I think this should be fully up to YOU or anyone for that matter.
I do autofollow generally.
But I do respect those who do not.
I think there's just multiple schools of thought on the matter.
As Rodney King said, "Can't we all just get along." :)
Thanks for a healthy debate.
Mike
John Cusick
· 8 months ago
Think this one is going to run and run.. I think auto follow removes the ability to measure your efforts. If I am getting followed by alot of people and that increases I can tell My blog and website are working. I have always thought it a good system to count follower increase rate either weekly or time after blog posts. My better posts Most commented most veiwed has always increased my twitter followers.
Justin Brooke
· 8 months ago
I'm with you here, however I kinda wish everyone would stop arguing over this already. I take the view of sure let all these marketers (our competitors) fill up their lists with garbage. Sure buddy go right ahead and clutter your marketing. That way I can swoop in with my naturally built subscriberships and blow them away.
My old sales boss once told me "you can't spend anyone elses paycheck so don't worry about how they make their sales just worry about how you make your sales."
I love your recent standings on the marketing industry, the tactics, and everything. Me and a few buddies have the same stances and are forming a mastermind to further our new positioning. You're welcome to join us if you thought it interesting.
Cathy Perkins
· 8 months ago
Thank you for your thoughtful insights into auto-following. I bought into the myth for awhile and found just what you found. People I don't know asking for free advice. Sometimes it took them 5 DMs to explain their problem because my area is pretty technical.
Tried to do it for awhile but found out that it just bred even more requests for free help from the same people I didn't know to start with.
So - I am in complete agreement with you - particularly about the attitude of entitlement that seems to be so prevalent today.
Cathy Perkins - who no longer auto-follows The WordPress Wizard
Mark
· 8 months ago
Wow, that was a long post.
As a relatively new Twitter user with only 20 updates, I literally feel like at this point I'm getting spammed by most people when they follow me. Especially considering about 75% of them have some sort of marketing hook in their usernames.
First off, anyone can follow me that's not the issue. But these are not people who know me, follow me because they think I have interesting tweets or read my blog (because I haven't even launched it yet).
These are people who simply are hoping for a follow-back. That's it.
Marketers on Twitter should not care about raw follower numbers. Instead, concentrate on gaining followers who actually care about your tweets. They are your real prospects and the ones you should build relationships with.
Tiffany Dow
· 8 months ago
Hi Michel!
I just wanted to pop into YOUR blog and let your fans and followers (of whom I'm one) know that my disagreement on the auto follow topic wasn't a slam against you personally. I know you and I have tweeted about it but you know fans, they may see my blog post and burn me at the stake for disagreeing with someone they love :)
We still disagree and of course my intent is never to align with spammers. I'm glad you mentioned this: "The thing to understand about this argument is that people like Tiffany who are genuine about their intent with auto-follow are giving spammers the opportunity to have their way."
The same thing happens whenever I teach marketers ways to use certain social networking sites - spammers screw things up. They did it with Squidoo. I wrote Social Networking on Squidoo and taught marketers to use opt in forms. Next thing you know the iframe technology was used by spammers to redirect people and opt ins were banned (they're back now).
The only thing I'm arguing for is marketers teaching others marketing to use auto follow to their benefit as mentors and leaders on the site. I'm not greenlighting spammers to abuse it. But that doesn't make auto follow a bad thing.
I also believe you have a right not to auto follow. I'm not saying it ought to be forced on you or anything. But I wanted others who I do teach how to market, to be aware that a large number of their followers WILL be offended that they don't follow. You saw it in my blog comments - real examples of people who unfollow because they get offended they didn't get a courtesy follow back.
As a marketer, I'd always want to be fully informed about different ways my prospects think. Maybe I would care enough to go ahead and submit to something they need emotionally or maybe I'd feel strongly enough about it to stand my ground. Depends on the situation and topic.
But I thank you (and Sylvie too!) for being so sweet about the debate and participating in such am honorable manner. You guys rock in my eyes - even if you do or don't follow me on Twitter :)
Tiff
Justin Brooke
· 8 months ago
Hey Fortin, Who designs your blog? You got some killer features that I'd like to borrow.
Chance Russell
· 8 months ago
Let's take two scenarios ...
Two marketers, both fairly well known, both have about 5000 followers on Twitter.
Marketer A follows everyone and seeks out new followers. Can he possibly keep up with everyone? No. But he does interact with some as time permits. He sends good posts and an offer from time to time. Maybe his own product, maybe an affiliate link, maybe a link to an article or blog post that has a link to make a sale. And he is happy to make money when his followers buy.
Marketer B follows only a few. He only interacts with the. And he also sends out good posts and an offer from time to time. Maybe his own product, maybe an affiliate link, maybe a link to an article or blog post that has a link to make a sale. And he is happy to make money when his followers buy. Now, he can't be bothered to follow everyone who follows him, but he CAN be bothered to take their money.
Personally, I don't see that "B" can claim higher ground here.
Dr.Mani
· 8 months ago
Ah, but thou doth protest too strongly, Michel.
:)
I have but ONE RULE for Twitter.
It's this:
There are NO RULES on Twitter.
You and I *will* use Twitter differently - and for each of us, one specific way or style will work better, or worse.
You have made a passionate case for 'no auto-follow'.
Leave it at that. You've made people think - but imho, some of your examples (like comparing the owner of a small home business to a CEO of GM) are a far stretch.
Not everyone will agree with any one point of view re Twitter.
Individuals use it differently from 'business' users.
And to some 'social' only means 'involving others' - not personal interaction at all. Hence the strange anachronism of "social marketing" (Huh?!)
:)
All success Dr.Mani
I tweet as @drmani Follow me if you like, but I WON'T follow you back!
Why not? Coz of my "Follow FORTY" policy!
Robert Puddy
· 8 months ago
Michel
There are no right and wrongs here, its just a matter of opinion.
Much like the debate over IE or firefox as a browser. Its what you feel more comfortable using :)
Brian Killian
· 8 months ago
I autofollow, then purge who I am following later after seeing how much value they add to my message stream. I always give them a chance to prove themselves.
Wendy Merritt
· 8 months ago
Like some others who commented before me, I am getting a little tired of hearing this same debate being rehashed. However, I enjoyed reading your philosophy.
I believe that Twitter is just like income taxes. If you take your income taxes to five different tax accountants you will end up with five different outcomes. Heck, I can't even get tax software programs to get the same numbers twice. Each one just has a slightly different philosophy of getting the end result (this could be due to our absolutely insane tax laws...but that's another story). The same goes for Twitter users. Each Tweep is going to have a slightly different interpretation of what to do and how to do it for whatever their desired outcome is. Does that mean one method is wrong (unless you are using bots and obvious spamming techniques)? I would say, no. It is just a different method for a different outcome.
I also think there is something to be said for your posture in your marketplace. If you are following everyone you have no posture. You also strip your followers of any pride in having you follow them. Let's face it, if you are following over 250 people there is no way on God's green earth you are getting even close to listening to your Twitter stream (unless you do nothing else but live on Twitter in which case you just don't have time for a marketplace to start with).
Group hug. Can't we all just be friends? LOL
Blessings, Wendy
www.twitter.com/WendyMerritt - I don't auto-follow, however, @wendymerritt me a couple of times with some great questions or comments and then I will consider you a true Tweep.
Michel Fortin
· 8 months ago
My wife, @sylviefortin, made a really interesting analogy.
Remember in the old days when people said that, if someone emails you first, then it's OK to spam them? Or if they post their email address publicly, they are giving you the permission to email them back?
That's what Twitter auto-follow is like.
I remember some of the earlier marketers who erroneously believed that, by opting into mailing lists, then once you received an email from them you can then place that person's email on your list, and spam them.
(For you old pharts like me, remember when optin lists didn't use forms? You had to send a blank email to an autoresponder in order to join their lists? Some people have grown huge lists using this really bad practice of opting into a bunch of lists and adding the reply emails into their own.)
Just because someone emails you, or worse yet, just because someone posts their email address publicly, it doesn't mean they are asking to optin into your list and receive your spam.
That's what spammers want. And that's what spambots that harvest and scrape email addresses on websites do.
For example, someone might say, "If I want Michel Fortin on my list, all I have to do is email him at his email address on his website (or optin to his list), and once he emails me back then I can add him to my own list!"
Now, tell me. How different is that from auto-follow? It's no different, in my opinion. People think, "If I want so-and-so to follow me, all I have to do is follow them first and they will follow me back! Sweet!"
Er, not sweet.
Michel Fortin
· 8 months ago
Originally Posted By Chance Russell Now, he can't be bothered to follow everyone who follows him, but he CAN be bothered to take their money.
Personally, I don't see that "B" can claim higher ground here.
Er, Chance, think about what you just said. It's like saying, "Now, the restaurant can't be bothered to feed everyone when they're hungry for their food, but it CAN be bothered to take their money."
Yup. It's called commerce.
Chance Russell
· 8 months ago
Michel,
I did think about what I said. And I don't think your analogy applies.
Yes, it's commerce. And I'm all for it. Enthusiastically.
What I'm saying is that both A and B are marketing, they just have different styles. And one is not "better" or more ethical in any way than the other.
Essentially, when someone follows another, they are making a choice, just as when they opt in to a newsletter. And if they don't like what a person Tweets - be it politics, religion, gossip or marketing promos - they can cease to follow. I agree with you that they have no right to expect an automatic reciprocal follow, But neither is it "wrong" if people choose to automatically follow those who chose to follow them.
It's all about choice.
Cheers, Chance
Mitch
· 8 months ago
I hate autofollow on Twitter, and it used to really rankle me. Nowadays I just ignore and delete without reading the messages. I think it's lazy; I take the time to look at each person before I sign up to follow them, and I always check out their websites to see what their about also. I don't need a message coming to me inviting me to look at their blogs or to take them up on their "free" item, which is only a way to grab my email address so they can pimp their products to me on the back end. If you're going to pimp me, at least get to know me first; is that too much to ask?
Andy Shackcloth
· 8 months ago
I can' see how anyone follows hundreads of tweeters let alone thousands.
They come in to fast to read, what's the point?
Obviously the biggest % just pass through.
If it all passes through to the bin, then who took the time to read your carefully crafted message?
I follow who is interesting, if it is dribble I don't start to follow, if it has high volume but low content = Unfollow,
Just me (not trying to sell $$$$)
Alice Seba
· 8 months ago
I tend to agree with you Michel and to keep Twitter SOCIAL as people claim it to be (and I agree with, of course), it's impossible to follow everyone and keep up with the conversation. Well, unless you spend all day keeping up...not good for business, I'd say.
What really confuses me is the people who say that they auto-follow because it's what should be done, but then in the same breath say they use tools like Tweetdeck to filter out all the "extras". Isn't that a little disingenuous?
But to the heart of the matter, I don't believe a follow back is necessary for business. People who are interested in you, truly interested in your company, don't care if you follow back. They are interested in what you have to say. I hate to compare it to the celebs, but look at their numbers - those are HUGELY targeted followers.
And to Dr. Mani - 40 isn't enough. Twitter stream is booooooring. But I sure do regret my manual "I'll follow you back" policy of my first months. I follow too many...I think 250 or so would be perfect. :-)
Michel Fortin
· 8 months ago
Here's a great article -- a rant -- by Paul Myers, which echoes my thoughts as well...
Don't these auto-follow advocates realize that you see every @ reply directed at you even if you're not following the person who sent it? If they're so concerned with responding to customers and prospects who have a question or comment, just pay attention to those @ replies and everything will be just fine.
When someone contacts my company for support or any other reason, we resolve the matter at hand, then both the customer and myself hang up the phone, or bring the email correspondence to a close. Neither one of us wants to send or receive banal updates on what's going on in their personal lives, or whatever else they might chose to share on a service like twitter.
It's as simple as this... I follow friends, family, acquaintances and a handful of individuals who interest me. I have met most of those I follow. I don't care to muck up the signal-to-noise ratio of my twitter feed by filling it with "click my crap" updates from people who always seem to have the words "social media expert" in their bio. I want to see my friends and family updates. I want to catch the tweets from the people and services I am actually interested in. I don't participate on twitter (or any other social media site, for that matter) to be marketed to (except by those of my choosing).
If someone I don't follow has something to say to me, they can simply begin their tweet with @DVS
I don't think that's so much to ask.
LB
· 8 months ago
I think the heart of the issue is that Twitter is not as "social" or "intimate" as its creators would want you to believe.
A service that is published for all the world to see, that allows anyone to listen to any conversation they choose and thrives on numbers of "followers" will never be intimate.
At the same time, Twitter is not robust enough or intimate (see above) to truly be social.
If I had something truly intimate and personal to say, I wouldn't use Twitter. If I wanted a social experience, I wouldn't use Twitter.
The situation is such that marketers like Michel and others can transfer their already strong audience to Twitter and maintain a high ratio of followers to following. (good for them, nothing wrong with that)
For the beginner marketer or person who just wants to find others to interact with, autofollowing allows a unique opportunity to get hundreds of people who are willing to listen to you very quickly.
If I was starting from scratch and wanted to build up a fanbase of loyal followers who truly valued me and wanted to hear me- I wouldn't use Twitter.
Twitter in its current form is an amusement and fad...that does not for a second mean that it can't be valuable for business and personal use alike but in the long run it will either die off or have to adapt.
Katie
· 8 months ago
Absolutely Brilliant!! Could not have said it better!!
I want a relationhship with the people I follow. So I am selective. I value MY time as well as theirs. If I have a billion folks in my twitter stream, then in some way I still have to filter them - which means even if I'm following them I'm still not paying any attention to them!!
I'm for growing my followers and my following organically - finding and interacting with people who are interesting, engaging and who provide value to me.
So if you want me to follow you, give me a good reason...ask me a question, offer some insight, suggest a resource. In short, interact with me so I know WHO you are!!
Thanks so much for a great post!
Jason Moffatt
· 8 months ago
Bravo!
What a well thought out and written rebuttal the to auto-follow fiasco.
I too can't stand the "entitlement" issue that some people feel. It does feel very rude the way people have expectations that I'm going to just instantly allow them into my life.
Call me a Twitter Snob, but in my world you have to either EARN my time, or PAY for it.
And if you think I'm some kind of prick because of that, then I'd rather not do business with you anyways. Heck, I probably wouldn't even want to drink a beer with you if you don't understand the value of time and personal space.
Ian Brodie
· 8 months ago
Michel,
I agree with a lot of your ideas. And certainly - not autofollowing is not snobbish or rude - that's just ridiculous.
I've tried it both ways, and have ended up plumping for autofollowing - for two reasons:
1) I've found for me, I don't get too many spammers. It's an acceptable level - I see one spam tweet every now and then and I unfollow
2) I get value from the tweets of the people I've autofollowed - value I wouldn't have been able to guess at by checking them out first before following - and from people I wouldn't have found by an active search.
I'm currently following about 1700 people. Now you might shout "you can't possibly listen to 1700 people - you're not really interacting with them".
But I am.
Just not all at once.
If someone expects me to follow their every tweet - then that's not going to happen.
But what does happen is that in the 5-15 minutes I spend on Twitter daily (via TweetDeck) tweets from the people I follow will (of course) appear. I'll read those tweets as I'm tweeting myself or reading my DMs and @replies. If someone says something interesting I'll reply to them and get a conversation going.
Many people use an analogy of trying to listen to 1700 people shouting in auditorium to indicate the futility of following lots of people.
But the analogy is wrong. What's actually happening is that I'm walking through the auditorium listening in to the people talking nearby to me. If they say something I'm interested in I'll join in. If not I won't. If they say something objectionable I'll eject them from the room.
I tried not following and following. And on balance, I value the new thoughts, ideas and, well, "stuff" I get tweeted by the people I've autofollowed over the risk I run of spammers taking advantage,
Now I'm not expecting you or anyone else to come to the same decision (I suspect you may be more at risk from spammers than me). Nor do I expect anyone I follow to follow-me back (in fact, I'd rather they didn't follow if they're not interested in what I have to say). I follow lots of people without expectation of a return follow. It would be ludicrous to expect Stephen Fry to follow me for example (although strangely he is following my wife - and she has only 1 other follower - me.)
Auto-following is disingenuous. The point of following is you're interested in what that person has to say.
Many of you who follow 1000+ people are lying to yourself and everyone else if you even remotely pretend to care what the people you follow have to say. You CANNOT in any way possible, keep up with that many people, therefore it is fake, there are no two ways about it. Saying its about DM'ing is an easy cop out. I laugh at the people following 30,000 others, are you serious!
That's like having 5000 'friends' on facebook, they're not your friends.
so
· 7 months ago
ok, I havent even checked your site, your profile or your about page and Im your fan. A true follower (as soon as I return to twitter). I really like the honesty and passion of your words. I LOVE when ppl are sincere in spite of what others might say. GREAT post. I absolutely agree.
Antone Roundy
· 7 months ago
What's even worse than auto-following is tools that automatically follow thousands of people who HAVEN'T already followed you in hopes of getting the reciprocal follows. I blogged about that a few days ago at http://whitehatcrew.com/blog/hummingbird-for-tw...
Surely no one could argue that you "owe" an auto-follow to people who use those tools. So do we "owe" it to followers to spend our time doing detective work to determine whether they followed us manually/intentionally or using some automated tool? I don't think so (I'm with Michel on this -- we don't owe a reciprocal follow in the first place, and the existence of the kinds of tools I'm talking about weakens the already weak argument in favor of auto-following).
We do all have social obligations and entitlements -- we're entitled to be secure in our persons and property and obligated to refrain from infringing on others' persons and property. But we are NOT entitled to demand others' property (time, attention...) without their consent.
TimGross
· 7 months ago
I always appreciate the way you express your viewpoints, Michel. You create real value, and as someone who strives to do the same, I tend to agree with you on most things.
Twitter spammers (as with all other types of spammers) tend to either NOT be creating real value, or feel insecure about their worthiness which leads them to desperately try to mass-accumulate low-level relationships.
A couple quick comments about people's expectations that you touched on, and how they fundamentally misunderstand relationships:
1) Occasionally someone will subscribe (confirmed opt-in) to my free newsletter and then start blatantly spamming me back offers every time I send out an newsletter update. When I email them to stop, they say, "Well you email ME, so I should be able to email you back!" -Still not understanding what a newsletter/subscriber relationship is after I try to explain. (So I have to unsubscribe them.)
2) Someone purchases an inexpensive ebook from me, then calls my office saying they only live 30 minutes away and they'd like to come talk to me for an hour. I don't mean that they're asking for a favor or that they're hoping to treat me to lunch to pick my brain, I mean they feel I owe it to them to spend an hour with them in person after purchasing an ebook, fundamentally misunderstanding the author/readership relationship.
Fun stuff.
Kathy Breitenbucher
· 6 months ago
THANK YOU! I have been seeing more and more options for auto follows, recommendations on how to build your follower list, etc. and they feel so fake to me. The whole point is to connect with people you wouldn't have met otherwise and think about who you are following. I do follow a large number of people because I manage them in groups and find their information valuable. If I don't, I unfollow them. I appreciate you sticking up for those of us who want to be selective!
All Comments
I think this should be fully up to YOU or anyone for that matter.
I do autofollow generally.
But I do respect those who do not.
I think there's just multiple schools of thought on the matter.
As Rodney King said, "Can't we all just get along." :)
Thanks for a healthy debate.
Mike
My old sales boss once told me "you can't spend anyone elses paycheck so don't worry about how they make their sales just worry about how you make your sales."
I love your recent standings on the marketing industry, the tactics, and everything. Me and a few buddies have the same stances and are forming a mastermind to further our new positioning. You're welcome to join us if you thought it interesting.
Tried to do it for awhile but found out that it just bred even more requests for free help from the same people I didn't know to start with.
So - I am in complete agreement with you - particularly about the attitude of entitlement that seems to be so prevalent today.
Cathy Perkins - who no longer auto-follows
The WordPress Wizard
As a relatively new Twitter user with only 20 updates, I literally feel like at this point I'm getting spammed by most people when they follow me. Especially considering about 75% of them have some sort of marketing hook in their usernames.
First off, anyone can follow me that's not the issue. But these are not people who know me, follow me because they think I have interesting tweets or read my blog (because I haven't even launched it yet).
These are people who simply are hoping for a follow-back. That's it.
Marketers on Twitter should not care about raw follower numbers. Instead, concentrate on gaining followers who actually care about your tweets. They are your real prospects and the ones you should build relationships with.
I just wanted to pop into YOUR blog and let your fans and followers (of whom I'm one) know that my disagreement on the auto follow topic wasn't a slam against you personally. I know you and I have tweeted about it but you know fans, they may see my blog post and burn me at the stake for disagreeing with someone they love :)
We still disagree and of course my intent is never to align with spammers. I'm glad you mentioned this: "The thing to understand about this argument is that people like Tiffany who are genuine about their intent with auto-follow are giving spammers the opportunity to have their way."
The same thing happens whenever I teach marketers ways to use certain social networking sites - spammers screw things up. They did it with Squidoo. I wrote Social Networking on Squidoo and taught marketers to use opt in forms. Next thing you know the iframe technology was used by spammers to redirect people and opt ins were banned (they're back now).
The only thing I'm arguing for is marketers teaching others marketing to use auto follow to their benefit as mentors and leaders on the site. I'm not greenlighting spammers to abuse it. But that doesn't make auto follow a bad thing.
I also believe you have a right not to auto follow. I'm not saying it ought to be forced on you or anything. But I wanted others who I do teach how to market, to be aware that a large number of their followers WILL be offended that they don't follow. You saw it in my blog comments - real examples of people who unfollow because they get offended they didn't get a courtesy follow back.
As a marketer, I'd always want to be fully informed about different ways my prospects think. Maybe I would care enough to go ahead and submit to something they need emotionally or maybe I'd feel strongly enough about it to stand my ground. Depends on the situation and topic.
But I thank you (and Sylvie too!) for being so sweet about the debate and participating in such am honorable manner. You guys rock in my eyes - even if you do or don't follow me on Twitter :)
Tiff
Who designs your blog? You got some killer features that I'd like to borrow.
Two marketers, both fairly well known, both have about 5000 followers on Twitter.
Marketer A follows everyone and seeks out new followers. Can he possibly keep up with everyone? No. But he does interact with some as time permits. He sends good posts and an offer from time to time. Maybe his own product, maybe an affiliate link, maybe a link to an article or blog post that has a link to make a sale. And he is happy to make money when his followers buy.
Marketer B follows only a few. He only interacts with the. And he also sends out good posts and an offer from time to time. Maybe his own product, maybe an affiliate link, maybe a link to an article or blog post that has a link to make a sale. And he is happy to make money when his followers buy. Now, he can't be bothered to follow everyone who follows him, but he CAN be bothered to take their money.
Personally, I don't see that "B" can claim higher ground here.
:)
I have but ONE RULE for Twitter.
It's this:
There are NO RULES on Twitter.
You and I *will* use Twitter differently - and for each
of us, one specific way or style will work better, or
worse.
You have made a passionate case for 'no auto-follow'.
Leave it at that. You've made people think - but imho,
some of your examples (like comparing the owner of a
small home business to a CEO of GM) are a far stretch.
Not everyone will agree with any one point of view
re Twitter.
Individuals use it differently from 'business' users.
And to some 'social' only means 'involving others' -
not personal interaction at all. Hence the strange
anachronism of "social marketing" (Huh?!)
:)
All success
Dr.Mani
I tweet as @drmani
Follow me if you like, but I
WON'T follow you back!
Why not? Coz of my "Follow FORTY" policy!
There are no right and wrongs here, its just a matter of opinion.
Much like the debate over IE or firefox as a browser. Its what you feel more comfortable using :)
I believe that Twitter is just like income taxes. If you take your income taxes to five different tax accountants you will end up with five different outcomes. Heck, I can't even get tax software programs to get the same numbers twice. Each one just has a slightly different philosophy of getting the end result (this could be due to our absolutely insane tax laws...but that's another story). The same goes for Twitter users. Each Tweep is going to have a slightly different interpretation of what to do and how to do it for whatever their desired outcome is. Does that mean one method is wrong (unless you are using bots and obvious spamming techniques)? I would say, no. It is just a different method for a different outcome.
I also think there is something to be said for your posture in your marketplace. If you are following everyone you have no posture. You also strip your followers of any pride in having you follow them. Let's face it, if you are following over 250 people there is no way on God's green earth you are getting even close to listening to your Twitter stream (unless you do nothing else but live on Twitter in which case you just don't have time for a marketplace to start with).
Group hug. Can't we all just be friends? LOL
Blessings,
Wendy
www.twitter.com/WendyMerritt - I don't auto-follow, however, @wendymerritt me a couple of times with some great questions or comments and then I will consider you a true Tweep.
Remember in the old days when people said that, if someone emails you first, then it's OK to spam them? Or if they post their email address publicly, they are giving you the permission to email them back?
That's what Twitter auto-follow is like.
I remember some of the earlier marketers who erroneously believed that, by opting into mailing lists, then once you received an email from them you can then place that person's email on your list, and spam them.
(For you old pharts like me, remember when optin lists didn't use forms? You had to send a blank email to an autoresponder in order to join their lists? Some people have grown huge lists using this really bad practice of opting into a bunch of lists and adding the reply emails into their own.)
Just because someone emails you, or worse yet, just because someone posts their email address publicly, it doesn't mean they are asking to optin into your list and receive your spam.
That's what spammers want. And that's what spambots that harvest and scrape email addresses on websites do.
For example, someone might say, "If I want Michel Fortin on my list, all I have to do is email him at his email address on his website (or optin to his list), and once he emails me back then I can add him to my own list!"
Now, tell me. How different is that from auto-follow? It's no different, in my opinion. People think, "If I want so-and-so to follow me, all I have to do is follow them first and they will follow me back! Sweet!"
Er, not sweet.
Er, Chance, think about what you just said. It's like saying, "Now, the restaurant can't be bothered to feed everyone when they're hungry for their food, but it CAN be bothered to take their money."
Yup. It's called commerce.
I did think about what I said. And I don't think your analogy applies.
Yes, it's commerce. And I'm all for it. Enthusiastically.
What I'm saying is that both A and B are marketing, they just have different styles. And one is not "better" or more ethical in any way than the other.
Essentially, when someone follows another, they are making a choice, just as when they opt in to a newsletter. And if they don't like what a person Tweets - be it politics, religion, gossip or marketing promos - they can cease to follow. I agree with you that they have no right to expect an automatic reciprocal follow, But neither is it "wrong" if people choose to automatically follow those who chose to follow them.
It's all about choice.
Cheers,
Chance
They come in to fast to read, what's the point?
Obviously the biggest % just pass through.
If it all passes through to the bin, then who took the time to read your carefully crafted message?
I follow who is interesting, if it is dribble I don't start to follow, if it has high volume but low content = Unfollow,
Just me (not trying to sell $$$$)
What really confuses me is the people who say that they auto-follow because it's what should be done, but then in the same breath say they use tools like Tweetdeck to filter out all the "extras". Isn't that a little disingenuous?
But to the heart of the matter, I don't believe a follow back is necessary for business. People who are interested in you, truly interested in your company, don't care if you follow back. They are interested in what you have to say. I hate to compare it to the celebs, but look at their numbers - those are HUGELY targeted followers.
And to Dr. Mani - 40 isn't enough. Twitter stream is booooooring. But I sure do regret my manual "I'll follow you back" policy of my first months. I follow too many...I think 250 or so would be perfect. :-)
http://www.talkbiz.com/tbn040609.php#rant
When someone contacts my company for support or any other reason, we resolve the matter at hand, then both the customer and myself hang up the phone, or bring the email correspondence to a close. Neither one of us wants to send or receive banal updates on what's going on in their personal lives, or whatever else they might chose to share on a service like twitter.
It's as simple as this... I follow friends, family, acquaintances and a handful of individuals who interest me. I have met most of those I follow. I don't care to muck up the signal-to-noise ratio of my twitter feed by filling it with "click my crap" updates from people who always seem to have the words "social media expert" in their bio. I want to see my friends and family updates. I want to catch the tweets from the people and services I am actually interested in. I don't participate on twitter (or any other social media site, for that matter) to be marketed to (except by those of my choosing).
If someone I don't follow has something to say to me, they can simply begin their tweet with @DVS
I don't think that's so much to ask.
A service that is published for all the world to see, that allows anyone to listen to any conversation they choose and thrives on numbers of "followers" will never be intimate.
At the same time, Twitter is not robust enough or intimate (see above) to truly be social.
If I had something truly intimate and personal to say, I wouldn't use Twitter. If I wanted a social experience, I wouldn't use Twitter.
The situation is such that marketers like Michel and others can transfer their already strong audience to Twitter and maintain a high ratio of followers to following. (good for them, nothing wrong with that)
For the beginner marketer or person who just wants to find others to interact with, autofollowing allows a unique opportunity to get hundreds of people who are willing to listen to you very quickly.
If I was starting from scratch and wanted to build up a fanbase of loyal followers who truly valued me and wanted to hear me- I wouldn't use Twitter.
Twitter in its current form is an amusement and fad...that does not for a second mean that it can't be valuable for business and personal use alike but in the long run it will either die off or have to adapt.
I want a relationhship with the people I follow. So I am selective. I value MY time as well as theirs. If I have a billion folks in my twitter stream, then in some way I still have to filter them - which means even if I'm following them I'm still not paying any attention to them!!
I'm for growing my followers and my following organically - finding and interacting with people who are interesting, engaging and who provide value to me.
So if you want me to follow you, give me a good reason...ask me a question, offer some insight, suggest a resource. In short, interact with me so I know WHO you are!!
Thanks so much for a great post!
What a well thought out and written rebuttal the to auto-follow fiasco.
I too can't stand the "entitlement" issue that some people feel. It does feel very rude the way people have expectations that I'm going to just instantly allow them into my life.
Call me a Twitter Snob, but in my world you have to either EARN my time, or PAY for it.
And if you think I'm some kind of prick because of that, then I'd rather not do business with you anyways. Heck, I probably wouldn't even want to drink a beer with you if you don't understand the value of time and personal space.
I agree with a lot of your ideas. And certainly - not autofollowing is not snobbish or rude - that's just ridiculous.
I've tried it both ways, and have ended up plumping for autofollowing - for two reasons:
1) I've found for me, I don't get too many spammers. It's an acceptable level - I see one spam tweet every now and then and I unfollow
2) I get value from the tweets of the people I've autofollowed - value I wouldn't have been able to guess at by checking them out first before following - and from people I wouldn't have found by an active search.
I'm currently following about 1700 people. Now you might shout "you can't possibly listen to 1700 people - you're not really interacting with them".
But I am.
Just not all at once.
If someone expects me to follow their every tweet - then that's not going to happen.
But what does happen is that in the 5-15 minutes I spend on Twitter daily (via TweetDeck) tweets from the people I follow will (of course) appear. I'll read those tweets as I'm tweeting myself or reading my DMs and @replies. If someone says something interesting I'll reply to them and get a conversation going.
Many people use an analogy of trying to listen to 1700 people shouting in auditorium to indicate the futility of following lots of people.
But the analogy is wrong. What's actually happening is that I'm walking through the auditorium listening in to the people talking nearby to me. If they say something I'm interested in I'll join in. If not I won't. If they say something objectionable I'll eject them from the room.
I tried not following and following. And on balance, I value the new thoughts, ideas and, well, "stuff" I get tweeted by the people I've autofollowed over the risk I run of spammers taking advantage,
Now I'm not expecting you or anyone else to come to the same decision (I suspect you may be more at risk from spammers than me). Nor do I expect anyone I follow to follow-me back (in fact, I'd rather they didn't follow if they're not interested in what I have to say). I follow lots of people without expectation of a return follow. It would be ludicrous to expect Stephen Fry to follow me for example (although strangely he is following my wife - and she has only 1 other follower - me.)
Ian (http://twitter.com/ianbrodie)
Many of you who follow 1000+ people are lying to yourself and everyone else if you even remotely pretend to care what the people you follow have to say. You CANNOT in any way possible, keep up with that many people, therefore it is fake, there are no two ways about it. Saying its about DM'ing is an easy cop out. I laugh at the people following 30,000 others, are you serious!
That's like having 5000 'friends' on facebook, they're not your friends.
Surely no one could argue that you "owe" an auto-follow to people who use those tools. So do we "owe" it to followers to spend our time doing detective work to determine whether they followed us manually/intentionally or using some automated tool? I don't think so (I'm with Michel on this -- we don't owe a reciprocal follow in the first place, and the existence of the kinds of tools I'm talking about weakens the already weak argument in favor of auto-following).
We do all have social obligations and entitlements -- we're entitled to be secure in our persons and property and obligated to refrain from infringing on others' persons and property. But we are NOT entitled to demand others' property (time, attention...) without their consent.
Twitter spammers (as with all other types of spammers) tend to either NOT be creating real value, or feel insecure about their worthiness which leads them to desperately try to mass-accumulate low-level relationships.
A couple quick comments about people's expectations that you touched on, and how they fundamentally misunderstand relationships:
1) Occasionally someone will subscribe (confirmed opt-in) to my free newsletter and then start blatantly spamming me back offers every time I send out an newsletter update. When I email them to stop, they say, "Well you email ME, so I should be able to email you back!" -Still not understanding what a newsletter/subscriber relationship is after I try to explain. (So I have to unsubscribe them.)
2) Someone purchases an inexpensive ebook from me, then calls my office saying they only live 30 minutes away and they'd like to come talk to me for an hour. I don't mean that they're asking for a favor or that they're hoping to treat me to lunch to pick my brain, I mean they feel I owe it to them to spend an hour with them in person after purchasing an ebook, fundamentally misunderstanding the author/readership relationship.
Fun stuff.