The Twitter Fallout: Managing the Un-Follow Armageddon and Creating a New Strategy
Yesterday I had a personal twitter meltdown where I systematically unfollowed every single person on my Twitter account. You can see the last bit on the video above.
At the time I was following roughly 6,450 or so people with about the same amount of followers. I had guessed that I’d probably lose 1,000+ followers overnight due to unfollow scripts; it seems that I was right.
I’ve lost about 1,100+ or so and still dropping:
I’m not worried much about this significant drop since most of these people were more than likely not my interested and core audience anyways.
But, the question still remains of what to do now and how my strategy (if you want to call it that) has changed.
Here are my thoughts:
Auto-Follow Does Have Value
One of the biggest reasons for the auto-follow system I had in place (via TweetLater.com) was from my interview with Michael Hyatt and his strategy for twitter. At the time my goal was to increase my follower count and that’s exactly what happened (see the results here).
Success, right?
Without question the strategy began to provide me traffic from different segments and areas that I hadn’t originally had much success in. I saw an abundance of RT’s and all was good, for a time, but I also began attracting a lot of people that we’re a little less savory.
My research into this has proven that those who auto-follow can be easily targeted by bots, spammers, and loser-class-twitter-citizens via simple scripts; it didn’t take much to figure out that many of my new followers were not the type of people that I wanted to follow me anyways and that had no intention of forming a dialogue or providing value.
Hmm.
But, the auto-follow strategy isn’t all that bad: One of the best reasons is that it simply automates following.
Duh.
But this is extremely helpful for people who may be a bit too busy to manually follow everyone in return. In addition, this gave many people the direct access via DM which they leveraged well and wisely. I really loved that feature of the auto-follow because I gave all the permission to engage privately.
I still love giving people the ability to access me directly; unfortunately the auto-follow strategy isn’t going to cut it.
A Terrible Representation
One of the reasons for the meltdown was, as I had mentioned in the meltdown post, was the ugliness or porn, bots, and stupid social media marketers. I wouldn’t have such a problem with them following me if they never DM’d me, never mentioned me directly, and espeically if they didn’t show up on my Twitter.com home screen.
The latter part is the biggest issue for me.
Take for example a good friend friend of mine who’s extremely well-intentioned and who is obviously using an auto-follow strategy: @TonyMorganLive.
With no fault of his own he’s attracted, just like I was, a lot of less-than-wholesome followers naturally as he auto-follows people.
I took a screenshot of his homescreen the other day and 20-25% of his follower list was porn. Another 5-7 were marketers or obviously-bogus accounts:
This isn’t Tony’s fault at all, but it’s a cost associated with the auto-follow strategy. What is required is a constant review of the list and periodic “cleansing.”
Obviously this is not what Tony (nor anyone else for that matter) wants to represent on their Twitter page. I had the exact same thing happen (randomly I suppose) where more than 50% of my Following List was porn.
Uber-sad and obviously “not strategic” (sorry, bad joke Tony).
The problem is that I’m not sure I completely understand how that list get’s generated; historically it’s switched between chronology of following, chronology of when the account was originally setup, and more. Now it appears to be somewhat random (can someone confirm?).
Ok, so what now?
My (Temporary) Solution and Strategy
My issue is that I want to enable and empower people to openly dialogue me and contact me directly privately. Honestly, I think that’s been one best things about the auto-follow is that I enabled people to do just that automatically.
And for those that I’ve been able to dialogue, support, and help through Direct Messages, I hope you can support me on that decision; it’s been a good one.
But, I don’t want all the nastiness of the world on my account; I want it clean.
So, what I’ve decided to do was to start over (obviously) but follow semi-selectively via name recognition. What this means is that if I’ve seen you in my @ reply or mention column in Tweetie a few times with legitimate dialogue you’re getting a follow from me.
Now, this system is obviously very manual, not perfect, highly subjective, and somewhat time consuming / tedious for me but it’s going to be worth it I think. Again, it’s not perfect but it just might keep me sane (and safe).
So, there you have it. Love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!
Buzz it!
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58 Responses to “The Twitter Fallout: Managing the Un-Follow Armageddon and Creating a New Strategy”
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you bring up a lot of good points. I don't do an auto follow, so i guess i never encountered some of that. The market/porn ones that follow me, I just tend to leave alone, not follow back (obviously) and i haven't had an issue so far. Isn't it sad how short a time it takes something (relatively) new to nose dive into being abused. Nature of sin i suppose. Good luck in your new strategy.
Thanks John
These kind of posts/experiences/meltdowns help me as I learn twitter and other social networking tools
Thanks John. These kind of posts/experiences/meltdowns help me as i navigate thru twitter and other social networking tools.
great post John. i must say – i have never been a fan of the whole auto-follow system – although I do see how some can find great purpose in it. I've kinda taking a (if-i-wouldn't-follow-you-in-person / i-probably-wouldn't-follow-you-on-online) kind of approach since using Twitter.
While there are many who I value as leaders – the truth is I just can't possibly follow that many people and believe that I am bringing them any value as a number / and vice-versa.
As always, thanks for being the leader that you are. Still a follower…
Milan,This is serious truth. I've never auto-followed. Just doesn't make sense. And to be honest it just seems a little like you're trying to be a hustler. just never felt comfortable with it.
John, I applaud you. Congrats!
Encourage people to post on one of your blogs to be followed on twitter?
Reopens up the dm aspect and you'll know they're not bots.
Again, very manually intensive….but I can't really think of a strategy that wouldn't be.
Also, follow me. ha
John, thanks for sharing this. I follow a version of your original auto-follow strategy. I "auto-follow" manually. I am semi-selective about who I follow, and I block those that appear to spam/porn. My main reason is to get more followers, but I don't want spammers or porn in my followers list. I applaud your courage to do this.
thanks! we'll see if it works.
I hear you. I blew up mt twitter account the end of June, basically deleted it (after changing my email and user name to preserve them for future generations). Went back in about 3 weeks later, and now do it on a much lower key basis. I found it was getting away from me, too many people to follow, most not interested in anything I had to say. I was also very rigorous in unfollowing those who did not follow.
Now, I really am more selective in who I follow, and I really don't make their following me a criteria at all. I feel less a slave to twitter and the numbers game as a result.
This is what comes of being one of the popular kids, John… although I must confess that I've had to cleanse my own account of followers, and I'm only around the 200 level.
Not a bad plan, although it's sad that you had to go so extreme and throw out all your "real" followers with the bad.
yeah, i'm sad about that too. but perhaps I could do a mass re-follow campaign…
Good post! Great to see Followers/Follows becoming more about quality than quanity. When will the spammer marketers learn.
So I think these problems have some basis in the real need to find people to follow. When I started I followed people that were in the network of people that I already followed. Now with the policy of now showing @replies except for the people that you already follow, it is hard to find new people over time without some type of auto strategy. Clearly this address the problems of spam, but I think that either Twitter or 3rd parties will find a way to address spam. Right now twitter spam is less than 4% of twitter traffic. While email is right around 90% spam. The only difference is effective filters.
Well I hope it was worth it!
I wish there was a way to click: "ignore crappy twitter accounts" and then just autofollow everybody else.
Twitter is at high risk right now of diluting community so far, that everything loses value and comes crashing down. I think we might see a system-wide meltdown of some sort.
John! Rock on! Because of your meltdown, I was able to do some cleansing of my own. Now, my 300 is nowhere near your 6000, but I had (more than) my share of porn/mlm bots. Because you shared how you rid yourself of those, I was able to do the same.
I've personally loved having access to you via DM you've helped me tons. And I think I can wait a little bit to have that opportunity again…. but not long..
Seriously, Tony should be pleased with you. You killed a TON of cockroaches yesterday!
I don't understand why people automatically unfollow someone who unfollows them. If someone is worth following, they are worth following regardless of whether they follow you back.
they're just there for the numbers… sad.
It is sad. Given that a large percentage of twitter users seem to be adults, you'd think they would have grown up and gotten past highschool style popularity contests of who can have the most friends.
This is a very interesting solution.
But it even plagues us small guys that only have about 300 followers as well. In the last week I have gotten 40 new followers, 37 of them were porn adds wanting to "chat"
I am with you on taking some drastic measures, I just can't imagine the amount of adds and certain "friends" that want to follow you when you have about 5000 followers.
I just hope I can make it into your follow list someday. I promise I don't want to sell you anything or just "chat" I want to have real conversation.
i'm not following you?
No, I didn't make into the "cool kid club"
Here's the strategy I've been using of late…
I don't auto-follow, but check my followers list every couple of days (get an average of 20-30 new followers a day). I follow back all "real" people, i.e., those where a real person seems to be manning the ship. If I know them or share a common interest with them I send them a personal DM as well (crafting it not to look like an auto-response DM). I don't follow back obvious bot or spammy looking accounts, but leave them be. For porn or otherwise offensive followers, I block them – not sure if this helps to stem the tide of attracting others, but it at least gets my face off of their own twitter home page.
Have noticed that spammy / porn related followers come in waves – e.g., got about 40 of the same string of porn followers you show on Tony's twitter home page the past couple of days. Hoping that blocking them discourages other similar accounts from following. Not sure if it actually works or not (anyone have a way to measure/verify this sort of thing?), but the waves do seem to subside once I've gone on a blocking spree…
who goes to twitter home pages anymore?
a lot of new people who have just joined twitter.
your mom
great post John.
i must say – i have never been a fan of the whole auto-follow system – although I do see how some can find great purpose in it. I've kinda taking a (if-i-wouldn't-follow-you-in-person / i-probably-wouldn't-follow-you-on-online) kind of approach since using Twitter.
it helps me lower my level of information overload – and make sure that wherever i am – i can make sure i'm present.
thx again…and yes, i'll still be following you.
I don't have nearly the follow list that John or anyone else has on Twitter for that matter but the number of porn follower requests I get is unbelievable. I think John's numbers are right on. If I was using and automated system I would have double the followers and I'm sure 40%-50% of them would be porn or marketing junk. I do take the time to block them because Twitter says they do pay attention to that. I guess that's where the big spam cleansing came from a month or so ago.
I think the question of whether there is too much porn and spam to use is a reasonable question , but for now I think the answer is no. Twitter spam I think attacks high use account my wife and sister-in-law don't get much twitter bspam and no porn. I have recieved some but not much. John, Carlos and Tony a lot. I think the high use account will start pushing Twitter to change policies or they will walk away. When the high use good accounts star leaving then the low use accounts will leave as well. Dell, Comcast and the other businesses are only making money (or seeing value of some sort) because the community is here. If the community leaves then twitters future options are shot. I think John and others need to publically complain and suggest solutions, but I for one am no where near ready to walk. But if the community walks then I probably will too.
hmm. good points here adam.
i was thinking last night how life would truly be without twitter… i had a moment of clarity where i thought it might be better.
I hate writing long replies on my phone. Sorry the the many spelling and grammar issues. Part of the issue is my accelerometor is shot on my phone. It keep randomly switching orientations. Very annoying.
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