But I can't do that with Twitter. And with only the last 25, or whatever it is, tweets showing on the home page, it's a pain to scroll back and see if you missed something from someone you really care about hearing from ... you have to get past the dozen @replies that some twitterfiend just spouted off in the last 5 minutes. Can I get a temporary gag order on some of them? I mean, I've tried to only follow people who had interesting prior tweets and/or interesting blogs/websites listed on their twitter profile. Others I've added for informational services, such as @RedCross for weather/disaster updates or @NTARC for national terrorism alerts, or for fun, like @DarthVader.
For a few days, I was inundated with requests to follow from "new media" marketers. They probably noticed that I followed someone from their "crowd." At first, I followed most of them back. But then I realized that that first follow gave me something these follow-up follows didn't have: real substance. For example, one guy is constantly "mad as ----" or some variation on madness and constantly spits out the same URL to drive people to his blog so that they can read about his critique about all the marketer posers out there who don't know what they're talking about, and to sign up for a webinar to learn about how he built his 5-figures-a-month-business. I swear he has his tweets scheduled to tweet recurrently. It's the same stuff, spread out throughout the day, always using some hyperbole to try to get people to click on his stock group of 2-3 links. Yawn. I continue to scroll right past his tweets, and really couldn't tell you if he's posted something new or interesting. I've considered unfollowing, but, sometimes out of vanity (got to keep my meager follower count high!) or out of laziness (when I'm just thinking about how annoying he is but don't want to get on Twitter to fix it), I haven't done it yet.
That doesn't mean I haven't ever unfollowed anyone. In fact, some follows were instant regrets and unfollowed, and others came down the road in our Twitterverse "relationship."
Then I read this article today, ironically(?) by the same author of the I'll-follow-anyone-who-follows-me post. In it, he gives several reasons why he'll unfollow you:
1. You follow me merely because I'll follow you.I agree wholeheartedly. I'd add a few others:
2. You're a company that doesn't contribute to the community.
3. You're a music lover (to a fault).
4. You're an adult film star.
5. You're a cursing fool.
6. You're a bot.
7. You're a celebrity impostor.
8. You're a constant updater.
9. You're a conceited, self-serving twitterer. Every other tweet out of your account is "Do I add value to your network? Click here and vote for me!" If you added value to my network, I'd probably tell you and would re-tweet your stuff. If you have to ask this every day, I start to wonder if you're just in the community to build stats; it's a new "game" and you want to be a high-scorer. Sorry- you don't add value to my network. Gone!
10. You conceal your marketing status in an attempt to trick people and get more followers. For example, I got a follow request recently that had a blog address in the bio section. Visit the blog - and it has a bunch of posts...all saying the blog had moved (not that it had ever really existed) to a new page - click here! Voila! You're on their company's home page. This might not be so bad, but this particular person had blocked their updates (I have mine blocked), had a fake blogspot link, and offered no other information. Perhaps I acted too hastily, but I did not allow them to follow. I might give them a chance, but may have to repent if they start breaking some of the other things on this post. It's not that I have anything against these marketers, per se, but I think they often classify as humans violating Rule #1 - a company not contributing to the community.
11. You're boring. This one isn't as likely to get you "banned" as fast as most of the other rules above, but I can only hang in there with you so long. Surprise me sometime! I'll keep giving you chances, but at some point I'll just give up on you.
12. You're not tweeting in a language I can read. I may be multi-lingual, but I'm not omniscient nor a babel-fish. And until Twitter incorporates some Google-style auto-translate-my-tweeple functions, I'll unfollow you if I can't understand your tweets. Feel free to keep following me if you have greater linguistic ability than me, or send me some free online courses to learn your language. =)
[UPDATE] Apparently I'm not alone in this whole marketer thing. The following quotes come from Peter Cohen's "Social networking isn’t for spamming"(emphasis mine):
I've been using Twitter for a while, and have amassed a few hundred people whose Tweets I follow. [...] [T]he reasons I follow people on Twitter are varied. But one way or the other, they're all people with whom I share common interests or some kind of connection.
In the past day, I've lost count of the number of times I've seen this Tweet:
"I bought the @MacHeist 3 Bundle. 12 Top Mac apps worth $900+ for just $39 AND I just got Delicious Library 2 FREE!"
This is beyond irksome. It irritated me into a frothing rage last night, [...].
MacHeist has induced its customers to abuse relationships, personal and professional, they've developed with other Twitter users.
Let's just hope this isn't part of a larger trend to clutter up Twitter and other social networking services with advertisements disguised as personal communications. [...]
But back to my rant: I sure as ---- didn't follow anyone on Twitter to see them spam me with advertisements, and I don't suspect anyone else did, either. Make no mistake, this is spamming, pure and simple. And to that end, it's an ugly, abusive way to advertise which lowers the value of the communications medium upon which it depends.
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