Why I Don’t Follow You on Twitter

October 19th, 2009 → 11:15 am @ Eric Nagel // 3 Comments

I love Twitter as a communication tool. But I don’t follow everyone who follows me. Right now, I’m following only about 60% of my followers.

When someone new follows me, the notification gets a label in Gmail, and I go through those every day or so. Within a second or two, I decide if I’m going to follow that person back. Here are 10 reasons (in no particular order) why I don’t follow back:

1. 0 Tweets
   
   If you haven’t tweeted anything, I’m not going to follow you. I don’t know what you’re going to say, and odds are, you’re just looking to spam me.
2. You’re telling me how to get more followers
   
3. You Tweet in a foreign language
   
   Sorry, I only speak English, PHP, and a bit of French. If you’re tweeting in another language, I’m not going to follow you.
4. All you Tweet are links
   
   Twitter isn’t just about sharing links. Twitter asks, “What are you doing?”. If you just wanted to share links, use delicious.
5. Keyword Trigger Auto-Follow
   
   Just because I said “Poken” in a tweet, doesn’t mean I’m going to follow the King of Poken.
6. Following Too Many People
   
   If you’re following nearly 6,000 people, I know you’re not really following them. I want to know that you care about what I’m saying. If you don’t care what I’m saying, I don’t care what you have to say
7. You Follow Me Again, and Again, and Again…
   
   I saw it the first time, and I decided not to follow you. The second time was just annoying. The third time you get blocked.
8. All You Do is RT
   
   I don’t mind a ReTweet now & again, but if that’s all you do, I’m not going to follow you. I may, however, follow the people you RT.
9. You’re Hot
   
   Sorry to all the hot chicks out there, but on Twitter, if you’re hot, you’re probably a slimeball spammer waiting to throw me dating links.
10. Protected Tweets
    
    If I don’t know who you are, and you have your Tweets protected, there’s no way I’m going to follow you back.

So if you’re following me on Twitter, and I’m not following you, this is probably why. However, if you’re a real person, leave a comment below and I may follow you. I’m not mean, but I try to read every tweet from each of the people I follow, so I have to be picky.

What’s your following policy?

Tags: Twitter