Sneaky Twitter Trick
If you use Twitter, you probably know that you can set it up so you’ll get an eMail when someone starts to follow you. I think that may be the default setting.
But, apparently you do not receive an eMail when someone unfollows you.
And, that makes it easy for people to take advantage of you to build their list of followers.
You see, normally when someone follows me, I’ll follow them. Not always, but most of the time.
So, someone follows you. You follow them. And, you think it’s a fair trade.
But, after you follow them, they can unfollow you, and you’ll be none the wiser. In fact, the more people you follow, the less likely you are to notice who stopped following you. And, if the number of new followers keeps growing, you probably won’t notice if someone stops following you, because you’ll just keep seeing your number of followers going up.
Such is what happened to me tonight, and how I discovered this. There was one person who started following me yesterday. I followed this person back. After seeing nothing but political blather from this person, I went to unfollow. I avoid political blogs and typically stay out of political discussions, and I don’t care to see a bunch of political blathering in Twitter. So, I went to my list of followers (which is shorter than my list of the people I follow) to find this person and unfollow.
But, this person wasn’t there!
So, at some point after following me and getting me to follow in return, this person dropped me like a hot potato. I could understand it if maybe I had been posting a bunch of messages or something, but since my last update was from before this person followed me, I don’t think that was the case.
I think maybe this person was just trying to boost their number of followers. There is no option that I can see for Twitter to notify you when someone unfollows you, only when someone follows you. So, maybe this is a sneaky trick.
What do you think?
Okay, that may have been sneaky. But would you really have felt better if you had twittered and THEN he unfollowed you?
That way, I would have thought they didn’t like what I had to say.
This way, I just think it was a sneaky marketing trick. Some of the other tweets this person did were for Internet marketing. Had they stuck to that topic, I would have still been following and not noticed they unfollowed me. But, the majority of their tweets were political, and I hear enough political ads on TV and on the radio that I just don’t care to read that many more. I’ll tolerate a few, but this person had just one political tweet after another. Enough is enough! Heck, people in my state are already voting. We don’t want to hear about it anymore.
Sounds like someone came up with the Twitter equivalent of Trackback Spider.
I watch twiiter mainly with my phone. If someone is tweeting all the time to somone else, or posting LINKS …. more spam!!! I shuck-em.
If I have to scroll to more than one page to see “My Tweet” replies - too much.
Twitter is being spammed all the time. LINK LINK LINK. If I see anyone following more than 100, I chuck them in the pile.
I’m currently following 76…
… don’t follow 24 more!! Ha haaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
Now I’m up to 80. And it’s your fault because you’re number 80!
… just commenting to make it to third place
You said, “I’m currently following 76…”
Good lord, why?
I don’t get Twitter.
What value does “following 76″ have — unless it’s the highway number you are on.
Sounds like an addiction to me.
Some people have useful tweets.
Oh boy would you guys hate me on Twitter, I’m following over 100 but I have conversation with so many people. I think it’s unfair to lump everyone into the same categories if we follow over 100 people. Some of us are just that active on Twitter. It is “social” after all and being social is a somewhat expected result of being a member.
I follow bloggers on Twitter just so I know when they have a new post out because I don’t get to go through my reader all the time, it alerts me to new posts, as well as keeps me up with news, etc.
In fact, Shoemoney just posted a video where he talks to Southwest airlines and they discuss how Twitter helped them to help employees and other people stranded by hurricanes.
I get a lot of useful information from Twitter and conversation. I enjoy it, but like MySpace, it’s not for everyone.
Oh how I’ve neglected commenting! I can’t even beat 4 comments!
At first I was put off by twitter. It felt a bit like stalking or being stalked. Now that I have a good number of Twits that I follow(79) I really like it. I follow travel bloggers as well as some of the loyal bloggers that visit my blog, and of course the 3 musketeers.
I did go through at one point and delete a bunch from my follow list because they weren’t relevant to my conversations, but never DCR Blogs.
Plus, I get really good ideas from a majority of the conversations
Thanks!
I’m up to 77 now. I guess I better be careful or Speedcat will be dropping me like a hot potato!
Shoemoney is on a tirade on the political front!
I’m burned out on Twitter. I haven’t been on in awhile. I think we just need some time apart.
Do both of you share the same political idealogies or are from opposite camp?
This political blogger who had drop you like a hot potatoon Twitter could have done so upon seeing that you are running for President!
Doesn’t matter. Too much political blather is too much, regardless of sides.
Very interesting. It was only recently that I realized you are NOT notified when someone unfollows you. I don’t necessarily follow someone just because they follow me, tho. Maybe that’s proper etiquette, but I find if I’m not selective upfront, I do end up unfollowing at some point. I never thought about people following/unfollowing to boost their numbers.