How Should You Treat Your Twitter Followers
37 COMMENTS
This is a guest post by Gagan. Check out our guest posting guidelines
Few days back Gautam has written a good post about “Scheduling tweets” to which Tim made a following comment
“There are some people who follow no one & interact w/ no-one, there are others that follow tens of thousands and reply to many of them. “
Actually Tim raised a great point. There are two types of People (mainly with huge following) –
- One who are using Twitter as a broadcast media. They are only interested only in tweeting (Scheduled tweets) about their content (of course they share great content) but they don’t participate in any kind of conversations. In fact, they’ve put twitter on autopilot mode. Their account automatically tweets whenever their blog or their favorite blogs get updated.
- The second type comprises of people who have thousands of following but they still try to reply to as many of them as possible.
I’m obviously on the second side. But here are the few tips which I think every Twitterer should follow while treating their followers-
Give them respect – Every follower is a human being (obviously most of them) so give them the respect they deserve. Okay. I agree that once you’ve a huge following, it is not feasible to reply to every person. But at least try to reply as many as possible. With huge following comes huge responsibilities.
Follow them back – Okay. It’s not possible to follow everyone back. Please don’t give the excuse of spam on your timeline. If Mr.Obama (@BARACKOBAMA) can follow 734,818 persons and Guy Kawasaki (@Guykawasaki) can follow 242,903 persons on twitter then why can’t you follow back few of your followers?
Conversation is Important – Social media is for CONVERSATION. Okay, you might be a celebrity or a great source of information but, if you are not interested in talking with others, then what you are doing on twitter? Just for promoting your content and getting some traffic to your website? Sorry, I’m not interested in following you.
Be Generous – If your follower sends you a link to his work/article for your feedback then have some decency to reply to it. Even a one word reply like “good” can do wonders. Don’t feel shy in RTing their tweets if they like them. Not only it will boost the motivation of your follower but will also help you to improve your credibility amongst your followers.
Don’t tweet inanities – Your followers are following you just to learn something from you. They are not interested (or most of them) in what you ate for your lunch or which party you are going to. So please don’t tweet inanities and maintain a proper balance between your personal and informational tweets.
So, these were the five things which I think every Twitter user should care of. Do you know of more points which you feel should be added to this list? Feel free to share them in comments below
About the author
Gagandeep Singh is a freelance writer working for Invesp, a conversion rate optimization company based in Michigan . You can contact him on twitter at @gagan4687
| This entry was posted by gagan on March 19, 2010 at 11:11 am, and is filed under twitter. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
great post…
I use to follow everyone except spam bots. But now I am removing anyone who hasn’t tweeted in a week or longer, doesn’t tweet anything of importance (to me), doesn’t engage, bots and celebrities. These types are just not worth it most of the time.
I am also now trying to keep my following to follower rations with more followers than following.
I RT anything that I like from my followers.
I do schedule tweets as well, but mostly to keep a steady pace and not post multiple tweets in a mater of minutes. I also schedule important new post tweets to tweet during the best hours during the week day, week night and week ends.
.-= element321´s last blog ..Guest Post: On-Page SEO Tips =-.
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March 21, 2010 - 9:07 am
I too have changed my follow policy and I remove follower that are not active for months.
The problem is with spam bots, they fill your stream with junk and i unfollow them instantly.
It’s the conversation that counts even if you schedule tweets
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about 1 year ago
great tips…any way do you have some tricks to make more follower?
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March 20, 2010 - 11:33 am
Sorry mate , No such shortcut tips , I know peopl use automated tools , but I don’t like that thing .
Also , you want more followers start tweeting with commercial keywords in your tweets like ” weight loss” “hotels” etc and soon you can get bots following you . Got my point ?
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March 21, 2010 - 9:09 am
Yes, that’s totally correct, there are no shortcuts to build a quality following. There are shortcuts to build a following which will harm your twitter stream.
Patience is the key to build a good following
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March 21, 2010 - 12:33 pm
@gagan : yes I’m so much understand now thanks for the tips ^_^
@gautam : it seem I must create my own journey on blogging…thanks for open my mind
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about 1 year ago
Awesome tips, Im following few of them, Glad to know new tips.
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about 1 year ago
Well written Gagan, I always take time and reply to my followers.
.-= Blogging Tips´s last blog ..6 ways to improve to your alexa rank =-.
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about 1 year ago
Nice Post twitter user should know about it, I think I was making one of the mistake
.-= Nikunj´s last blog ..Are You New To Twitter ?? Then Read This. =-.
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about 1 year ago
Excellent post! The title ROCKS~!! I agree with your requests and believe them to be reasonable. Most challenging for me is to balance personal and informational tweets. I tend to carried away on one side or the other, then I worry about flooding streams of those who do not follow 1000+ people.
Anita @ModelSupplies
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March 21, 2010 - 9:24 am
I think a small number of personal tweets are allowed if you tweet a lot. The problem the followers who follow 1000+ people is that they can consider us as spammers and the way out is to schedule tweets at a space fo 5 to 10 mins atleast.
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March 21, 2010 - 9:03 pm
Oh my god , you are following more than 50,000 people but that’s really good , and I can imagine what would be happening on your twitter stream , floods of tweets , lolz
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March 25, 2010 - 10:43 am
Yes i see a flood of tweets in my stream as well. I think we start using twitter lists which works like a charm if you have a lot of people who you follow
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September 18, 2010 - 10:44 am
where you said not to post inanitiies I’d like to take that further and add please do NOT tweet about your sex/lovelife or tweet romantic personal messgaes, at least publicly, for all to see. I followed one who did that and only stayed because he was a good personal friend but no amount of telling him could make him stop simply because he’s an exhibitionist type. great tips thanks
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March 22, 2010 - 6:02 am
Anita:
You do Twitter right!! So just keep on doing what you’re doing
.-= Tim Gier´s last blog ..Two by Two and One by One =-.
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about 1 year ago
Very cool post, I am a new at twitting, so your post was very useful to me, Many thanks!
.-= MrsMoody@Video Tutorial Blog´s last blog ..Add About Me or About Author in sidebar =-.
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about 1 year ago
Really it’s very good information regarding how to twit.
It is very nice when some one doesn’t know what is exactly twitter is? Thanks for giving very good information.
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about 1 year ago
I have just put my toe in the water and am reluctant to dive into twitter full time for fear of dealing with excessive fluff. I do 2 or 3 tweets daily of interesting related posts that I come across. Your article will be helpful, and tweetable.
.-= Grampa Ken for social change´s last blog ..Product Quality Disappointing =-.
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March 22, 2010 - 1:32 pm
Yes, tweeting can be very time consuming and if you want to save time, then use it to the minimum
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about 1 year ago
Good post with lots of good advice. I am learning every day how to get the most out of Twitter and I’m finding that the easiest way is to try to give the most back!
.-= Tim Gier´s last blog ..Two by Two and One by One =-.
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March 22, 2010 - 1:33 pm
Give back isgood for overall developmment and learning and so it is a really good policy to give some knowledge to people about twitter
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about 1 year ago
this is a very helpful blog post but how do i know if im following the wrong people and how to get them to reply to tweets
.-= ronlad´s last blog ..Getting yourself out there !!! =-.
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about 1 year ago
Thanks for the information bro… I am now motivated to do tweeting since I am not active in twitter.
.-= Real Blogging Advice´s last blog ..How to Choose Profitable Keywords Using Google Keyword Tool =-.
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about 1 year ago
Thanks, Tim! Follow over 60k now, using lists and TweetVisor.com light blue
It makes it easier to keep up with mentions & DMs. I use Twitterfeed as a newspaper boy or mailman, just to deliver my favorite blog posts like this one! -Anita @ModelSupplies
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about 1 year ago
Really helping post…. thanks for posting….
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about 1 year ago
Great tips. One question: You don’t care what I had for lunch? lol
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about 1 year ago
@element321 : apart from removing spam bots, why would you stick to policy to have more followers rather than following other people more? Is that about ego, some thing to show that you’re more interesting to people than they are to you? Very often with twitter, you’re not that interesting, and these games with followers/following ratio just may show that you follow people, get them follow you as a return favor, and then unfollow them. As for me personally, it’s not something that makes me want to follow such a user who pay attention to numbers and ratios then people behind them.
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about 1 year ago
I agree with everything else, but I don’t think that always following back is good.
I just follow back if I find that Mr. Follower’s tweets are of some interest for me, which happens very often.
This is also a sign of respect. The message is: I don’t robotically followed you back, I decided to – because I value your content.
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about 1 year ago
I think it`s okay not to follow everyone back if your following is huge. You could never read all that. Rather follow a few and keep these contacts quality.
And if you do not reply to all (who could?) this makes the few replies you do send all the more precious for the follower.
Twitter should be pleasure, not pressure!
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about 1 year ago
Very informative. Something I will keep in mind to help inhance my relationship building skills.
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about 11 months ago
Great tips for sure. Shouting with a bullhorn about your content without engaging in conversation won’t get you very far.
I also agree to only follow those who are going to be related to your niche or market. I think it’ important to have a good ratio of followers to following. What exactly that ratio is I am still not sure.
regards,
Nate.
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