Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

I Follow Pornstars On Twitter? [Stop Auto-Follow]

View Comments | Posted In Social Media by David

We all know that Twitter is an awesome social networking platform. The one-to-many communication, the ease of tweeting from anywhere – it is cool and the growth rate proves it.

However, that growth rate has been so high that there are negative side effects. Spam, for one. But, when you couple the tweet spam with the ego-centric need to have high follower counts, Twitter itself starts to lose it’s usefulness.

For this reason, I have completely done a reverse course on my approach to Twitter.


Six Figure Blogger Follows Web Cam Girls

Yes, I do (did). But, it wasn’t because I sought them out. It was because I, like many people, used auto-follow. Simply put, when somebody followed me on Twitter, they were automatically followed back.

So, some slut with a webcam wants to follow me, complete with her avatar showing just how much of a whore she is, she does it. Of course, she isn’t following me because she is interested in blogging. No, she just wants the auto-follow. And she got it.

So, there I am, following a pornstar. And she “follows” me, but never reads a thing I say. Because she doesn’t care. She just wants the number on her account. So she can spam me.

No thanks. I don’t bend that way.

The Problem With Auto-Follow

When I started auto-following, I did it because I felt like it was socially appropriate to follow people who follow me. I didn’t want to be perceived as a conceited guy who doesn’t care.

Truth be told, my rate of getting new followers DID go up noticeably after I began to auto-follow.

In an ideal world, that would work. In a world of spam and fake egos, it just means I attract a lot of garbage and basically ruin my Twitter experience.

Auto following attracts other people who auto follow. These people are not interested in me whatsoever.

Plus, if a person auto-follows, and already follows several thousand people, do you REALLY think they are reading your tweets? I mean, SERIOUSLY. The idea that it is appropriate to return the favor of following is a stupid shell game. Neither side is reading the other! What the hell is the point?

Look at that from a marketing perspective. We know that building a list is important. Well, Twitter IS a list. Now, how targeted is that list if the people on it are not there because they are interested in you?

And the effectiveness of Twitter clearly shows this. I had 9,000 followers. I could tweet a link and it might get clicked on 50-75 times. Maybe. Now, obviously, because of the real-time nature of Twitter, even the people who know me might not click on it. I understand that. However, if 40-50% of my followers don’t even follow me because of what I say, but only because they want another follower, then it is just baggage. No benefit to me nor them.

Additionally, when you auto-follow, you get spammed CONSTANTLY by auto-DMs.

So, essentially, auto-follow RUINS Twitter. Screw it. I’m done.

Fixing The Damage

I could go one of two routes:

  1. Unfollow everybody and just follow back the ones I care about.
  2. Unfollow people one-by-one if they spam me or otherwise put out stuff consistently that I couldn’t care less about.

For now, I’m leaning toward #2. If it proves to be too much, I might just start from scratch.

The truth is, I DO care about everybody. If you read my blog or are interested in blogging, then I do care about you. But, I want to follow real people. Not bots or people looking to get me to check out their webcam or sell me something to get 500 followers in one day.

I think a smaller number of folks who actually care is better than a large number of folks who don’t.

Your Thoughts?

Do you think auto-following is smart? Do you use it?

Please share below in the comments.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

  1. Why Do You Follow People on Twitter?
  2. The Big Secret To Lots of Followers on Twitter Is…
  3. Which Is More Important on Twitter: Who You Follow or Being Followed?
  4. Twitter Follow Limit: Let’s Get It Right, Guys
  5. The Case Against Auto-DM’s On Twitter
Six Figure Blogger Blueprint

Get your copy of the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint.

You'll Discover...

  • 3 vital questions to pick the right niche.
  • The layout for funneling traffic into your blog.
  • How this blog generates thousands of dollars monthly - without a single banner ad.

Your information will not be shared with anybody - ever.

  • I could not agree more. I have quit auto following and are now working on removing people who publish stuff I'm not interested in. I want to use twitter for something useful and find stuff I'm interested in. I'm so tired of those "how to get 10 000 followers in three days" posts.
  • I can not get auto follow to stop!
    I've eliminated all outside apps in my connections.
    Any suggestions?
  • MyArmyLife
    I am not a fan of the auto-follow as it seems to defy the whole point of Twitter ... to social network with those you want to follow. Somehow, my account keeps following folks I have not chosen, though. It's NOT an auto-follow of those that follow me, it's pulling people that are NOT following me and many that I do not want to follow. Do you know any ways to see why this is happening and how to stop it? I keep running into walls getting help from Twitter support. Anyone who can help, I'd appreciate it!
  • I do NOT auto-follow. I think it's obnoxious. I see who's following me and I look at their profile and their last few Tweets. If I see someone I think I have stuff in common with or who just has interesting things to say, I'll follow them back. If they are a spammer, they get blocked. (Except for other online sellers that move in my circles. People in those circles who only post updates about what they are selling just don't get followed back.)

    Every once in a while, you DO have a conversation via Twitter. That's why I'm there. It's not about how many followers I can get.
  • David, Great Post. I completely agree. I am constantly weeding out idiots and prostitutes. I think Twitter can be a great way to communicate but the best way to describe it is millions of ticks without a dog. It's a freeking feeding freenzie every day. I agree more quality targeted followers that actually care about reading your tweet is better than showing useless numbers. thanks, mark
  • Hi David,

    I agree with what you are saying because I've been using auto follow with Tweetlater but like you are saying, it doesn't matter how big your Twitter List is if nobody is reading your tweets...I do go into my Twitter account every once in a while and unfollow people"Like those porn stars" you are talking about and other people that I see are only on there to spam me. I'm going to take more time and go through all my followers and actually check their profile to see what they are all about and then just follow the interesting people and from now on I'm going to turn off the auto follow and start building a more targeted Twitter list of followers by replying back personally to the people that follow me.

    Have a great day!

    Robert
  • Right now I follow 375 people and find that it's manageable. Even so, while Robert Scoble was unfollowing everybody he followed (over 100K!), I cut back to 350. Some of them were major noise generators.

    I've never done autofollow, and now I know I never will. Too much trouble, really; I wouldn't want to autofollow all those porno spambots. Best to let them follow me and then auto-unfollow me.

    As for your followers: It's not so much how many followers you have as how many of them listen to you. If they retweet and engage in constructive conversation, great. I wouldn't mind having 3 million followers like @aplusk, most of them fans hanging on my every word. But as for those I follow, 2,000 would probably be my upper limit, especially without groups built into Twitter.
  • I use auto-following and get some pornstar sometimes... so I just block them as unfollow would not be enough.

    What you said is very interesting: "Neither side is reading the other! What the hell is the point?"

    People hate SPAM but they like nice content.
  • I currently have a Twitter following over 14,000 but it does beg the question, "How many people are real behind those 14,000 followers?" I hand type all my tweets but I have gone into my follower list and noticed that I have auto followed 10 of the same person -- the photos are the give away -- but with different names. I have also auto followed several porn stores that were following me. Whether a person is into porn or not is really not the issue. The important question is, "Who is really real and actually reading those tweets?"
  • John
    I love the instaneous nature of twitter, but like all tools once destined for good (email for example) the n'er do wells and whores of all types have messed it up for the rest of us. I spend too much time laying traps and deadfalls for e-mail spam for myself and my clients. I have started using wordpress blogs in place of websites but fear comment spam. Anyway, the question is auto follow or not? I don't believe I will use it, because it's just an open door.
  • Right on. The madness of Twitter & the autofollow frenzy reminds me of the "safe lists" of a few years ago. Thousands of wannabe Internet Marketing moguls, all posting scads of junk that no one reads.

    I know it's a numbers game, but there has to be a better way!
  • I at first would auto follow for the same reason that you mention. I have since changed my mind and no longer auto follow. I will only follow those that are contributing to what twitter should be. I agree with you 100%.
  • I finally did a enema on my twitter accounts, no more auto follow, and I use wefollow.com to identify twitterers I respect and share the same interest as myself. thx as always Dave.. Great post, and even better comments.
  • Gee Strongbear
    I choose to follow people or entities that seem interesting to me, but don't tweet more than about once a day, and don't seem to be into showbizzing themselves. That way, if I'm gone for a day or so, I don't come back to find pages of meaningless junk tweets.
  • Another great post, David. I've never autofollowed -- glad that was a good call.
  • When I started on Twitter, I had serious concerns about using auto-follow (basically the same ones you described in your article), so I decided not to use this function right from the beginning. It's good to see so many confirmations, that the decision was right.
  • I'll be honest I don't care how many spammers follow me or for how long. I don't care how many egotists follow me for a follow back. I don't often check my followers list to see just who is following me or to block undesirables. Really what a waste of time. Those who follow me who matter will be meet in my feed and they will meet me in theirs.

    I have previously auto followed but have also come to the conclusion that it is not productive. I do agree that I need to prune my following list and will when time permits. I don't however care about my followers list. I do care about my followers. And as you point out David, Followers and ones followers list is not one and the same.
  • I don´t use auto-follow, because it is not in my interest in following everyone. i want to follow by topic, so if someone is writing good interesting stuff I will follow. If things (networks) grow, problems getting bigger and bigger.

    I don´t care about the number of my followers. Better to have a few good followers than 10000 who suck. (sorry:-))

    Compare it to real life. Do you talk to 1.000 people a day to find new friends? no.

    so let´s get connected in a good way, not by numbers.

    Floyd
  • I also have yet to start using Twitter. It is great to know not to Auto-follow. You have saved me countless hours unfollowing spammers and wading through useless tweets to find the meaningful ones.

    I think I will be following you, though. Thanks
  • I agree auto-follow sucks big time. Twitter like most good things is now so full of people focused on how many followers they can get. I have a pen name twitter account that has over 12,000 followers. This was no over night effort, it actually took a whole year to do. I measure the effectiveness of my following by using cligs to track my twitter post, everytime I post I am seeing over 500 instant clicks to the subjects i am talking about. Quality not quantity. thx/lew
  • Hi David,

    Whilst I agree on principle that Twitter can be a spammy site, its not as bad as some others I could name.

    I do "Auto Follow" but i vet all my followers and i vet those who are not in a particular niche, Like well Blogging for example. I use a number of tools and some have cost me a great deal of money to obtain. But they do work.

    I am not into the Huge numbers game that most are and at the last count i had around 1800 followers and i was following about the same. I know i cannot possibly read all my tweets and Dm's or even half but i do care about those in my niche and who are genuinly trying to grow a business.

    So I understand your rant and i sympathise. But for now I will continue as I am and hope its enough.

    Thanks for sharing your insight.

    Kevin
  • SZ
    Those whores are smart enough to use that kind of technology? Just kidding. But seriously almost all social networks are like that. Especially MySpace. My MySpace account with over 20,000 friends got deleted just because I made one innocent bulletin about a free contest on my site. I've seen lots of people do this. Well, apparently it's against MySpace rules. Yet, they let all these web-cam sluts with their thousands of "friends" stay on there while they spam people to visit their sites. I've read Myspace's rules, and they claim this is not allowed... yet they're overpowered by these whores. Of course they're gonna let them stay, they bring MySpace a lot of traffic. I can't believe Twitter is turning into that now.
  • I do not autofollow anyone. Twitter can be fun to use and a useful tool but not if it is cluttered up with junk. I use a program that pops tweets to my desktop so that I can keep up with my friends without having to stop and go check it. Yes, I miss some but I'm not a slave to it either. If someone gets overzealous in their posting, I simply drop them. Life's too short to worry about it. On the flip side, following someone for a while lets me know if I want to know more about them. We reveal a lot in our tweets.
  • DeAnn
    I can see twitter being used as an announcement ie: I have just added "this product" to my etsy store, or just posted a new blog @website. I can also see twitter being used as a personal event format. "A squirrel just jumped over my fence and ate the corn". Not earth shattering, but a personal event. I can see twitter being used as a newspaper, ie: Hey David Risley just posted about twitter, I am in agreement with him, find him here (http://www.davidrisley.com/2009/07/16/twitter-auto-follow/) and see if you don't agree.
    Yes, twitter has been viral. No, I do not auto-follow never did. Yes, I stop following people that post every few seconds filling my page with garbage. No, I won't toss it out (not yet). Yes, twitter can be a time waster, it takes time to go through your list to find the ones that you really care about. So question is, why do you follow the ones that you do not care about. Human nature is strange, we all want to connect in some way or another. Hey, I think this comment qualifies as a blog post, hehe. Great day to all!
  • Great article here David.

    I guess we all have at one time done the same mistake, and done the auto-follow. And yes with auto-follow you end up getting a lot of unwanted followers that don't care about you. you get like say here 'pornstars' that follow you, follow hatchers (just in there for the numbers and unfollow right after they followed you), and a large amount of these followers is also inactive.

    Patrick, I don't think there is an option on Twitter at the moment for turn on/off Auto-Follow. You have to turn this off on the third party site where you set up auto-follow.

    I have now focused all my efforts on doing everything manually myself, and that is also where I focus all my coaching on my blog.

    I guess David you should come up with some petition that everyone could sign on that are against auto follow programs.

    Cheers..

    Are Morch
    TwtrCoach
  • Arto
    Such applications succeed only when the original interest is in the customer satisfaction but I have noticed otherwise through my experience.

    Twitter is a failing project.
  • I just went into the twitter settings to find out if I've got Auto Follow turned on, and I can't even find it now. So, my question is is it a feature of one of the programs like TweetDeck and UberTwitter? Or am I totally missing it?

    I fell into the trap of signing up for one of those "Get thousands of followers" things. And I got 2,000 followers within a week (and followed 2,000). Now, I'm weeding out the ones that I don't read (which is the majority of them), and moving the ones that I do into groups on TweetDeck.

    I probably have about 30 to 40 people that I do read (in my two groups), and occasionally I read the other 1,600.

    Have a great day:)
    Patrick.
  • charles
    Thanks for explaining twitter. I never had the urge to join for some of the same reasons you just mention. I feel the same about facebook, my space etc.
  • I try to follow back as many people as I can but I do not auto follow. For the reason that I do not want to be following anyone I shouldn't be. Before I follow someone I check their bio and their latest tweets then I decide if I want to follow. Has worked well but can be time consuming too. And I do make an effort to watch my timeline and engage with the interesting tweets.
  • Auto follow has it's advantages (if you're using twitter for marketing), but as you've mentioned, it can be a total pain in the butt.

    What's the use of having thousands of followers that don't even read your tweets? I assume that's your point here. :)
  • I do autofollow. I don't get any porn stars, perhaps because I'm a girl. I mostly seem to get make-money-online scam merchants, which is equally annoying. It seems that there's nobody out there sometimes except con merchants. I've no problem with the concept, that's why I'm at this blog, but I don't like to have to wade through hundreds of commercials whenever I access Twitter.
    When I first joined I had a few interesting followers I could actually communicate with. Now thats all gone.
    Thanks for the post, David. It's time I made a decision about where to go with Twitter.
  • I have almost completely quit Twitter. Too many self serving ass-wipes think they will get rich if they have 30K followers. Not completely yet, but Twitter is fast becoming the network of dumb asses, myself included but I'm un-following my small number everyday.
  • I never turned it on. And the amount of people that want me to follow them is ridiculous. I only follow those people that I think may interest me, or are local. Anything else, and I decline to follow and delete the invitation regardless.

    I'm not trying to be a w***e and get a bazillion followers, I'm after quality before quantity, and if I'm only following 200, and I only have a following of 200, that's just fine with me.
  • I haven't been using twitter for long and I do admit to using auto-follow, but it's difficult to work out the best strategy! If you look at people who are enjoying a lot of success with social networking and online marketing in general there are a mixture of views. I think I'm moving towards not auto-following because the most valuable contacts I have on twitter are almost all people that I connected with before using it. The problems that you raise about spam etc are more reasons to find contacts without auto-follow!
  • I would never auto follow. I don't understand why anybody would follow anyone unless they at least looked at their stream and saw something they liked.

    By the same token, I don't manually follow people back just because they follow me. I'll always look at their stream and decide if I'm interested in what they have to say. I don't understand this convention of following people back just because it's "polite." What's the point of following someone if you don't necessarily want to hear what they have to say?

    The better the quality of everyone's personal followstream, the better Twitter is for everyone. Social media is about connecting with people, not just "scoring points." Am I wrong?
  • I'm personally not using auto following and I recommend everyone to stop using it. By doing so they will substantially reduce the amount of spam users.
  • Makes sense, David. Unless I had a large number of people I wanted to follow, I'd opt for #1. Presently, I haven't started using Twitter yet, but will soon after I learn from your mistakes. ;)

    And when I do start Tweeting, I'll be following you because I actually enjoy reading your blog. This is my third time back in a couple of weeks, and I'll be adding you to my reader now.
  • JD
    This tool is great for sorting out this problem...
    dossy.org/twitter/karma/

    You will see and sort all the relationships between you and your followers.

    I definitely NO LONGER auto follow. You gotta strike up some kinda conversation before I follow you.

    And I use the TweetDeck application to monitor a VIP list of people who's tweets I actually read!
  • Bonnie the Web Designer
    I have heard people say it's not socially appropriate to not auto-follow, and I have felt somewhat guilty because I don't auto-follow. Early on I got those spam followers, so I stopped auto-follow right away. Each day I review new followers and look at their profiles and skim a page of their tweets. If they are writing about stuff I'm interested in, I will follow them back.

    I appreciate your article because I kind of wondered how people who follow thousands could possibly read them all. I only follow a few 100, and I have developed conversations with these people that have turned into viable business and personal relationships. So while my follow/following is small by Twitter standards, it works in the manner Twitter is intended to -- by extending my network.

    Great article, thanks!
  • Hi David,
    Interesting post . . . I actually had forgotten that I had used an autofollow program and wondered why all these unseemly types were following me, duh!

    Thanks to someone earlier for posting the http://stopautofollow.com/ link. I'll check it out.

    Yesterday I got an email from Jonathan Leger about a new microblogging site he created called http://tipdrop.com. It's relevant, informative, and I think will fast take over Twitter's popularity.

    Let me know if you think so, too.

    All the best,
    Theresa
  • Leif Stenlund
    I don't auto-follow, I guess that must have upset george42 thru to george56 who followed me a while ago, because they stopped following me after some time.

    I follow people I know, people I like and people I'd like to know. And people that talk about things that interest me.

    I can't be following too many people, I'm a readaholic, I have to read texts when I see them. It's pretty annoying, reading the same text on the back of the toothpaste tube for the millionth time every time I brush my teeth... If I followed more people I'd never get anything done. It's bad enough, already.

    I read "Notify me of followup comments via e-mail" fourteen times, while writing this.
  • David,

    First time reading your blog here...nice design :)

    It's amazing how much spam circulates on Twitter, which is why I turned off auto-follow (of any type) almost right in the beginning (thankfully).

    So while manual approval takes a little time sometimes, it's worth it.
  • Daz
    This is the biggest problem on Twitter now.
    Even though I have 1647 people following me, I'm not sure even 10% of those are actually following me because they want to. Infact, I wouldn't be surprised if only 2% of that were actually bothered by what I tweet (and I tweet some proper cool stuff, Heh!). If I go through my followers list, there's a lot just sending out affiliate links in the hope I'll click them because they've started following me (and I guess it works if you're not used to this practice, and you want to find out about the person following you!)

    It's a difficult issue to solve, too on a global Twitter scale. I guess by not following them back kind of hides you from any further updates, but, it's still polluting your followers list and count.
  • I've found some value with certain automation tools. when you're running a business, you need to make the best use of your time as possible. But they need to be kept in check, and you can never leave them completely unattended.

    You used auto-follow for a while, checked back in on it and have made some adjustments. I think that's all part of the game. You saved a lot of time, now you have to retweak it and reassess. I don't think it's all about whether automation is all good or all bad. There's value in it, but you still need to keep it balanced out, and that part of the equation will always be a manual process.
  • I had a similar problem - so I unfollowed everyone and handpicked the accounts I want to follow. My following list shrinked from 3000 to 18.
  • Rick
    Have you ever considered that perhaps someone checking out the porn star might come across your profile and actually be interested in what you have to say? Who knows, that person may even subscribe to your blog, make a purchase from you or become your student. Anything is possible. I don't think it hurts to simply just leave your set up as is. Plenty of internet marketers who could be considered "qualified" followers may end up simply spamming you all day as well. I barely even read other peoples tweets any more they contain so much garbage...and that's the tweets from "regular" people. Basically, anyone I think can offer any really value, which is few and far between, are the only tweets I pay attention to anyway. Unless of course, I have something of value to share.
  • I do not use auto-follow. When I first started using Twitter, I followed people who I was interested in following. Random people seemed to follow me back when I would follow all kinds of people, including celebs (I was trying to figure out what there was to this Twitter thing).

    I would go through my follower list and add pretty much everyone. So kind of a manual auto-follow. Figured I'd see who they were and maybe some interesting interaction would occur.

    That quickly got old.

    I don't much care about numbers, as I still use Twitter mainly as a social and learning tool. I have a few different groups of people I follow because I want to hear what they have to say, whether to learn from them, because they are into the same hobbies as I am, or just because they are interesting or funny.

    But I no longer follow anyone without checking out their profile and last page or two of tweets. The new layout makes it a lot easier, as you can see their last tweet, and can tell right away if it is some bot spamming their cam page or some such thing.
  • I don't use Auto-follow for that precise reason. Luckily, when I first got on Twitter a friend warned me about that.

    When someone follows me, I check out their profile - every one. It takes a little time out of my day, but I feel it's worth it.

    What does suck on Twitter is when someone follows you and you follow them but then they never respond to anything you say. I don't get that. Isn't that what Twitter is for? Or is it really just link spam from humans?
  • Twitter is great to get the word out to people interested in what you are all about. If you simply have a hoard of people who auto follow they are likely to be SHEEP and not truly demo appropriate. Not a good idea. Follow those thathave stuff you are interested in ONLY
  • I used to do the auto follow as well. I use TweetDeck to divide those I'm following into groups, so I don't miss important updates, but there is still so much spam! I've been more careful lately to read the bio and the last few tweets from a new follower before following back. And, like you, I am deleting spammers one by one as I see it getting out of hand.

    My next battle is the auto DM's! Ugh..I think I have over 4k DM's and they are overwhelming. I would like to use it as a more personal way of reaching out, but the replies get buried under the spam!
  • Well this sure does hit the Twitter system market. Haha. I bought a twitter system months ago and the usual technique presented was to auto-follow. In the end, I really got nothing out of it. So there, I learned my lesson.
  • @Mark. Thanks for the DM Whacker tip - that looks pretty useful.
  • David I recently started following you after reading your blog and I got an almost immediate DM from you but to my surprise you didn't try to sell me something, instead you said that you don't auto-follow! 'Genius' is what I thought first and 'Thank goodness I'm not the only one!' I thought second.

    I've never auto followed. I check my new followers daily firstly looking at their bio...if it's not related to what I'm into I won't follow, if I'm interested then I check out their latest Tweets. If I see a stream of self promotion, "Get 400 followers daily!", continuous affiliate links and anything else 'annoying' I won't follow them.

    Great post and I'm loving your blog. Thanks. :)
  • Twitter has become a pain in the rear. All the hype, people promoting twitter tatics and the like have kill it.
    It was good a couple of years ago but it just isn't worth the effort anymore. I have lost interest.
  • When I get a notice that someone is following me I go look at their profile page. If they look interesting, I'll follow. If they don't, then I won't. But for some reason I feel just a little bit guilty about that. It does seem rude...

    ...and yet I think I'm goofy for feeling that way.

    I don't have time to follow every link that looks interesting. If I did that, I'd never get any work done at all. But when I have a little time and want to just unwind, then I'll go to Twitter and see if anyone has something interesting to say.

    I don't follow anyone who just posts videos, because I'm on a satellite connection and videos mostly don't work. It has to be something vitally interesting for me to even attempt it. Also don't follow anyone who just plays music. I like music, but don't want to sit in front of my computer and listen.

    Like you, I've been trying to "weed out" people whose Tweets are never of interest.
  • I really haven't started Twittering yet. I have an account set-up, but have not done anything with it. Posts like these are going to help me make a good start when get going. I definitely don't think I will be auto-following.
  • Hi David. I don't autofollow. Never have. I have over 2,000 followers and it is growing fast, which makes it very difficult to check everyone out. I feel bad bc I want to give everyone a chance who is decent (I follow back unless they are a scammer, way too markety or are porn, etc -- if they choose me there must have been a reason). The reason I'm feeling bad (kind of guilty) is bc I can't check out followers as fast as they are following me. I have had a gain of 60 followers a day. It is so difficult to keep up, yet I will NOT autofollow. I want to have a quality list on twitter. I have actually been ridiculed more than once for not autofollowing, and told that if I had a "decent, large following" on twitter, I too would be autofollowing, but my situation was I didn't have many followers, and that they did. They couldn't manage, except to autofollow, and some day if I ever had a decent amount of followers, I would autofollow also. Besides, I was told by at least two tweeters, it is the ONLY kind thing to do!

    Yet I stil won't autofollow. Quality is much more important than quantity. Yet I still feel guilty bc I am not checking out followers fast enough! I truly hope I am not insulting anyway and that they understand. I often tweet, "Please wait for me to follow you back, and don't give up on me, bc I've been very busy lately!" I've come to the conclusion that autofollowing just won't ever be the best for me, and that I will have to deal w not being able to check all followers out. It's sad to me but I have no other option. I do get to most followers though...

    Hope that answer helps somehow! Sorry I was so long winded...

    krissy knox :)
    follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/iamkrissy
  • I went the same route as you, whereby I decided to stop auto following, and will unfollow as I get spam, etc.
    Originally I just thought it was polite to follow those who followed me, but then I realized that they were just following people to get them to follow back so they could have a high follow count....the awareness dawns slowly sometimes :)
  • Great post David. Its fantastic to see that internet marketers and blogger are leading twitter by declaring the end of auto follow.

    As I mention on my http://stopautofollow.com site >> Stop Auto Follow, Save Twitter, Save the World ;)

    Help spread the message!

    Cheers
    Imrat
  • I use auto follow but then once or twice a month I go and prune the twitter tree. I remove anyone without picture the sluts or owns that seem fake. If someone starts spamming me I unfollow them. I recent removed my own auto DM on follow and setup my account to not accept auto-DM's. I now get very little DM's. I will say one thing about twitter the list just keeps growing with little effort but I don't but much value in it. However it does allow you to connect with like minded people in a really simple way.

    Another great post!
  • Thanks for saying what I've been thinking. A bunch of people sitting around pretending to breathe each other's exhaust fumes does not make a business.
  • I hate to be negative but Twitter is in real danger of becoming full of spam. I think Twitter is one of two extremes, people either use it a heck of a lot or they lose interest really quickly.

    Key question is David - if Jenna Jameson followed you on Twitter would you follow her back?!
  • I recently joined Twitter to see what all the fuss was about, I thought it was great I was getting all these followers in no time. Needless to say it took me a few looks at some of the usernames to see a lot of them must have obviously been fake.
  • I think auto-follow will eventually either disappear or have to be re-vamped. Otherwise Twitter will be overwhelmed by spammers. I still don't really 'get' Twitter. I mean, I understand it from a marketing point of view and as a kind of mini, real-time RSS. But from a social point of view, I can't understand why so many people are apparently obsessed with the minutae of each other's lives.
  • I definitely do not auto follow. I do have a large list of followers, and a pretty large list of people I am following. enough so that I tend to focus on @Replies more than the timeline.

    Also, DM Whacker is a great tool to get rid of all those darn auto-DMs everyone seems to think are useful. I auto delete everything with "follow" in the DM then I can get to my real DMs. Just google DM Whacker and get it - well worth it
  • I used auto-follow when I first started out with Twitter, feeling it was the courteous thing to do. After a period of time I noticed that like you, I was getting a lot of followers who really had nothing in common with me and my reasons for being online.

    My numbers were soon out of kilter and I've been trying to clean up ever since (when time allows). This cleanup activity is not real high on my list as I will do more important tasks first, like writing some posts.

    Since twitter has become a bit of a meat market, I only follow people with similar interest or those who have something that I am interested in learning about.

    I get more unfollowers by not following everyone, but how many people can you really follow and be in tune with anyhow?

    I follow none of the X-rated webcammers, and they always unfollow after a short period of time, so that issue takes care of itself.

    A better balance in my numbers is desirable, but I'll not spend too much time trying to get that accomplished. There is "Pro Blogging" ahead, so that is my main focus.
  • Tony Lawrence
    @John Bredehoft

    I do read my entire feed (but of course it's only 73 people).

    I should note that I also dump people for rank stupidity, too much posting and other sins :-)

    I mean, sheesh, what's the point of "following" people you don't really follow?

    If I follow you, I follow you.
  • My twitter feed is closed. Anyone is welcome to ask. If they are a real person, I'll add them and probably follow them.

    And BTW, I like to eat, and I don't mind reading what you had for dinner, if it made you feel good. Or bad even.
  • Whew, for a minute there I thought you were talking about my tweets from the bathroom about the bathroom.
  • On Twitter, FriendFeed, or anything else, I usually do not auto-follow. When I receive an email notification that someone has followed me, I will go to that person's profile.

    If the person has posted no messages, I will not follow.

    If the person has a private feed, I will not follow unless I've read the person's writings elsewhere and like them.

    If the person writes exclusively in a language I do not speak, I will not follow.

    If the person posts the same message/link over and over, I usually will not follow.

    And, needless to say, if the person's content holds absolutely no interest for me, I will not follow. (This not only applies to spammers, but also legitimate people who talk about makeup tips or Eddie Van Halen's guitar prowess or whatever.)

    However, I don't get a huge amount of "following" messages per day, so I'm able to keep up with the requests.

    Speaking of keeping up, Tony Lawrence has a valid point. I stopped trying to read my entire Twitter stream a year ago, and liken my current activity to dipping a toe in a rushing stream of water. Therefore, it wouldn't make sense for Tony to follow me, if he only wants to follow people who are guaranteed to receive his messages.
  • I have never really worked out how to get the best out of Twitter. I've dabbled, but not really worked out how best to use it to keep on top of what other people are up to, or how to responsibly use it to keep people up to date with what I'm up to. One thing that I HATED when I was playing with it was precisely the subject of this post - the abuse of auto-following. The other thing that seems increasingly apparent now the 'marketing power' of Twitter is known is that a lot of what goes on there is marketing - very few of my followers were following me without a personal motive. Did you find that?
  • Never did the auto-follow. And I have made a point of un-following people whos only point is to tweet sales pitches in a rapid fire method. In return I make a point of tweeting useful info, occasional boring stuff I may be doing and self promotion sometimes.
  • I definitely would not recommend using the auto follower tool for Twitter because you never know who might follow you. Especially if it is someone who has a bad reputation
  • Tony Lawrence
    I don't auto-follow.

    With very few exceptions, I also won't follow anyone who is following more than 300 people. My reasoning there is that they are "twitter deaf" because they follow so many.

    I "un-followed" a whole lot of people last February because of this policy. Most of them immediately un-followed me, which tells you what they were about anyway. So now I'm down to 207 followers and only follow 73 of them.
  • *lol* Love the way you wrote this entry! I definitely agree - I don't want to be followed/following bots or people who do things I don't approve of. :) My Twitter list is still small, but that's ok - I'm making sure to follow only people I'm interested in and who have something in common with me. I don't auto follow -- I check out their twitter page first and their description, and decide from there. :)

    Thanks for this post - it made me chuckle... so true, though!
  • I don't use auto follow any more. Can't stop the crazy spam or porn, but don't want to be linked to them either.
  • Domingo Rogers
    Hey David!

    Great post. I have never ever had an all encompassing auto-follow policy. For awhile I was following everyone that was following me because, like you, I thought that was what was polite (save for those that I could tell were just shoving their wares or lack of clothing in my face). Now though, I only follow those that I feel would benefit my followers to follow. This normally falls into the category of bloggers, technology, business, and or close friends and coworkers. I even go to the extent of blocking people/bots that I don't want to be associated with because of what they represent. I am building a brand and it's important that that remains protected!

    Thanks for your insight and may this day provide you success!
  • Snackee
    I am in total agreement with your article. I do autofollow but I also have my updates protected. So in order for these porn girls to follow me the first have to send me a DM. When I see them on the DM I just block them. That seem to work for me. I really don't care for the amount of followers I have as long as I can get valuable and worthy information.
  • David, I have been wondering the same exact thing lately. I have been thinking about turning off my auto-follow for the last month as I don't see the value anymore of chasing follower counts or being a nice guy by reciprocating. I can't even tell you how many naked people I am following right now as a result. LOL.

    I don't know what the best route is either. I have contemplated unfollowing every single person I follow to start over. I am afraid that I will offend the people that I enjoy talking to on a daily basis. The other option is to manually go through each follower to unfollow and block, which will take forever.
  • I've noticed a similar problem with Twitter. Having a huge follower base is usually crap unless you generated the base by legitimate means, not auto-follow and return auto follow. It's becoming stupid. Your porn star angle is hilarious. Good demonstration of the negatives.
blog comments powered by Disqus