I want to follow you on Twitter. Simply follow me at http://www.twitter.com/jasonmoffatt and I’ll follow you back.
For the last couple of years I’ve refused to follow every single person that followed me on Twitter. My reason for it was because I felt it was disingenious and didn’t really display what I was truly interested in.
Many people like to say… “I have 27,000 followers on Twitter” and I say… “No you don’t”.
Just because you scrape the internet or use some Twitter mass following tool to attain more followers doesn’t mean that these people are paying any attention to you at all. It’s a very artificial number and doesn’t accurately reflect how many people really give a rats ass about what you have to say.
On the contrary, I built up a following of 7000 people without playing the reciprocal follow game and it all happened without me doing anything. These people found me on their own, or via their own automated bots. Because I’m in the marketing world, at least 4000 of those people are marketers who could probably care less about what I’m saying, but they are just trying to inflate their numbers to provide a bogus bit of social proof.
Everyone has a different way to use Twitter, and to each their own. I’ve always been fine with being a Twitter Snob and only following the people that I want. However, after hearing Tim Sanders talk about social media and Twitter the other day I decided to ease up on having a elitist attitude towards Twitter and agreed to follow back anyone that follows me.
My reasons for doing so are this…
1. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of new trends and chatter across the web. Following more people allows me to get a better idea of the markets I’m trying to serve and people I may want to connect with personally.
2. Most marketing folks have automated scripts that will unfollow me if I don’t follow them back within a few days. Now I don’t put too much worry into losing followers here and there, but I’m on a bigger mission than just to hock a few products and I’d like my messages to be seen by as many people as possible.
3. With the addition of “Twitter Lists” I can sort and aggregate the people that I truly want to stay in touch with. So the argument that following too many people dilutes the Twitter stream and I can’t see what’s going on falls a bit flat.
4. I want to reward people that follow me and pay attention to my tweets with the courtesy that I’ll attempt to pay attention to theirs. I can’t promise this for everyone, but I’m pretty good at plowing through a ton of info in record time.
Here’s the bad part of following everyone back…
1. I will now get spammed like crazy in my direct messages box. It will essentially render it useless and legitimate messages will get buried and unanswered.
2. Auto direct messages will flood in like crazy. Note to self: Turn off the email updater about direct messages. Please don’t be offended if I don’t answer direct messages. It will just be too much. I’m much better at conversing on my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/jasonmoffatt
I really hope I don’t regret this decision.
Anyhow, hit me up on Twitter if you haven’t already. My Twitter ID is at http://www.twitter.com/jasonmoffatt
Cheers,
Jason
PS: If you are already following me it may take me a week or so to follow you back. I’m trying to catch up on all the old followers but can’t add them all at once or I’ll risk getting my account suspended for adding too many people at once. If you want to speed up the process, send me a @ reply to @jasonmoffatt by clicking here and I’ll follow you back right away.
disingenuous is, I guess, what you meant to say, and fair enough.
If it’s good enough for @stephenfry, it’s good enough for IM-ers!
Rich
Thanks buddy. Fixed it. Good call.
Hey J,
I don’t know if I am following you still or not to tell you the truth. I’m going to check now!
Throw me into a list yo. Like one labeled “bat shit crazy mofo’s” or something.
Hey Jason,
Very good post, and I think that mass follow scripts suck big time. Keep it real J.
Klej
Bro, how in the heck do you pronounce your name? Your name is a announcers nightmare I reckon.
Hey Jason,
The name is Polish so its would be like this:
Zbigniew ( Spignef )
Klej ( Clay )
Come on…. come up with a nickname …… 😉
Hey Jason:
I actually have followed you for awhile both on twitter and in the “IM” world. Here are my thoughts about twitter (for what it’s worth) I don’t autofollow, send automated “TY for following me” tweets or any of that crap. I used to follow everyone that followed me, but now I don’t feel obligated to do that. I do have certain criteria and it’s served me pretty well so far. I check every person’s profile and if there is no pic, profile or something that I can learn about who you are, I don’t follow. If I look through your twitterstream and I don’t see any “@” replies or conversations, then you’re probably not for me.
I like to think my “bullshit” detector is pretty good both online and off ;-), so I give most peeps the benefit of the doubt. It’s kinda like when you go to a party, you may not know many of the people there, but if you don’t strike up a conversation, you’ll never know what may come of it.
And you’re right, apps like tweetdeck and others make it much easier to keep track of certain that you engage with more or those people u’dike to engage with.
Thanks for keeping it real and I’m looking forward to “tweeting” with you:-)
Warmly,
Danielle
That’s a good method you employ there Danielle. A good BS detector is a handy tool to have.
JMO- “keep my finger on the pulse of new trends and chatter across the web.” I am trusting this is why you will be happy you decided to change your twitter strategy, among other things… Best, Brian-
Hey Brian,
There’s an even bigger strategy behind it but I’m not sure I’ll reveal that portion on my blog.
Dude ….. Good on Ya!
This whole Social Media thing is soooooo much a transitory beast, what works today is far from a guarrantee about tomorow, and some of yesterdays gold is gathering dust in some box packed away in the garage.
Mari Smith told me 3 years ago to get on Twitter and FaceBook. “What the hell is a Twitter?” It took me almost a year to jump on board, and even today, there are times I’m active and times I’m not. When I first checked it out, I said to Mari “this Twitter-thing looks like a modern-day version of a telephone partyline.” She replied ….. “Yes.”
I think your change in philosophy will serve you well!
~ Neil ~
Hey Jason,
Been on Twitter for about 14 months. I used to do the auto follow thing but quickly got bored with it (or swiftly figured out that it was a waste of time and energy). Anyway, been following you on Twitter for a while and always enjoy your offerings. I’ve sent you odds and ends of RV stuff from time to time and I hope I’ve given value.
My rules of thumb on ALL social media are: not to BS or spam people; not to post stuff that’s not cool; to be polite and to always thank people for their feedback (good or bad); to un-friend or swiftly un-follow, de-list, whatever: spammers, MLM peeps (sorry if that offends anyone), people that tag me for no good reason, or people that tag with whom I have no or little connection; morons; right wing bigots, and people from whom
I just get a bad vibe.
If you’d like to connect, great. If not, that’s OK too.
Have a great, great week and enjoy the new digs when you sign the papers and move in.
Kind regards,
—Gary B.
It is definitely a double edge sword. I wonder if twitter had ever envisioned large number of followers working properly.
Do you think the new tobri platform will solve the huge unmanageable follower problem that twitter has ?
http://www.tobri.com/
I think this is a cool idea. Most people worth following never really follow back. I think it’s just like you said, elitist thinking. Way to break the mold!
If you have time, hit me up..
twitter.com/cominback
I’ve been following you awhile, Jason.
I didn’t know you were getting pitched 5 million times there. Sucks.
Pick and choose, dude. Hope the experience is better the second time around for you.
Laters
I like it! Now follow me mofo! @LivingstoneCo 🙂
Hey “J”,
I am already following you on Twitter and just like you of FB.
I like you and your content because you are for real and you introduced me to Kearn ;-}
Stay Real,
Mark “The Marketing Professional” Brown
Thanks buddy. Might wanna learn how to spell his name though.
If you’ve got 7k+ followers then odds on the bods following you have 7K+ followers.
So when you make an “important tweet” it is is a crap shoot as to who get’s it. (Unless you have a stalker who reads every tweet you make.)
Even John Reese before he departed into the perpetual world of travel said that he doubted the use of having so many bods following you in social media…(think he was mainly referring to facebook) for the time an energy spent attending to it. OR something along those lines.
Wow, on a thread on the Warrior Forum about a year or two ago, I put forth basically this exact reasoning as to why I follow everyone back who follows me, and you made real-hardcore-serious fun of me. 🙂
I feel vindicated! LOL
Jason,
Smart move.
2 pieces of advice that will make this decision easier for you.
#1 Use HootSuite: It took a while for me to get used to it – but now that I have, I couldn’t go without it. You can see your mentions, Dm’s, and lists on one screen. Makes it so much easier that clicking around on twitter.com
#2 Opt out of receiving auto DM’s: I left a link on how to do this on my comment here – it takes about 5 minutes to opt-out of 95% of the auto dm providers and you can continue seeing important DM’s like before.
Hope that helps.
hey Jason, justin brooke has a blog post on his sitefling site called “stop the auto DM madness”. It gives specific steps to opting out from the system most people use to auto DM. Just thought you might find it handy to know. Cheers 🙂
Gosh, I did the same, ignored, ignored and hoped the twitter thing was a fad. I am trying to utilize it for my local clients, but it is still a wee bit of a struggle.
Perhaps my age is showing and after 15 plus years as a web developer, I am starting to not always want to learn every darn new thing….just me thinking out loud…
Would love to follow anybody with a note of “fresh air” so I do look forward to seeing your tweets.
Take Care
Eshera
some of us got followers without scraping the Internet or using follow tools/scripts. *ahem* and I only speak for myself and my clients on this one but it’s still true! :p
Yo Yo J-Mo! 😉
I’ve been following you on Twitter for a pretty good while now. And thanks for the video’s I’ve seen you do about Super Healthy Super Foods-n-Stuff!
I started using Super Food Supreme powder from GNC out of desperation for Chronic Fatigue and Tiredness and … MAN! It helped tremendously!
Thanks Dude!
Gary Anderson
aka- @GanderCo
Sigh, I’m just hooked to twitter readers right now. These people honestly really don’t do a lot for me, nevertheless it just simply delivers me a satisfied feeling within understanding that persons are really, well possibly examining what I write about.