For those of you who don’t know, I’m obsessed with Twitter. In fact, I love it so much that I wrote a post about the awesomeness of twitter.
But sadly, using Twitter is not all happiness and rainbows and butterflies all the time.
Lately, I have been using justunfollow.com for complicated reasons (high five for those who can figure out why!) and I’ve been noticing this trend. To make a long story short, I’ve been noticing that people have been following me for let’s say, sometime around a week, and then unfollowing me for about a week, and then refollowing me again. To make it worse, sometimes it’s authors who do this. It’s not only me that this happens to, but to others as well.
I will say this straight-up: I do not do follow for follow on twitter or on any social media. If you want me to follow you back, the simple solution is to get to know me. Talk to me often so I get to know your face, your personality, etc. Let me know you well enough or at least recognize who you are to follow you.
How about you? Does this unfollowing-refollowing problem ever happen to you and are you annoyed by it or do you just ignore it?
Yea I have noticed some of the unfollow / refollow stuff going on, and those are usually people that I just don’t follow.
That being said, I do follow a lot of people on twitter and I feel like my twitter time would be a lot better managed if I were able too sit down and weed out all of the people that 1) don’t post anymore 2) or are not relevant to my twitter.
AND then if I also put the rest of the people I follow into lists, so that I can pull up my book blogger list quickly when I only want to see/ talk to those tweets. Do you do that?
I’m still trying to find the best way for me to use twitter other than replying to tweets and tweeting my posts and stuff like that. I want to make it more easily interactable for me.
I think I will just have to find the time to sit down and really clean out my twitter to get it down to just people I generally talk to.
Michelle @ Book Briefs recently posted…{ARC Review+Giveaway} Fractured Truth by Rachel McClellan
Yes! I totally agree with you. This has also been happening to me and it irritates me that people only follow for a follow back. I mean if their going to follow to unfollow, then they shouldn’t have followed in the first place. Whoever does this simply shows that they have no interest to the account, instead just want more followers.
Kharthiyaa recently posted…My Reading Life #3
I’ve noticed this too! I’ll get notifications that so-and-so is now following me, only to get the same thing a few days later. I really don’t get it. I’m like you in that I don’t follow everyone that follows me, not only do I have NO interest on reading some tweets, but there’s also no way I could possibly keep up with it!
So, yes, you’re not alone in 1) experiencing this and 2) being baffled by it.
Leah recently posted…my week in pictures 4/6
oh wow that is so annoying! I am sure this has happened to me too. I always try to get any new followers to TALK to me because that’s the whole point of twitter. I usually end up following any person I had a good conversation with.
great post!
Juhina recently posted…Review: The Sound of Letting by Stasia Ward Kehoe – My First Verse Novel
I actually don’t pay much attention to followers/unfollowers, because I think I already follow all the people on Twitter I’m interested in :) But that is a very annoying development.. Not only follow for a follow on the blog, but it’s also starting to spread to Twitter?
Mel@thedailyprophecy recently posted…Fairytale News 34. Early reviews.
I’m not the most popular person on twitter and even I still get this sometimes! Any new follower is super exciting for me but when I click on their profile and see that they’re following like 700 people I realize that they just want me to follow back and don’t actually care that much about reading what I have to say on twitter.
It sucks that people do that and that it actually works for them sometimes…
Karen recently posted…Lucy
I get this rather frequently, I just let it slide though. I’m not an automatic refollower. In general I won’t follow people unless we have interacted and I think people on twitter get that pretty quickly because I will see someone follow, unfollow, and refollow but this usually only happens once.
I’m like Michelle in a lot of ways though while I’m on twitter a lot I’m still not sure how to get the most out of twitter aside from replying to tweets, and promoting posts from my blog.
Emily @ Falling for YA recently posted…Top 10 Must Unique Books I’ve Read
I have a personal twitter and a blog twitter which pretty much means both of them are underutilized. I don’t notice this a lot though. I guess I’m pretty lucky! I decided recently to be much pickier with whom I follow on my personal account and I ended up unfollowing over 100 people. :/
P.E. @ The Sirenic Codex recently posted…Cover Wars: Kiss Kill Vanish vs. Mortal Danger
This happens to me too. I check the people who have recently followed me and it’s like…hang on a second, I remember that name from before. It’s like they want you to notice that they’ve followed you so you’ll follow back? Or something? I don’t know, but I definitely won’t if that happens.
Emily @ The Loony Teen Writer recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday: Most Unique Books I’ve Read
I haven’t really noticed that, but I do follow back most people who follow me. I don’t follow back erotica authors, for example, because I don’t read erotica, but if a YA author follows me, I’ll usually follow back. I once had an author follow me (and I followed back) who I felt was very spammy. She posted 5 or 6 times an hour EVERY hour around the clock. These were obviously scheduled tweets because no one is up tweeting 24 hours a day. It was super annoying. They were mostly quotes about writing and maybe a few lines from her book. Eventually I unfollowed her, she unfollowed me, and a few weeks later she followed me again. This time I didn’t follow back so she unfollowed me after a few days. She doesn’t know it, but she lost any possibility of selling a book to me. A few months ago I saw reviews of one of them on quite a few blogs. I don’t care how good they are. I’m still so annoyed that I’ll never be buying them.
Jenna @ Rather Be Reading YA recently posted…Discussion: Podcasts (Part 2) – Game of Thrones
I agree, Kelly! I follow people to chat, converse, get to know them on Twitter not just to increase numbers. If you are following for a follow back, usually that doesn’t work. ;)
Rissi recently posted…Top Ten Most Unique Books I’ve Read
I thought I was the only one who was experiencing this. I’m like, is this person trying to get my attention? If so, just talk to me! You don’t need to follow, unfollow, then follow again. I’ve encountered that with random people as well as those who are passionate about books like me. It’s quite annoying, and I don’t follow for a follow either.
Leigh @ Little Book Star recently posted…Review: Faking Normal by Courtney C. Stevens
I don’t really understand the follow, unfollow thing. Seems like a lot of extra work to me!
Missie @ A Flurry of Ponderings
Missie recently posted…Release Day Book Blitz – The Romeo Club
Ahhh! You used Jung Yong Hwa as a GIF! :D So happy about that! But I can’t remember from what drama that was…it has to be Heartstrings though…in You’re Beautiful his hair is a little longer :) Anyways, I had to comment on this post because I know how you feel. There are people out there who friend me and unfriend either the day after or in a few days. It’s annoying but what can I do? I wouldn’t mind doing friend requests, but I don’t think that would be worth it in my case since I barely getting people following me in the first place. I wish I could give some word of helpful advice, but I don’t have anything that helpful to say. Just don’t let it get to you. A social network isn’t worth your emotions ^_^
You know, I’ve had that happen too. I’m with you–I don’t follow back automatically. I have to know someone a bit. I need to at least have a conversation with them. I do typically always follow those back that tweet at me. This is also a pet-peeve of mine and honestly a tad creepy especially when it’s an author.
Kristen@My Friends Are Fiction recently posted…Review of House of Ivy & Sorrow by Natalie Whipple
Yes, I’ve noticed this too. And yes, it’s mostly (indie) authors. And no, I don’t like it either. (Really who does? It’s annoying. And it’s one of the reasons that I usually wait a few days/a week before refollowing, I want to make sure they are there to stay, so to speak ;)
Btw, hot guy (whose name I don’t remember) from You’re Beautiful! Yum~
Cayce recently posted…[Author Guest Post] P.T. Denys On Being a Gay Parent
Yes, yes, yes. Huge pet peeve of mine. It happens to me on Instagram too. Super annoying and rude I think.
Kim recently posted…Teaching Your Kids to Love Books
I thought there were ‘main twitter people’ who watch that kind of thing that goes on at twitter.. sadly but true someone reported me on twitter- I guess they were thinkin I was a robot thing and my account had a lock-out on it.. to get back on I had to agree to follow the twitter rules or I will be forever locked out.. it was a time when I first started and was tweeting giveaways.. I’m shy so I didn’t talk to anyone – I’m not good with starting conversations up and keep them rolling.. I never had paid attention to follows me and who doesn’t. I’m not a blogger so its not really a priority (oops if I spelled that wrong) thing to me…
Oh, this happens alot! People follow to get followers and if they don’t get the follower that they wanted they unfollow then follow back to regain the person’s attention. To be honest, I think follow for follow is wrong anyway. I’ve had a few authors and other bloggers (sadly) do this and really, it’s just annoying!
I under-utilize Twitter, so I’ve never actually paid attention to who is following me. To be honest, there’s a small circle of bloggers/reviewers/people whose opinion matters to me that I follow, and then a much wider circle of people I follow because they were part of a Rafflecopter giveaway that required me to follow them. And those ones, I largely ignore. If I could put them in circles ala Google Plus, that’d be easier, but since the only theme is “Following”, and I have a goldfish memory, I only read the Twitter feeds regularly of about 8 people. I tried the follow for follow thing, but it seems dishonest to me.
Beth W recently posted…Studio Gear Hydrating CC Cream Review + Discount
I guess because I don’t use tracking sites that tell me when people unfollow me, I don’t actually notice when people do unfollow. The only times I really notice are when I update my stats (which is maybe once every three or four months) and I’m like, oh ok. My follower count went down. It doesn’t really bother me too much, to be honest haha. It would really bother me if someone I know really well unfollowed me though (thankfully it hasn’t yet happened…)
I can totally understand why it would be annoying if you noticed it more regularly! I mean, if I saw that I had followers doing that to me I’d be all -_-
Nara recently posted…Review: Me Since You by Laura Wiess
I don’t use any of those unfollow/follow tracking tools, and it took me a while to figure out what the constant follow, unfollow, refollow, was all about. I’ll occasionally see someone with around 10K followers and 10k following follow me, and I think, “Yup, this person expects me to automatically follow back.” But I won’t do that, and I don’t expect people to automatically follow me back. That’s not how I want to use Twitter.
Stephanie @ Inspiring Insomnia recently posted…Review: The Forever Song by Julie Kagawa
I’ve noticed those unfollowing services and was always curious, but I never really bothered with it. For every person who unfollows you, you can gain 10 more people just by chatting with them. Numbers shouldn’t be the priority, but the relationships we all build within Twitter. That’s the best thing about it! <3
Great post Kelly!
Giselle @ BO-OK NERD recently posted…My Thoughts: Adults who Read YA/Teen Books
I ignore a lot of that stuff on Twitter. If I want to follow someone, I’ll be proactive about it. Shoving their Twitter handle in my face won’t get the job done! Haha
Kelly recently posted…Book Review: Through the Ever Night
I sometimes wonder why some random authors follow me! I do go and follow some of them back but I don’t check to see if they unfollowed me or not. I really don’t care either way. I usually post up tweets about giveaways and how hungry and tired I am only so I don’t blame them for not wanting to follow me. Thank you for the heads up though! Now I should check my list of followers and people I am following to weed out some people. It should clear up my feed a bit!