“Unfollowing All”
Dear Twitter: I went away. But I want to come back.
A couple of months ago I determined to follow-back everyone who followed me on Twitter. I watched as my friend Chris Brogan, among others, interacted with a gazillion followers/followees, and he told me he used search filters in Tweetdeck to manage the conversations and filter out the spam. Sounded like a worthwhile approach…
I used SocialToo to get the process started. But as the hordes started filling up my chat channel — and as my own work on other fronts crowded my time — I found myself doing more pruning than tweeting: cleaning out spammers, etc.
So I barely tweet anymore. My friends’ worthy signals are lost amidst the noise. And I’ve learned this much about myself: I find tools such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic too cumbersome to deal with — setting up Friends Lists, Colleague Lists, Search Terms, etc. takes too much time, especially when time is at a premium.
Interestingly, and distressingly, my blog also suffered as a result from my time away from the tweetstream. The twitterati helped inspire new posts and vet hare-brained ideas. Without that daily interaction, the blog has grown listless. My AdAge Power150 ranking has plummeted, too (for whatever that’s worth).
So I am going to START OVER. I am going to perform a FULL SCRUB.
If you see that I’ve Unfollowed you, please don’t take it personally: if you care enough to express any dismay over my action, you are very likely one of the folks I’ll soon be following again!
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Social Media Comments
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RT @TDefren: Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] -
@usegraymatter Todd Defren on “unfollowing all.” Starting over from scratch on Twitter:[link to post] -
RT @TDefren Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] [Who hasn't considered this?] -
I appreciate the attempt to get back involved. RT @TDefren: Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] -
Interesting reaction to the challenge of “social media noise” RT @TDefren Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] -
Bold move by @tdefren? – Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] -
RT @TDefren Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] -
There are services that can unfollow all spammers for you. RT @TDefren: Blog post about “UNFOLLOWING ALL” – [link to post] -
@wreichard2 @TDefren D’Oh! That’s what happens when I tweet before coffee! Sorry – [link to post]
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I’ll be interested to hear how this process goes. As you know, I waiver back and forth on my Twitter engagement/following process.
Best,
Aaron | @aaronstrout
I won’t take it personally at all–I’ve been seeing a lot of these sorts of ‘purging’ notes, on Twitter and even my personal friends on Facebook. Thankfully my family members remain connected…
As you state, it becomes too much, and when that happens it’s time for a refresh. I’ve had friends take Facebook sabbaticals, where they stay away for a month or more intentionally. Is this going to be a trend for 2010, and if so, what does it mean for marketers?
Good luck with the full scrub–it’s nice to start the new year with a clean slate…
Hi Todd,
I’ve thought about doing this in the past, especially around the time when I experimented with following everyone back. That particular experiment did nothing for me – I found the stream becoming unusable. I saw no benefit from the activity. Interestingly, I saw no discernable change in the rate of new people following me when I auto-followed compared to beforehand, so there really was no incentive to continue.
I understand that auto-following reduces maintenance time on the account, but frankly that time is minimal in general – most people don’t add hundreds of new folks daily. As far as I’m concerned, if someone wants to chat, I’ll follow. If they want to DM, they can ping me and ask me to follow.
I’m not playing the follower numbers game though, so other peoples’ mileage may vary.
Curious how you find Twitter once you’re back up and running…
I took a different approach– stopped the auto-following as the reason for my doing it evaporated. Spent the time I might take rebuilding my nuked list by unfollowing any spammer I see, knowing I won’t autofollow them back anymore. It cleaned up my message stream over a matter of days, and my contacts didn’t get stressed.
As for paying close attention, I keep a small, private list of folks I want to follow more closely. Yes, I’m having it both ways. As usual.
Doug – I took a very similar approach and I feel more connected (and sane!) than ever.
Todd, I did this last summer and it was the best thing I could have done. I realized that Twitter (like any platform) was what I made of it, and I do not get anything out of it when I’m following thousands of folks. Obviously desktop apps like Tweetdeck can help, but overall I have more established online relationships with people because I’m not worried about following everyone back.
My opinion has always been that if you believe Twitter is NOT simply a broadcast platform, then you can’t in turn be following everyone back. It doesn’t mesh with what we promote as “best practices” in the field.
Looking forward to hearing how it goes!
/kff
/kff
I am interested to see how it goes for you, Todd. With so many people on Twitter, and so many new list organizers appearing, I would love to see which you think is best. Happy Holidays!
…just don’t ‘unsubscribe me’ from the newsletter…:-)
I’ve wondered about using auto-follow recently because I’m sure there are some great new folks who follow me and I haven’t been able to give good time to vetting through new followers, finding them and following back.
Hearing your experience with auto-follow is really helpful. Thanks for sharing it.
And if you get a chance, consider following @dmullen back. I heard he’s a pretty good guy.
Todd (and Aaron),
I’ve also been struggling with the best way to interact and follow on Twitter. You’re right in saying that the third-party apps are cumbersome. I suppose it’s too much to ask right now for Twitter to integrate some of the more popular functions of tweetdeck, seesmic, etc. with the Web interface. The new RT feature is okay in its form, but horrible in its function.
As part of my year-end archiving, I’m going through the people I follow and removing anyone i haven’t interacted with directly or I couldn’t remember seeing a meaningful tweet from. We’ll see how it goes. I doubt anyone will throw much of a fit.
@m_dunn
Todd,
Todd here aka @tojosan on Twitter. It’d be a shame to lose you on Twitter. I say scrub hard but scrub fair. Don’t let go of folks that might add value to your day. There are plenty of dead weight profiles on Twitter that don’t quite qualify as spammers. Drop those as well.
I’ve stopped following back folks that don’t have any tweets along with the spammers I block immediately.
Tweetdeck’s latest incarnation makes list building as you go much easier. It’s just two clicks away to add to a list or to a Tweetdeck column.
I keep a column called peers of folks I don’t want to miss. That’s fairly simple by creating a column with just one person and add as you go. Also setting up search columns on specific keywords is a great way to keep tabs on things you care about. Most other twitter conversation isn’t much more exciting than a chat room anyway. I just let that roll by.
If folks want your attention, then can @ you, use keywords, or get on your ‘must see’ list.
Cheers and good luck,
Todd @tojosan
Todd – I’ll be interested to see how this works for you? About two weeks ago I went through and unfollowed about 1,000 people. Not because they weren’t good, but just because I had never interacted with them, nor remember any sort of meaningful content in their own tweet streams. It seems to have dulled the noise a little, but would love to try this approach if others, like yourself, find it useful.