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Following over 700+ people on Twitter can become one of the most tedious and time consuming tasks of social networking. People are constantly following you and unfollowing you. All you really want is for people to stick around, the opportunity to build your very own micro-community, and for people to listen and be listened to in return. So there’s a bunch of tips out the web on how to increase your followers on social networks. Assuming you plan to follow most, if not all of those new followers, here are are 4 reasons why you probably don’t want to do that.
1. Too Many Connections To Manage
The biggest problem that occurs when increasing your followers/following count is managing those connections. It becomes harder to keep track of why you followed someone or why someone may have followed you. As the list increases it also becomes harder to follow your “real” connections & those that are just information firehoses. If you happen to be experiencing this problem now, check out 2 Great Apps For Cleaning Your Twitter Contact List & Tweetsum.
2. Decrease In Connections
Ah, the decrease in connections. I won’t keep you long on this. In fact, just head over here: Decreasing Connections While Increasing Our Networks.
Maybe growth on some of these networks isn’t the best thing in the world. Should there be self-imposed limits on how many people you befriend? No because in the end, while your network growth may increase, your connection with your network still increases. However, the rate at which the connection can increase actually decreases. Did that make sense? Unless your friends are constantly questioning you or keeping tabs on you, it’s going to take a lot longer to make deeper connections the more your network grows.
3. Increase in Noise
AHH, the noise! Twitter can become a horrible place when off-topic noise suddenly floods your Twitter stream. People are forever changing their minds or expanding their interests. In doing so, those new followers may have absolutely nothing in common with what you relate to on Twitter or current followers may become irrelevant to you. Do you really want to constantly prune through thousands of followers just to continuously get a better signal-to-noise ratio?
4. Getting Off Topic In Your Stream
In turn, taking part in these off-topic conversations can change the flow, context, and content of your own Twitter stream. With an increase of followers comes the task of staying on topic and not abandoning your “original” audience, which I like to think of as the first 400 people to follow you.
Professional Advice
In the end, an increase of followers can also increase any headaches you already have with Twitter, and make room for new problems. Connections can be severed and your pleasant Twitter experience can become a nightmare. So please, think twice before increasing your followers and those you’re following. You don’t have to follow everyone back. You shouldn’t follow everyone back. STAY FOCUSED!
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Comments
03.01.09
I just started using Twitter recently. I've noticed many users follow hundreds or thousands of people. At that point it is just a networking/marketing ploy - "I'll follow everyone!". You're not actually following them because anything they say gets lost in the noise. I've been slowly increasing the number of people I follow, but will probably limit out around 80-100 I think. My criteria is that you have to say interesting things without saying too much, and not just replies, retweets, and what you currently doing.
03.02.09
This is great Corvida. As someone with over 1300 followers on Twitter, I have absolutely no idea where these "followers" came from. When I was first introduced to Twittter, it was common opinion to "follow everyone who followed you" - now it's just a headache for me. I am definitely going to read up on the links you provided and decreasing my Twitter stream...Thanks!
03.02.09
Every week or so, I go through the people I'm following on twitter and drop the superfluous ones. I've found this to be a good tactic because I like to explore new tweeters to see what they may have to offer. This way I don't restrict myself from finding new people, nor do I get overwhelmed following too many people. I only keep the people who I'm really interested in.
03.02.09
I think it all depends on how much time you put into Twitter. If you're able to spend all day replying and retweeting other people, then it's worthit to have more followers/following. If you check it once a day, then there's no point in having so many. I personally like following a lot of people. Although there are a good amount of tweets that go by unnoticed, I get to read a lot of different people's opinions on so many different topics. Maybe it's just me but I think I would get bored with Twitter if I was only following 50 or so people.
03.02.09
I only recently started Twittering and I am finding it really exciting to be able to find and follow people in a similiar field as mine. I am already becoming annoyed though by a select few who think they should twitter every second, cluttering my twitter (and all their other followers' presumably) with really unimportant nonsense like a play-by-play update of their every waking second.
I know that you can clear out your Twitter and un-follow someone but I think, it can be a challenge when you feel someone is a good contact for you for various reasons and they may be offended if you stop following them.
03.02.09
I admit to not giving Twitter much thought and just recently starting to use it at all. I had posted two messages in a year up until that point. I am starting to go through it though. I find people follow but if you don't follow them within a day to two they bug off leading me to believe most of the followings are a rather disingenuous way of getting followers themselves.
I think everyone uses it for different reasons, some for fun, and some for business. For me it is really neither one or the other but I figure one day I'll figure out it's worth if any.
I just download a couple of application which supposedly allow me to section off the people so maybe I will be able to follow more people. It is a time factor for me more than anything else.
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