Why do people unfollow you on twitter?
Hi friends~ This is the first post in a series called “Twitter series: Your Questions Answered” starting today on my blog! I will take up ONE question each day this week and answer it in the form of a blog post! Hoping it will be useful for newbie tweeters 🙂
Let’s kick off the week with the question:
Why do people unfollow you on twitter?
This is one of the most commonly asked questions on twitter. We love it when people follow us, and hate it when our follower number drops. People actually find out who unfollowed them using an app. When people unfollow you, there can be some reasons for it.
1.You tweet waaaay too much:
How much is too much? Well, it depends from person to person. I tweet a lot everyday (I’m a self confessed twitter addict) – but most of them are informative tweets, inspirational quotes that I retweet and conversations. What makes people unfollow you is tweeting TOO MANY #FF or #hashtag tweets with multiple handles in a single tweet and tweets which promote other people in bulk etc. Such tweets which provide absolutely no value whatsoever can get you unfollowed. Also, 20 tweets back to back (eg, LazyShoutOut) will do the same. The key is to space out your tweets efficiently! After all, too much of anything ain’t good.
2. You curse a lot:
If your stream consists of a lot of colorful language, you will get unfollowed. No one would want their timelines to be filled with different kinds of abuses. Offensive tweets and threats, especially the ones aimed at people, are just wrong – and can not only get you unfollowed, but it can get you blocked, and your account can get suspended too. Read this.
3. You ‘promote’ a lot:
Only promotions all day will get you only unfollows. In fact, people won’t even bother to follow you. If you’re not a twitter ‘bot’, then it’s better to balance both promotional tweets and interactive tweets. I’d say 90% interaction and content, and the rest can be links to your blog/site.
4. You send auto DMs:
Auto DMs are a big #fail. “Thank you for following me, check out my website and earn money from twitter! Hope you enjoy my tweets”. Um, I didn’t really enjoy that. No one really bothers to check out your facebook/music/whatever AS SOON AS they follow you.
5. You fully automate your tweets: Full twitter automation doesn’t have many positives. No interaction – check, only links to your site all day – check, unfollow – check. In twitter’s own words, “Updates that are posted automatically to your account through a tool or third-party application, for which you are compensated (whether on a “per-click,” “per-sale,” “per-tweet,” or other basis), are prohibited. Automating your tweets to include references to unrelated trending topics will result in account suspension.” For details, read Twitter Automation Rules.
6. You are inactive: This is self explanatory. What’s the point of following such accounts? People will unfollow those who don’t tweet.
7. You don’t follow back: This can be a criteria for many tweeps. People will unfollow those who unfollow them and don’t follow back.
And lastly, some people unfollow you because they cannot take your awesomeness 😉 It’s twitter, follows – unfollows happen everyday. Remember, as @Iconic88 said,
Lovely post, if only 3/4 of my followers that tweet me back saying “Why did you unfollow me?” read this and would understand exactly why I unfollowed them. Might as well link them here everytime they do or something 🙂 Great work, keep it up!
haha thanks a lot Dannie! 🙂 The ‘who unfollowed me’ thing can get very annoying, right!? I appreciate your comment 🙂
Hey Nicky this is a great site and great advice. Absolutely brilliant! It points out all the peeves I have with people and especially at the moment with @ LazyShout – I like Twitter to be social, not a follow for follows sake, and I’m not too keen on people having a go at people as well. Keep up the good work, which undoubtedly you will. Very well done indeed!
Thank you so much for your great comment! The Lazy shout out thing has really irritated me, hence I HAD to mention it. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Hi! Cool article. There’s this guy I unfollowed cuz I am not interested though we share some interest. He followed and commented a tweet, I followed back too quick. (I only follow accts I am very interested in and never follow looking 4 follow back. I follow 300 ppl now, 772 follow me). So, this guy asked why you unfollowwed? And I hated it! Wanted to say , because I’m free to do so. Only the fact that he was not letting me unfollow freely made me want to unfollow him more, so followed back again. Said I must’ve unfollowed accidentally. I want to unfollow again. Advice/suggestions? (I RT few things dont post personsl things, moods, tweet about whats in my bio, I have a constructive acct, I contribute, share my own edits,…) Thanx in advance!
Since this is twitter and not Facebook, people follow and unfollow a lot of people everyday, it’s no big deal.
In your case, ask yourself this question – do you care enough about the person or their content that you want to keep getting updates from them? Follow. If not, unfollow. You’re not answerable to anyone you follow or unfollow on twitter. If they keep asking you why, either ignore or block.
Have a good day!
Great info, especially that last quote from @Iconic88
Thank you!
Great Post Nicky but I have one more. How about those people that follow you just to get numbers and as soon as you follow them back they drop you like a hot potato? I don’t know what category that falls in but it’s very annoying. It must be an ego thing where they want the followers but also want to appear like a celeb that follows back few. Dumb game??? Have a great week! PS Have already RT’d.
Oh, that’s a great point! That is SO annoying~! They follow a huge number and then, unfollow everyone.
Thank you, Kim, for your very valuable input!
I would like to tweet back, but I don’t know how to.
Umm you mean, Tweet me back? Here: @rocksstar10
i don’t unfollow anyone for content, whether they are spam, or tweet “too much” whatever that means, or foul language or even porn links. i was not put on this earth to judge. i can think what I want about them but i cannot judge what is good or bad content, because to THAT person? it’s good, and that is what is important to them, and they have a right to be an idiot. and once a person starts judging one person, it never stops, and before long they are closing their mind to people who disagree with them, and forming this cache of people around them that is closed off to new ideas, that is contrary to their way of thinking, and hypocracy prevails, and that is a slippery slope i do not wish to slide down. SO I DO NOT UNFOLLOW for content, or for any thing resembling thoughts that I don’t agree with.
I DO UNFOLLOW those who don’t follow back, so I fall into that group you discuss, and I have a valid reason for doing so: Twitter Follow limits, which you didn’t cover. This is the only reason in my humble opinion that is worthy of unfollowing. I unfollow innactives, and those who haven’t tweeted within the last month, then work my way closer chronologically from there.
You also didn’t cover the group of dastardly individual with extremely high follow to following ratios. This actually violates Twitter’s terms of service, but Twitter let’s so many people get away with it. That reason is simple as well. Celeb follow to following ratios are permitted at exceptionally high levels, and their algorithm is not set for this type of detection because of it. Twitter needs the free publicity from Jimmy Kimmel, Good Morning America, and whomever, so they don’t pursue this group of people. They cause great annoyance on twitter because they follow, wait for you to follow back, then unfollow you.
I disagree about FACEBOOK DMs. This is called cross marketing, and is encouraged by Twitter Third party software developers, obviously with Twitters permission. But it’s good economic sense for business. I Don’t do it, never did, and neither do any of my colleagues, but it does make sense to direct people to your Facebook page with a DM as so, so many people are on Facebook, and it’s used by close to a Billion people on the planet. If someone only makes one or two connections per month, it still makes sense. It’s providing a service to those who enjoy FB and that is their main way of doing business, ppl unlike you and I who primarily specialize in Twitter. Again, I don’t use automated DM, but it is worth considering.
AND LASTLY, a Shout out to @BlondeTXGoddess who ReTweeted this Link on her Twitter Timeline with a Traditional Retweet, thanks for helping me find it.
I Tweet at @Samuel_Clemons and welcome a visit to my blog, but its mostly full of useless drivel, and meaningless droll.
Thanks for taking the time to write your well designed blog, and keep at it long enough, and you’ll evolve some of these concepts further.
Col Sir Samuel Zeus Clemons
Hi sir,
I didn’t say DMing people about your Facebook stuff is wrong, I said, it’s not right to do it *AS SOON AS* someone follows you, that’s the difference.
Secondly, you don’t unfollow spam and porn? UM, okay….
Thanks for your comment.
Amen, and pass the potatoes.
My personal peeve is: Follow me? or follow for follow?
Just follow me if you want to, 99% of the time I follow back, unless you break the rules you’ve stated in this post!
Thanks for doing this,
FD
Exactly! “You follow me first then I’ll follow you” – very annoying!
Thanks for your comment! 🙂
Hiya 🙂 Yes “follow me 1st” is daft – I don’t like the begging aspect!
I know right? 🙂
Yeppers the begging aspect and the unfollow as soon as you follow, does my head in too, and ppl who arent polite, thinking that that’s the way to do Social Networking. They will regret it when they sit there and wonder why people aren’t interacting 🙂
Exactly! Well put 🙂
Hey Nicky. Dig the blog and your tweets. I use an auto DM for when people first follow me. I do no promoting in it though. Here’s what I have….
“Thanks for the follow. If I fail to maintain a high degree of useless mind-thumbing (yet entertaining) tweets, please let me know.”
I feel this shouldn’t sway people to un-follow. Your thoughts?
Hi there,
I’m usually against Auto DMs, it does nothing good according to me. Well, it’s good that there’s no promotion in the auto DM, but you know, when I receive a DM like you mentioned, I don’t bother to read it completely and just delete it. So my point is, it doesn’t really work for me.
My two cents 🙂 Thanks for your comment!
Hey Nicky,
I’m still considered a twitter rookie so this blog was totally helpful :). Thanks a bunch!
Thank YOU for stopping by! 🙂 Glad you found it useful 🙂
Hi Nicky!
Great post! I am likely a twitter junkie myself and often can’t keep myself away. But my enjoyment or obsession (haha) comes from following everyone else’s tweets, gaining new information, getting tech tips and so on. Don’t get me wrong, I love my followers too and I follow back (no auto DM’s from me) because you never know what you’ll learn! Isn’t twitter about information sharing? Loving it!! See you there!
Hi Jackie!
You look like a twitter fanatic like me! haha 🙂 Twitter is ALL about sharing! Yep, see ya there! Thanks for your great comment!
Good stuff but one more. If. You’re not engaging and don’t talk to people every once in awhile, especially if they try to talk to you, you will probably be unfollowed as well.
Definitely! Thanks for adding your input.
Adding this to my previous post that still needs to be validated by mod: Maybe I can say it’s tje unfollow bug? 😁