Do You Follow?
There’s two theories out there when it comes to who you follow on Twitter and I think there’s value in both. Though I think it’s important to have a plan when implementing either, especially when it comes to artists.
Theory One. Follow everyone that follows you. This grows your followers list quick, gets your name out there faster, and ultimately increases your Twitter ‘popularity’ and maybe even your Twitter Grade. And if that’s what your going for, great. The downside? Everyone you are following now has the ability to ‘Direct Message’ you, which (for an artist) forces you to have your phone off to all updates. Relinquishing the point of having Twitter hooked to your phone in the first place. Mark Lee made a great case for this theory on this (now put to sleep) blog and dealt with some of these questions and issues and is one of the best artist, follow those that follow you, Twitter-er out there.
Now, here’s where I see this theory working in favor of the artist or band that is running it. If it’s a Twitter for a band as a whole, and it’s looked at as more of a news feed or for giving updates from the band, great. Follow everyone that’s following you and grow that followers list as fast and as big as you can. That will ultimately get the news out to more people looking for that sort of Tweet from you.
Theory Two. Follow the folks that you would if you were a normal person on Twitter. Most people on Twitter aren’t ‘marketing’ something. They don’t have an end goal of selling you a record, or getting you at their shows, or really anything. They see Twitter as a way to connect with their friends and some new people they find interesting. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Connect with people?
If the end goal is to be authentic and real on your Twitter does it then become a numbers game of following everyone that’s following you just to get the word out about something? Does that defeat the purpose of Twitter in the first place?
Me personally, I don’t follow everyone that follows me, but I do follow a lot of people. I like seeing what people have to say and if I start to lose interest, I don’t follow anymore. After all it’s called ‘Following’ for a reason. But, the SkörInc Twitter account does follow everyone that is following it and then some. It does that to gain followers and get the word out about things related to what we do.
So which is it? Which are you? Any other thoughts on following?
Why follow? Great question…since one of the people I recently started following spent a whole day trying to get bumped up to 500 followers…that was pretty annoying, but normally he has something good to say. For me, I follow those that are interesting personally and those that are interesting theatrically (define theatrical in any way you like).
I follow most people that follow me unless I can see that they are obviously following me for marketing reasons. Having said that, I’m a normal person who uses Twitter to network for my blog.
Something else worth mentioning is that people can feel slighted if you don’t follow them. A bit like the whole blogroll thing you’ve mentioned before.
I wrote about this once and called it the snobby twitterers vs. the nosy twitterers…I follow more people than follow me because I’m nosy, but yes there are always those people who have 1000 followers and follow 20 people. I”m unlikely to follow someone I don’t think will interact with me, and if someone is only following 10 people or 1 person, than I’m going to suspect they are not interested in interaction, only in marketing.
Even though it’s a marketing game, there’s some value in holding onto the pretense that you actually care about those people following you.
To that end, I think Mark suggested having two accounts, and I think that’s the right idea.
I AM a normal person on Twitter, so NO I don’t follow everyone that follows me. I follow 90 people and 140 follow me.
I follow people who follow/know other people I know, or people who seem nice and love Jesus.
Like Brody, I’m of two minds. As a writer, I like to use twitter for marketing purposes — to drive people to my blog, tell them about my upcoming books, get them to buy existing books, etc.
But I have a strong dislike for people who ONLY use twitter to point to blog posts and promote radio appearances and such. I love twitter for the interactivity and for the creativity in having 140 characters to communicate. (That’s why I have two accounts — a real one and a “fake” one.)
So…all that is to say, I enjoy reading tweets and not just sending them. I like the connecting part. So I don’t follow everyone back and I’m not pursuing followers just to increase my numbers. I do follow those people who interest me. If my followership grows, I suppose it will be organically. Because who wants to try to keep up with 1200 threads?
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being a regular civilian my experience is going to be a little different that someone who has a fan base or ‘following’ for their music/art/whatever. that’s a whole world i know nothing about, and i understand that the need to connect with fans makes things a lot more complicated and challenging.
that said, here’s a few of my thoughts on following:
i go case by case. right now i happen to ‘follow’ the same number of people who follow me. the same number, not the same people. i follow a few people that don’t reciprocate, and i don’t follow everyone who follows me.
even at the low number of 90 ‘follows’ it’s hard to not be overwhelmed by the updates. i mean, if i have too many updates to read then it’s not fun anymore. and, to me, twitter is supposed to be a fun way of connecting.
i deal with tweet-overexposure a couple of ways:
first, i have a very small number of follows got to my phone. yes i follow 92 people, but i’d say less than 15 are set to actually go to my phone. the updates i get on my blackberry are from people who i really want to hear from…family, friends, @brodyharper.
second, i am pretty choosy now about who i follow. i understand that most people follow so i’ll follow them back…but i don’t want my twitter to become like myspace…where it’s just a bunch of soulless, meaningless link sharing. i’ll follow someone if i have some sort of connection to them, whether that be through a friend, through a commonality, through a recommendation…case by case.
third, nothing comes to my phone between the hours of 9pm and 7am. my twitter goes dark. i know lots of my follows are updating during those evening hours, but having my device updates off (while i’m sleeping) helps me A) not wake up, and B) not get overwhelmed by “62 unread messages” in the morning.
it’s hard (for me) to not get caught up in the counting game…but, honestly, i think that’s just something i need to work on. bottom line, i twitter because it’s enjoyable. i like knowing what my old college roommate is having for dinner. i like knowing how my wife is doing at her job. i like knowing about new @skorinc projects. but…i don’t truly care about an update from someone across the nation who i have absolutely no connection with.
a connection could eventually develop…and that would be rad (actually, that happened yesterday). but i’m not going to follow-follow-follow just to get my numbers up.
blerg. that’s enough.
It’s nice when an artist (or even a ‘normal person’) follows you back because it’s like being acknowledged.
On the other hand, it’s totally understandable that people do not want to be bugged by direct messages.
It is possible on Twitter to follow someone but not have their updates/direct messages sent to your phone. This is what I do. Only a small selection of updates make it to my phone. The rest I view online.
Most people I will return the follow – at least for a while. I usually do not return follow marketers.
I follow those who seem interesting and that I can relate too… i follow only 63 people… I will unfollow people who whine alot – there was one who drove me INSANE… or those who begin to bore me
I follow you – who I find interesting (for now..lol)
I try to follow everyone… BUT I’ve done this recently after falling in love with Tweetdeck. I’ve set up groups… I have one group of people that I care to follow and that I’m interested in. Then there is a ‘just music’ group… then there’s everyone else.
I browse the everyone else category daily just to see what is going on but by no means do I try to keep up with everyone of them.. to hard!
I see both sides as well.. I just chose to “connect” with them all. I do NOT have mobile notifications setup for anyone… not even my wife.
i’m a combo and i do use the theory of try them out and then see if it sticks.
Tough question for sure.
I don’t follow everyone who follows me. It’s just too overwhelming and on the other side of that there are people that I follow that aren’t following me. Fair enough and honestly, no big deal.
I like twitter because it helps me connect to people back home (i live far, far away) and it also puts a real life, real time face on blogs that I follow or music that I dig.
Numbers? Nah. Not for me. That’s my take.
Wow, now the pressures on to stay interesting so you don’t ditch me. I don’t follow everyone who follows me. I pretty much follow the people I know IRL (in real life) or people I’ve met through the MM tour and Skorinc. My following/followers seem to run about the same, and a low number at that. Then again, I don’t do it for the numbers, so I really don’t care. If there is a twitter grade (which I never even knew), I’m pretty sure I’m flunking.
i don’t even follow all of my friends. i am just to add to keep up with it so on twitter, i dont follow many, but i have searches and routines i do to keep in the conversation regardless of who i follow. and the DM thing…that is like another email account…when i can’t even respond timely to the people that email me!: )
A large number of followers isn’t really that valuable – even for people trying to promote a product. It’s all about relationship and people receiving messages they want to receive. Just sending a tweet out to 1000s of people won’t generate any more response than sending a tweet out to 250 devoted fans.
On the other hand, it hurts my feelings that Phil Wickham doesn’t want to follow me (for example). I had never considered the DM issue, so I think he should put something like that in his profile or on his background to explain his small number of people he’s following.
(It doesn’t REALLY hurt my feelings. I’m pretty tough.)
I don’t follow everyone either. I only follow people I know or have met through Skorinc or MercyMe.
I noticed you do not follow me, I guess that means you lost interest. *sniff, sniff*
Paisley. I don’t think I even know your Twitter address. My Twitter “follow” policy is simple. I follow you if I’ve heard of you. Meaning if you’ve commented on my blog or something like that. So in that case… I’d love to follow.
Yay, its not that you lost interest! *does a happy dance*
My Twitter address is http://twitter.com/k9roo
I tend to only follow the people that I know or that I find interesting. Truthfully, there are a handful of people I’m friends with that have Twitter that I don’t follow because truthfully, they just don’t interest me enough to fill up my “following” category.
Sure, I’m a stat whore in many ways, and following more people would help my Twitter Grade. Truthfully though, I just don’t want all of those people’s updates in my Twitter Feed.
p.s. If you follow me and I don’t follow you and you are reading this…sorry. =/
I follow just about everyone who follows me. For some reason I attract Life Coaches, what’s that about? I tend not to follow those back. Most of the people I never see a tweet from. I don’t care if I lose followers as long as they aren’t the ones I think I’ve developed a twitter relationship with.
As for the famous people that are on twitter, from what I’ve observed I think it’s interesting that they only follow a few. Like they are too good to follow back. I think they should all take Guy Kawasaki’s. Did you see the link I posted about how he tweets? I also, blogged about Mark Lee tweeting back. I posted the link to that if anyone wants to read it. They should all just make one of their fans day! I only follow a couple of actors & think I may come to regret it.
Personally, I’ve never thought about DM Mark Lee & probably wouldn’t unless it’s something I didn’t want anyone else to read. I tried to DM you once, but you ignored!
None of my IRL friends have an account, except for 1 and he probably won’t be on it much. When I signed on I told him, no one’s gonna follow me! He just shakes his head now.
Seriously, I rank #3 on twitter grader for Kauai, how popular do you think twitter is here?
Wow! Being gone all day has given all your regulars to comment. It gives me even more to ponder about Twitter. I esp love Paisley’s lament! You know what, the only time I put a link up is to say I put up a new post on my blog (like 2 to 3 times a week). I use it to chat all day long. When I started this in November, I had no idea what would come of it. I think my husband figured it was a “phase” I was going thru. If he only knew how many updates I get a day. I really, really need to find a job. Then I will probably go thru withdrawls! Thru Twitter (and the MM series) I have met some wonderful people. Thru Twitter, 4 of us may meet in Dallas for the R&WRS on April 3rd. How exciting is that? And I only regular twittered you, not DM’d you to tell you! Could be interesting. Did you think when you started rolling all of this out last fall, that YOU would have groupies? Hee, hee. I’m sure ThisisKristin never thought she’d see the day!
I don’t follow everyone who follows me. I get random follows every so often, and I go and look at their tweets, and think, “Now, why did you want to follow ME?” Those people usually don’t get a reciprocal follow. I don’t post a whole lot of tweets (in fact, there have been times where it’s been days between updates), so I am not sure that I’m that interesting of a follow, to be honest.
I follow mostly Gomer folks, but I do follow some “marketing” Twitters, like @mashable, @lifehacker, and @starbucks, because I’m a fan. Even though I don’t tweet much myself, I do read through tweets from people I follow every day. So it’s important to me that I be interested in what they have to say.
I am starting a Twitter account for a site I manage content for at work, but since it will be a “marketing” Twitter, I will probably follow all its followers and then some, because it makes sense to do so if I’m using the account to market the site.
When I signed up for Twitter…about 35 days ago…it was just cos I was fascinated with how it worked since some online friends were using it. My wife doesn’t get it at all
I didn’t really have any preconceived ideas on what I’d do with it. I’ve only started blogging since I joined Twitter actually, though I stalked a few for a couple of years…
Since then, and basically entirely through the ‘relationships’ I’ve built on Twitter (it might be too early to call them that…), I’ve discovered so many interesting blogs/people/music/stuff that are now an integral part of my life, both in ministry and otherwise.
So at the moment, I follow more people than follow me – which is partly a way to see how interesting/relevant they are to my life and where I want my life to go, and partly to see if they care about the fact I follow them too. A lot of this comes from the interaction and sharing of common interests, etc – which are often then expanded on in the blogs, etc.
But like everyone, I’m going to follow some name people and never expect them to follow me back…unless they end up being incredibly boring or selfish.
I haven’t done any real pimping yet cos I don’t see it as a way to get people to my blog per se. Not yet anyway. It might change now I’ve joined Our Creative Community (twitter.com/ourcc), and I think a bit of respectable pimping is one of the unwritten rules, I think.
And like Pokinatcha said, absolutely no-one I know IRL does this…and I’m in a big city. They look at me and go ‘huh’ when I mention Twitter or blogging. Oh well
I follow those that interest me and 8 times out of then, they will follow back. What I find funny is the qwitter program. For me, it’s 100% of the time that if I stop following someone, I can expect a qwitter notice usually within minutes.
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Tweetdeck is awesome if you’re into maintaining numbers. I can put those who I read regularly in columns with other regulars and those who I have never read, but only follow cuz they’re following me, I put in columns that I rarely ever read
Great post, Brody…
The coolest thing about Twitter to me is that you get whatever kind of experience from it that you want. So you have some people on there having back and forth conversations of @ replies, some people sharing links, and other people literally telling you “what they are doing”. I don’t think there’s really a right or wrong way to use it – do whatever works for you.
On the “follow everybody” front, I do so because I want to be able to interact with Third Day fans. For me the best way to do that has been to follow everybody.
As an artist, I would recommend at least enabling it so that you can see all of your @ replies and making it goal to respond to as many of those that make sense.
I’m still fairly new to Twitter and am still trying to figure out the best way to use it for our blog to be honest. I friend everyone who friends me but I choose who’s twitters come straight to my phone. When I’m at a trade show I don’t have a lot of time to reply but when I’m in the studio, the pc is pretty much always open.
How would you recommend using it when it comes to a blog where everything is basically an open book for us? Once I can figure THAT out … maybe I can get the other ladies signed up too – haha.
For me I keep in mind “what was the reason you got on twitter in the first place Kelly?” when deciding these things. I don’t go out actively seeking people to follow, or looking for followers. I do follow everyone who follows me because the reason I started using twitter was to follow the bands with the express purpose of praying for them and their ministry. The rest of the people I follow with the exception of my husband, my best friend, and another IRL friend, I have met through those channels.
That being said I think like anything else we do in life our purpose for joining twitter is going to drive how we use it. Bands for example are typically on twitter to both allow fans the opportunity to know what their life is like, and yes to market. I think Christian artists have a great opportunity with Twitter to allow others to pray for them by letting others know what to pray about. This does not mean they should feel obligated to follow everyone who follows them.
Twitter follow theory is going to be as unique as the user because each user is going to have their own reason for using twitter and that drives their theory. We should never feel bad for our theory, and we should never make others feel guilty for their theory either.
First of all, great post, Brody. I’ve never really thought about artists having to deal with DM’s and all that. I’m still really disappointed that @philwickham doesn’t recipicate my follow, but I think I’ll be ok.
Second, @genepensiero leaves really long comments. Where does that guy find time to type all that? He must work at a church or something…
Third, I have a bit of a balance when it comes to following. For awhile I was trying to follow everyone, but I realized that some people were just boring (or annoying). Then I tried just following people that I actually knew in the “real” world, but I felt like I was missing out on some interesting interaction (plus some of my real friends can be boring/annoying).
My basic rule now is that I follow people who I’d actually like to sit down and have coffee with. Most Twitter apps will show any @ replies with your name, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. If they want to reply to me, go ahead.
That being said, if anyone wants to get coffee, follow me @lukemundy. 1000th follower gets a free copy of @genepensiero’s cd!
It’s the internet. I try not to take it too seriously.
If someone has wit, or they’re daily lives interest me, I will keep tabs on their Twitter account. If not, I don’t feel pressure one way or the other, whether I follow someone or am followed by another.
If it doesn’t add to my daily life, then it’s not worth it. Some of my good friends are not great writers, and I don’t particularly care what time they woke up last Wednesday.
All in all, if it adds to life, pursue it.
I follow most who follow me…except those random ones who I don’t know at all!
I definately use twitter for 2 real reasons…to keep up with my online friends…and to network my blog in the community of bloggers I am involved in.