I’ve been holding off from posting this for a while. It’s actually going to be a section in my book that is nearing completion but I think it’s time to say something because I’m coming off as a complete ass. I can understand how some people are bothered by me not following them especially when I reply to every reply as a direct message. For those who don’t know, you can’t send a direct message (DM) to anyone unless they are following you. I like it that way because it really eliminates spam. I’m sure I would be getting a crap load of spam if anyone could DM me and people would start gaming the system with auto-DMs so let’s keep it the way it is for now.
So what’s the big deal with me not following people? Well, I have nearly 2,400 followers now. It’s not many compared to others but I only follow about 550 people. Those are 550 people that are influencers in my industry, companies that I love or people that I’ve met in person and have real friendships with. 500 seems like a whole lot of people but it’s not really. Would you believe that I’m not following Zappos, Robert Scoble or Gary Vaynerchuk. Those are 3 guys that everyone follows, right? Well they send way too many replies and it clogs up my stream.
To be honest, I unfollow about 50 people a week and block about 2 people a day. I’m very serious about who I’m following and not following. If I see a hint that someone is being a complete ass to someone else or is supporting things that I don’t agree with I’ll block them. If someone is sending replies any more than 1 out of 4 of their tweets then I unfollow. I should be able to look at the twitter stream of my friends and see real information, something informative, educational, inspiring and real. Replies, chat rooms, spamming and angry messages I don’t have time for. If I’m not growing and learning from you, you’re unfollowed.
So now that you know how I do things on Twitter, I’d like to explain why I didn’t follow the two guys who asked me today “why aren’t you following me?” Well I looked at your page, and you both reply to too many people. I’m sure you’re great, smart and inspirational guys but your Twitter stream is equivalent of a 7th grade social butterfly and that’s why I didn’t follow you.
So why the hell do I DM everyone? Because I love showing people that I absolutely read every single mention of @adamjackson or “adam jackson”. I see all of them and even if you’re talking about me, to me or retweeting what I say, I quickly send a DM to you saying, “hey thanks for the retweet” or I’ll reply to a quesetion that you have. What I won’t do is start following you unless I see a value in following you based on my personal made up Twitter algorithm for people worth following. Does that piss people off? Sure it does and it forces them to publicly @reply to me in response to my DM but that’s the best way to use the system at this time.
A plan that I have is to create an account @adamDM that auto-follows everyone that mentions @adamjackson or “adam jackson” and that way I can DM those people from that account and they are able to DM me back but that account doesn’t ever tweet or do anything else and is simply a way to communicate with people over DM without any limtations. Ideally, I would like it if Twitter was smart enough where when I DM someone, it gives them a 5 minute – 1 hour grace period where they can DM me back without my following them. Until that happens, this is the system I must work with.
Apologies all around for not following every single one of you. For the record, I receive nearly 100 replies a day and 80% of those are from people I’m not following. It’s unfortunate but that’s how I must do things and I apologize. It’s nothing personal.
Maybe I should have titled this, “My rules of following” but I’ve spent nearly 2 years and 35K tweets figuring this out. For the record, I’ve sent and received nearly 7.5K DMs. so I’m pretty fanatical about this system.
-Adam
Hey Adam,
I totally see your point when it comes to followers flooding your stream with replies to their followers. I have nowhere near as many followers as you (following 210 / followed by 193) but from time to time one of them will get into an extended conversation with one of their followers that seems to go on for hundreds of replies in a row. I think someone called it a Tweet-Storm or Tweet-Flood maybe? In the past year or so twitter has turned into a bit of a chat-room ‘eh?
I still love the simple premise of twitter asking “What are you doing?” or in my case “What are you doing or thinking of?”….I for the most part try to stick to just answering that question.
I’ve learned this recently and I’ve been cutting about 200 people a day for the past 2 days. I have an app to see all the @ replies and I see them all. I don’t have to follow anyone to see what they say to or about me. Some days I do a lot of @ing and others I don’t ..okay most days I do a lot of @ing and if someone doesn’t follow me, I understand and thats OK! I’m not going to kill myself because of it! lol
Adam, You are a great follower and you shouldn’t have to worry about what others have to say.. Keep doing what you are doing because you must be doing something right! lol!
What’s wrong with using the setting not to receive @’s from people you’re not following? That’s what I do, and it makes Twitter a lot better for me.
Although I don’t have a strict “algorithm” for choosing who to follow like you do, I tend to keep my friends list pretty short to avoid introducing too much noise to my timeline. I believe Robart Scoble said several times that you are defined by who you follow, or what interests you, not by who follows you (or in his case, how many people follow him) which only shows how popular a person is.
@frimmin: It clogs up your timeline with tweets directed specifically at other people that are part of conversations you don’t care about at all.