Top 10 Reasons Nobody Follows You On Twitter

by Phil Gerbyshak on June 1, 2009

I try to follow all the real people I can on Twitter. If I see you mentioned from one of my friends, I’m going to check you out. If you send a tweet to @philgerb, I’m going to check you out. If I do a search for something and you come up, I’m going to check you out.

I will not follow you. And I thought I better let you know why.

1) You don’t have a real avatar – PLEASE upload a picture before you follow anyone. The default looks spammy and fake…and that’s NOT who you are if you’re a real person. I won’t follow you if you don’t have a real avatar.

2) You have more than 4 consonants or vowels in a row in your handle – Are you a real person if you create a handle like @jklsafjlk35 or @3523434kjklsa ? NOPE. I’m not going to follow you.

3) You have nothing in your profile, or worse, you have “Make money online” or “Buy Acai Berries” or “Want to buy Amway/Avon/Mary Kay/insert MLM here” in your profile – If you can’t make time to personalize your 160 characters in your profile, I’m not going to follow you. If you can only talk about these impersonal things in your profile, I’m not going to follow you!

4) You last 4 tweets are repeat tweets or are nothing but affiliate links – No RT (re-tweets) but repeat tweets. A tweet that says “Check out http://tr.im/mRuj” 5 times is NOT doing anyone any good and I’m not going to follow you! And if all your links point to affiliate marketing sites, I’m not going to follow you.

5) You follow 600 people but only 3 people follow you – If you are this out of whack, unless you JUST STARTED on Twitter, I’m not going to follow you!

6) 600 people follow you, but you only follow 3 people – You might be the world’s smartest person, but if you’re not listening to what other people say (even if you’re following me), you’re not as smart as you think. If your balance is this far out of whack, I’m not going to follow you!

7) I can’t see any @anyone messages on your page (and I may even scroll a few pages to see them). If you’re not into conversation, you and I probably can’t be friends. I LOVE CONVERSATION AND CONNECTION and so do most humans. If you don’t like conversation and connection, I’m not going to follow you.

8 ) You hashtag spam – If I click on the trends on the right side of Twitter and I see you are writing tweets with #spam #spam #spam #spam, I’m not going to follow you.

9) Someone I trust said not to follow you – If someone I already am following calls you a bad name, I’m probably not going to follow you. I may keep my eye on you, but I won’t follow you, at least not until I’ve built up some trust with you.

10) Your follow message got lost in my inbox – I get a lot of e-mails and sometimes, I lose the automatic Twitter messages I get when folks follow me. If that has happened to you, just send me an @philgerb, and I’ll be following you in a giffy.

Why don’t YOU follow more people?

Inspired by some recent Tweets by @rockintherobin

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Tagged as: fail, social media, twitter

Article by Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak is a self-proclaimed relationship geek who loves people way more than he loves tools.

Phil has written 1746 awesome articles.

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#WDNDL For 6/02/2009 - Logo Design Edition! | AndySowards.com :: Professional Web Design, Development, Programming, Hacks, Downloads, Math and being a Web 2.0 Hipster?: June 3, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Twitter for Jobs Searching: Top 10 Tips: June 19, 2009 at 10:07 am

{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }

Tammy Lenski June 1, 2009 at 3:33 am

Hey there – Phil! First, let me say how much I love this site design — I usually read you in my feed reader so this is my first time seeing it. It’s gorgeous and very you.

You nailed my top reasons for not following someone back with your #4 and #7. My third top reason is a variation of #7 — not only are there no messages back to anyone, but all the tweets are broadcasts about themselves or whatever it is they’re selling — they’re not a resource or friend but one of those annoying people at parties who never shuts up about themselves!

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Phil Gerbyshak June 1, 2009 at 5:56 am: Thank you VERY much Tammy. My goal was to make it easier to read and to better reflect my personality. I’m glad you agree.

And #4 and #7 are favorites of mine too. Glad you like them Don’t broadcast, keep the conversation alive!

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tanishka singh June 1, 2009 at 4:43 am

There is good info. That ca really help thats really really good. Thanks Phil
Its really appreciating

Phil Gerbyshak June 1, 2009 at 5:56 am: Glad to help Tanishka. Thanks for stopping by!

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Dwayne Melancon June 1, 2009 at 4:57 am

Hey – this is a great list, Phil! Another thing I don’t like is when I follow someone and I get the autoresponder that tries to get me to go buy / download something right away.

There is some subtlety here – I don’t mind if the autoresponder tells me things like:
* If you followed me because you like my topics, here are some resources on my website that might be interesting.
* I use an auto-responder because…. [maybe you get thousands of followers a day and can't respond to them individually - I actually know a few super twitterers where this is the case]

In general I don’t like autoreponders, though. No response is better than an autoresponse, IMHO.

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Phil Gerbyshak June 1, 2009 at 5:57 am: Great comment! Thanks Dwayne. I honestly don’t like auto-responders of any kind, but I can see why you might.

No response is better than an auto-response, for sure!

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Kathy June 1, 2009 at 4:59 am

Can I add a number 11? At least for me, I don’t like to follow those who have blazing profanity in their tweets either.

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Phil Gerbyshak June 1, 2009 at 5:57 am: Good call Kathy. No need to be a potty mouth.

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Kim Lyon June 1, 2009 at 5:28 am

Great list. I am fairly new to Twitter and appreciate the “rules” on how to not be obnoxious.

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Phil Gerbyshak June 1, 2009 at 5:58 am: Kim – I don’t know that I’d call these “rules” rather general guidelines for me. For some folks, they may like folks who do what’s here. I hope they help humanize your Twitter experience. Happy Monday!

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Sue Wittie June 1, 2009 at 6:26 am

Thank you. I’m fairly new to Twitter, and since there are special symbols and shorthands, informative sharing such as yours helps tremendously. For someone who outside of the “twitterverse” starts from a shy default, learning how to be appropriately sociable without being obnoxious in print gives me a tremendous leap forward in confidence. Thank you for being friendly and direct. I appreciate the help.
@just1sue on Twitter

Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:43 pm: Sue – So glad to share my tips with you. I am VERY glad they are helpful. Twitter allows you to be shy but still sociable. Have fun, and let me know how I can help!

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P.N.John June 1, 2009 at 6:37 am

I am proud to be an exception to some of your rules.
I like privacy and so I keep my identity a secret (I am a nonentity in the real world)though as you say I am warm and try to establish connections.
I am on twitter to exchange ideas especially about my area of interest-investments.

Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:44 pm: You are welcome to be an exception to the rules. I just probably won’t be following you. Sorry P.N.John.

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Rafael Marquez June 1, 2009 at 6:42 am

People that tweet pr0n. I won’t follow those people back.

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Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:44 pm: Yep Rafael. No pr0n for me either.

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Carol June 1, 2009 at 7:35 am

Another great article, as usual!

Another reason I don’t follow people back is protected updates. If I can’t read their updates, I can’t get a sense of who they are or if they are spammer, so how can I know if I want to follow them or not?

My only exception to this is if it is someone that I know in the “real” world already and know why their updates are protected.

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Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:45 pm: Great points Carol. I hate protected updates too…unless I know why Real world connections break ALL my rules.

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Stephanie June 1, 2009 at 7:40 am

True and excellent points! I follow nearly everyone that follows me, under similar “guidelines.” I also decline to follow people who have created their Twitter account for dating or to brag about how sexy they are! That has got to violate some TOS, if not my sensibilities (one follower yesterday got pretty close to the line).

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Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:46 pm: No bragging how sexy you are? Stephanie, with me, that’s just a given, so I don’t brag Kidding aside, I don’t do the dating thing on Twitter. My g/f doesn’t approve.

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Hilary June 2, 2009 at 8:41 am

Hi Phil ..thanks for another great list & some excellent follow up comments .. I’ll get to twitter shortly and it’s really helpful to have some excellent pointers ..
Thanks – Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters

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Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:46 pm: You’re welcome Hilary! Get on there soon…and you’ll still be an early adopter.

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Rick Gershman June 2, 2009 at 8:34 pm

Giffy?

What is that, a really, really fast image file?

Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:47 pm: Rick, here you go.

Giffy (defined by Phil Gerbyshak): done really quickly. I’ll be there in a giffy.

I think a really really fast image file is a jpeggy, though I can’t be sure

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Korvenne S. June 3, 2009 at 7:04 pm

Re: 7
I’m all for conversation also, and recently chopped up my list of followers to exclude a lot of lurkers that have never piped up to say anything. That’s just creepy and/or fishy.
BUT.
If I check you out and ALL I see are @anyone updates, I won’t follow you, either.
When I check out someone’s profile I like to get a feeling for the kind of things they update about, outside of the conversations in which I may or may not take part.
If I have to scroll through several pages to find an actual update that is not a reply, chances are I will not be following you.

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Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:48 pm: You make a good point Korvenne. I try to post at least a few RTs and a few originals every day. Not just conversation.

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Amanda Bucklow June 3, 2009 at 7:19 pm

Hello Phil, I love this post and your site. Thanks to Tammy for tweeting this! I resisted Twitter for quite a while until I could see how it might fit into an already active communications portfolio!
I’ve been “listening” for a few days now and I like what I “hear”. Your post just confirmed what I thought should be the way to join in. Look forward to continuing the conversations.
Amanda

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Phil Gerbyshak June 3, 2009 at 7:49 pm: Yay for listening. You are already WAY ahead of most folks. Good for you!

And glad to continuing the conversation. Please follow me and send me a quick @philgerb so I can follow you.

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Karen Wallace June 5, 2009 at 7:51 pm

Great list Phil! I’m not getting flooded by new follower messages, but enough that it does take time to check them out and decide whether I will follow them back or not. Therefore having a ‘personal selection criteria’ about which ones you’ll follow back, and which ones you won’t is absolutely critical. (my pet hate is those with avatars showing off body parts I really don’t want to see…)

Now, what about blocking people? Do you want those creeps and weirdos seeing your tweets? Where do we draw the line there??

I really must make time to stop by here more often…

PS here in Australia we spell it ‘jiffy’

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jack June 9, 2009 at 2:08 am

Users that hold in excess of 10,000 followers do not often engage in dialog, and if you are Oprah you have the right not to engage in dialog. There is no Twitter rule book that one must follow back every one that follows. I do not follow back Britney Sex Video but block the user and I do not follow back red necks.

Phil Gerbyshak June 9, 2009 at 9:58 pm: I agree with you Jack. No rule that says you have to follow back…or hold conversation…or anything. These are just my rules.

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hermes kelly bag July 8, 2010 at 7:51 pm