zappos and other companies on Twitter. I don’t expect them to follow me back. I follow them not because I like their products, but because I want to see how they go about social networking. I can learn from what they do.
So, while I don’t care what they tweet about, I am very interested in how they go about tweeting. Other people may follow these companies because they are interested in the content of the tweets themselves and their products.
I have two different twitter accounts that I work on — @jiconoclast and @beatblogging. There is some overlap in the people who follow those, but for the most part I have different followers on each. That make sense, because each account has a unique purpose. Understanding why people follow people on Twitter, will help you understand why it’s not personal, it’s just Twitter.
There are others reasons why I may not follow you back:
- Not having a profile — If I don’t know who you are, and you don’t have a descriptive profile (with link to personal site), I’m probably not going to follow you.
- You haven’t updated yet — I don’t follow people who haven’t even taken the time to post one tweet or make a profile. Now, I might be interested in what you have to say, but I have nothing to go on. The first thing you should do when you join Twitter is make a profile, and the second thing you should do is start tweeting. Then start following people. Do not reverse this order!
- Your updates are protected — If I know who you are this isn’t an issue, but if I have no idea who you are and your tweets are protected, why would I follow you? I wouldn’t. I need something — anything — to go on. A good way to give me something to go on is to tweet @ me in response to something I tweet. That gives me something.
- Be a spammer — This should go without saying, but it must be said. Even if you aren’t a malicious spammer, I won’t follow you. You have to offer me something more than just marketing yourself. Some of the worst offenders are news organizations with their Twitter feeds filled with links to their own content — and nothing else. Um, hello, that’s what RSS is for.