A couple of people have been sending me messages saying that I am not following them back on Twitter after they decided to follow me @anthodges - so I thought that I would tell you why.
I used to autofollow everyone back
After a period of over 18 months of following everyone that follows me on Twitter, I had a look at the people that I was following and was shocked to find some people, that in a sense I was endorsing in some way, just because I was following them.
I took some of my own advice after a social media seminar that I delivered, taking about looking at gaining listeners not followers when you're in Twitter (something that I picked up from the legend that is Mark Shaw - I always love to give credit where credit is due). I took the decision to cancel my Autofollow on Twitter off and choose to purposefully engage with those people that follow me first.
So how do I engage with 4000+ followers?
I am conscious of the fact that I have seen many Twitter experts, social media trainers and the like, cull their friends list (the people they are following). I mentioned this in my post the other day "Mass Following on Twitter is Wrong!" as this is one way that they try and portray the notion that they have more people following than they follow, so they must be a Twitter Rock Star!
With my auto follow I was not listening to everybody - how can you honestly listen to over 4000 people? I thought it was just simple etiquette to follow back all that follow you. But really this is just a false way of looking at things in my opinion.
What I do now.
I now send a question to everyone that follows me and has 1) a profile picture of themselves or a logo, not just the default Twitter image and 2) a profile description telling me who they are. If they see it and respond, we start chatting and there is engagement, then I'll follow them back.
If you ignore my message or don't respond I will just assume that you are one of the 1000's of people out there going and following as many people as possible, hoping that many people will autofollow you back and artificially inflate your Twitter following.
So if you decide to follow me - engage with me. Then it may warrant a follow back from me.
