I have this ‘crazy’ habit with Twitter, every time I get an email notification about someone following me, I open it and manually checking the profile page of that person. You see, I don’t do Auto-Follow and certainly not Auto-DM, but I do like to know who’s this person following me. After all, we are going to start a Twit-Relationship, so it’s always good to know who is listening and with whom I am having conversation.
Most of the time I will immediately follow back, reciprocity is always good in social networking (note the word ‘social‘ AND ‘networking‘). What is the point of being social if it only flows in one direction! Networking needs two-way communication to work. Of course there is always some exception (News Broadcast comes to mind).
But lately I got really fed up with people who randomly followed me, of whom I absolutely refuse to follow back.
So, if you are one of the followings, don’t be surprised if I don’t follow you back.
1. You still have the default profile bloody picture!
When you meet someone for the first time, what do you see? Her face? Her body? The things she wears? You see, regardless of what people might say, first impression always counts!
What kind of impression do you think people would have about you, if your avatar looks like this:
According to the dictionary, one of the meanings of the word Avatar is “An embodiment or personification, as of a principle, attitude, or view of life“. It’s your Alter Ego, your online personality, it’s a window through which other people can take a glance of who you are, it’s a representation of YOU. This is even more important in Social Networking environment where avatar picture is the first thing that people will notice, not the user-name, not the date of birth or the location. It’s how the person looks like! There is a reason why the Twit Spammers use photo of cute girl who wears next to nothing as their avatar picture :)
So, I don’t care if you put your own (real) photo, or your cat’s, or even just plain white color! Just change the bloody picture!
Until then, rest assure that I won’t follow back.
2. You write absolutely nothing in your online bio!
After you meet the new person, and shake hands, what comes after? You would usually introduce each other, yes? Your name, where you live, what you are studying, where you work, what your hobby, etc. etc.
Imagine, if that person just be quiet and don’t say anything about herself, would you still want to be her friend? What’s the point?
The Profile Bio is the place where you can let people know a little bit more about you, to make them to get to know you better. As an added bonus, the things that you write in there are searchable! Which means that people can find you just by typing specific things in the search box. It’s a match-making mechanism, to bring together people that are like-minded, having the same hobby or interested on the same things. Remember ‘Social Networking‘?
So, I don’t care if you just put one or two words in the bio! Just write bloody something!
3. Your public timeline is either empty, full of marketing ads (of your own stuff), or even worst ‘protected’!
When you finished introducing yourself to that new person, what do you do next? Having Conversation of course! What good is it to know each other’s name and background, if after that you only sit there and stare at each other?!
Which part of Social Networking that you don’t understand! The key is in the word ‘Social‘ and (two-way) Conversation is at the heart of it. Why would I follow you if you haven’t even say a bloody word? What is it to follow? None!
I don’t mind if you once and a while Tweet about your product that you want to promote, or blog post that you just wrote, after all I do the same thing. But, man, not ALL the time! You take some, you give some. Again it’s reciprocal (or karma if you like).
The worst one though, is the follower that has her timeline protected!
If you are so private and so afraid that people will read what you say, then I don’t think this Twitter thing will work for you (maybe Facebook would suit you better). I open mine, and you close yours? Tell me why I should follow you? Actually, I would probably block you straight-away.
So, go and have more conversations before you try to follow 1000 people, and for goodness sake, open your timeline!
Let’s make Twitter a better place to Tweet.
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Really makes me reviewing myself XD
Glad I can help :)
This is great! So true, you have to play ball and not act like a shy wall flower to really mix with others online.
Don't forget those people who have 2000 following, 1500 followers and 5 updates :)
This is what I was practically saying on my point number 3. Conversation is the key.
Yes, these are all good points not to follow people. I hate those people who spam messages every 5 min. and I think those who have their following locked as you mention are not really worth the effort.
lol totally agree with poster's thoughts!
Thanks for that ! Please kindly RT the post for other people to read.
I am so with you. I will not follow you if you are going to send me spam, I don't follow people who share their personal lives with me unless they are my friend and come on if you are going to twitter throw up a freakin picture it's not that hard. I have worked really hard to provide my followers with good info and not junk. Thanks for stating the obvious for everyone to see and hopefully people will get with the program.
http://twitter.com/holdtheonionplz
Hear .. Hear !