Here are my thoughts on Twitter follower/following ratios, am I way off?
48 Responses to “What Are You Saying With Your Twitter Follow Ratio?”
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I think you’re spot on. People I know who don’t follow many others back do talk about the issues of cluttering up their stream (so they can’t find their friends as easily). Lists are the way to go but I think either some people don’t know how to utilize them or are just plain lazy to set them up. I don’t think i ever thought of people who don’t follow back as “Broadcasters” but that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if some of those people are the same people in real life that when you are talking to them, don’t really listen to you but are always thinking about the next thing they are going to say
Yeah those people really make me grumpy. Especially when I realize they’re me.
peace | dewde
But aren’t you doing the same thing by making list? Meaning, just because you “follow” someone doesn’t mean that you are following someone. You might not even look at their tweets because they do not make your list.
I guess it opens up the possibility of DM’s etc…
Right, following doesn’t mean listening, it’s a way of saying; ‘you’re a real person with real things to say’
Agreed. I think it’s ridiculous – no offense – to say that you’re following everyone so you can engage more or listen more. I talk to a ton of people I don’t follow. I even have lists of people I don’t follow.
And I don’t have to follow someone to @them and have a conversation.
That said, I follow almost everyone who follows me because I like DMing and it bothers me when I can’t DM someone I’m following and because I think it looks better to follow other people… people like when you follow them, even if you don’t read their stuff. So in one way at least, it’s all about perception (so people don’t see me as just a broadcaster), whether that’s the “authentic” way to go or not.
Vince, I liked that you pointed that out: “following doesn’t mean listening, it’s a way of saying; ‘you’re a real person with real things to say.’ ”
-Marshall Jones Jr.
I also use lists. I agree with Vince, they make things very manageable. For instance, I create a “main feed” list. That’s what I view 80% of the time, it’s what I have up. Two or three times a day, I’ll go through my whole twitter feed and look at what I missed. Every now and then I see someone that I’m following and engage them with something they have tweeted.
It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a way for me to still stay engaged with those who are following me.
I can almost understand someone following only a select group of people to make it easy to see what their friends are going on…but as you pointed out that’s what lists are good for (plus the many many 3rd party tools available for free). I can honestly say I’m less likely to follow someone if they have a really lopsided follow ratio. There are a few exception like Chris Brogan and Pam Slim, but these are people whose advice I genuinely respect and want to hear more from. Yet even they constantly engage their followers even if they don’t follow them back.
Mostly I think you’re right, but there’s also an issue about people who has 5k+ followers and follow the same amount (or even 3k, or 2k). What that communicates to me is that he doesn’t even listen to 200 or 90 or 60, because 5000 or more is too many to keep up with. Of course we don’t read backlogs, but even in real time 5k is too many to get anything out from. Therefore their following strategy communicates to me that they only follow to get followers, not to listen. And then I’m not interested. Are you following?
great point. will someone following 10K people ever connect with you?
Forgot my twitternick: @brynte
I regularly review my follow list.
If someone I follow does not follow me they fall into one of two categories, 1) Broadcasters (your term here works well) They talk, I listen. 2) People I consider peers. If someone I consider a peer does not follow me it shows they do not consider me a peer. I either move them to category 1 or unfollow.
My philosophy is similar.
peace | dewde
I have 80,000+ followers and “follow” close to the same amount. Obviously, I don’t pay attention to this many people. I do it primarily for the convenience of being able to direct message one another. I find that many questions and/or comments aren’t relevant to my entire follower list, so I would rather take it private and communicate their.
I do segment my follower list. Using HootSuite, I have columns for my family, real friends, sources, etc. I also have a column for DMs and one for mentions. I always read those and try to respond to every question (though I am sure I miss some).
All that to say, I’m not sure you can infer that much from the ratio. It all depends on how people use Twitter.
Thanks.
True. At the end of the day everyone is different.
There are people that aren’t ‘following’ very many people but they do get a lot content from twitter lists…so you can follow people without officially following them.
I do the same with hootsuite. I have a 3 lists i follow: real, legit, & all. Real = people i’ve met. Legit = decent tweeters or ANYONE who’s replied to me. All = everyone.
I must say @michaelhyatt I am one of those people you responded to and it impressed my socks off! At the time you had “only” 60K followers. Took away every excuse I had been laying out there about being too busy…or “there are too many people in my life to manage well.” I have committed to 20 minutes a day (I think you also recommended that?) to my social media efforts and paying closer attention!
Also agree that twitter, facebook, whatever needs to be a 2-way street….as a leader I want to find a way to hear from the people we minister too and give them a platform for direct access. Isn’t that the point of social media?
A little over a year ago, I researched this topic a bit. My opinion differs from yours though. I feel that public figures have an obligation to their followers. How better to create lifelong fans than to harness the power Twitter gives you to connect.
Many public figures aren’t willing to invest in that and instead use Twitter as nothing more than a broadcast tool. Personally, I think it’s a bit of a cop out.
More on my thoughts is here: http://thejeffbrown.me/2009/01/30/twitterverse-navigation-public-figures-who-get-it-wrong-and-a-few-who-get-it-right/
Yeah, it would be cool of lance followed everyone that followed him…but i’m still going to follow him even if he sticks to the 250
AMEN.
These days I’m definitely more critical about who I follow. I’m much less likely to follow an individual with 300+ plus followers — especially if their follower/following ratio is much more than 1.
Seems hard help or be helped with much more than what I have on twitter now.
Lists have been a nice addition to twitter for managing everything.
If you value real connection, then you will be picky about who you follow. If you just want to be apart of the newest social networking fad, then follow as many people as possible. Yes, I know there is software that can help you organize the masses, but why?
Because someone follows me, usually someone I do not know, does not obligate me to follow them back. For Twitter to remain relevant and useful to me, it must remain focused.
For social media to remain effective, it cannot grow to big. Not big as in number of total users, but for the individual users. When you try to get as many followers/friends for the sake of having them you lose or weaken you social connection. When you spend to much of your time scanning over tweets of no relevance or FB feeds promoting some game, the social media ceases to be social and becomes annoying therefore losing its connection. Many people use these social media outlets to self promote themselves or whatever they are selling. That is fine, but I am going to give them permission to do so. For me to give permission, they must earn it first. They cannot just follow me and expect permission. They are trying to get my attention by interruption. It is possible to effectively socialize and connect with only so many people.
This is important to get, especially in church world. If people do not feel connected, they will move on.
People are free to follow me on Twitter. Not like I am the Twitter hot spot anyways. Even though I do not automatically follow people back, I do pay attention to when people reply to what I say by checking the @trevortaylor mentions. This is a way for people to make a connection with me that just might result in me following back. It shows that you are a part of the conversation and just not looking for bragging rights because of your follower numbers.
I will have to figure out where I read it, but I did read an article about a study that showed that Twitter follower numbers did not correlate with influence. Which means its about substance and real connection, not numbers.
Totally. The follower numbers are part of a system that is easily gamed and therefore are not a reliable indication of influence.
peace | dewde
True. We can make social media better by filtering through who we engage and do what we can to make it as meaningful as possible. I regularly use tools to trim my twitter; like blocking and reporting spam, for it’s size and growth twitter has been well culled of spam.
I would add though, that in the context of this conversation, following back is a way of saying; ‘you have something to say and I am willing to listen’ …then use lists and other tools to filter.
Anyone who is looking at their numbers as having meaning about influence is living in a dream. There are countless spammers and ‘internet marketers’ out there with thousands of followers.
I think lists are a more accurate representation of influence….and those will be gamed soon too.
My follow/follower ratio is 333/875.
I follow broadcasters (or to use Michael’s term, “sources”) and peers. I do not auto-follow anyone, so if you follow me do not expect a follow back. I prune my “peers” often to keep the signal/noise ratio in check.
On the surface this would make me shallow, but I have a way to add new peers and it is this… talk to me! If you @dewde me with anything… a smiley emoticon or even a well placed barb, I will follow you right away and “take you for a peer test drive.”
You have until my next pruning exercise to connect with me and avoid the shears.
peace | dewde
pruning is good
Great post. Good point about the ratio. I think I am doing it kinda backwards compared to your method. I tend to not follow back that much because I was getting overloaded with the timeline and was missing conversations I wanted to read about and engage with. So I only followed people who I engage. Put everyone else on list.
But sounds like you do it in the reverse. Probably a better way. You gave me something to think about.
Thanks
When I look at someone’s profile, my first impression is driven by their bio, their follower/following ratio and how many lists they are on. if that checks out then I will read some of their tweets and maybe click on their website link. The numbers say something.
Interesting. And thanks for doing this via video. Much more interesting. I try to be somewhat selective about who I follow, simply because I don’t use all the other tools to make different lists and all that. I just use it on my iPhone and regular site, so I wouldn’t want to have to go through a huge list of people I don’t know. I don’t know. I follow the people I’m interested in learning from. Don’t have time to listen to everyone’s opinions, so I’m a tad more selective.
Right. I think that the average Twitter user operates similarly. It’s the heavy social media users that I expect more of.
Great conversation here.
Love the thoughts vince.
For me I have a 3:1 ratio. Now that is something that I probably need to go back in and change and bring it to about a 3:2.5 ratio (filter all that spam out).
Here is my one big issue with having a lot of followers and following a lot of people.
I know of several people who have “cheated” to get a ton of followers. It is the whole idea of following as many people you can a day and hoping that some will follow back.
After you go on your big follow you then purge your list of all the people that didn’t follow and do it again. When I see people with several thousand followers and yet are following twice as many people I become very very skeptical.
I do think you have a great point in the fact that you said it is like they are broadcasting their stuff and not conversating.
You really can’t game the system any longer and do what Twitter calls “aggressive following.” They have cracked down on this. They will suspend your account if you do it. I know several people this has happened to. Don’t believe what you read about TweetAdder, Hummingbird, and other auto-follow tools.
The only thing Twitter officially allows is auto-following those who follow you. You can do this through several services if you are so inclined. I use SocialOomph, but there are many others.
My hang up with the auto follow apps is that you then miss out on the chance to contribute to the global Twitter community by blocking spammers and ‘internet marketers’. Just yesterday I was barraged by 50 of them in an hour. Check out this pic – http://twitpic.com/22h1dx
Spammers seem to come in waves for me. I haven’t had too many (a couple a day) recently. Unless I am missing what you are saying, I am able to contribute to the global Twitter community. Via HootSuite, I always “Report Spammer” whenever I am hit by these guys.
Good, glad to hear you’re blocking. I assumed the auto follow was left on its own.
But doesn’t it seem that people will just follow others to get more followers? It seems to defeat the whole purpose. Maybe its just me, but I get at least 15 new followers a day that have no relation to me and are companies or “twitter experts” just trying to grow their followers list. And each day I lose about 15 followers because I have not followed them back.
I guess what I am looking at are the people who just mass follow anyone that talks about something they are interested in but never actually interact. Numbers are so hard to judge. Just like inside of a church. Judging influence and “success” by numbers cannot translate to engagement and involvement.
true; at the end of the day the numbers don’t mean a whole lot. I try really hard to block and report the ‘internet marketers and other spammers. It seems that for the most part the twitter community has done a good job of pruning out spammers.
True
Personally I don’t care what my follow ratio is because I follow people mostly to learn from them. The nuggets of knowledge I grab during the day has been well worth it. I’m also very selective on who I follow for the same reason, so my #’s are low. I block many more than I follow to help hold down the mass and stay true to my personal goals and mission.
Interesting idea, and I’d say it depends how you use Twitter. I only want to follow as many people as I can keep up with. Lists are interesting and I use them some, but I mostly just follow my timeline and try to read every tweet. And right now where I am following almost 200 people is about as much as I can handle.
I look at every person who follows me and look through the tweets and see if what they tweet interesting to me, if it is I follow (and if they are a spammer, I block and report them as so). Right now I don’t really have a ratio problem since my numbers are pretty close. So if I had a huge explosion in followers my ratio would drop because I’m just not going to follow that many more.
That said, like other commenters, I can have conversation with people I don’t follow. If they @ me then I will almost always respond (spammers aside), and if we have a little conversation then I will very likely follow them. I’m all about engaging with people on twitter, and something that bothers me much more than people not following me is people ignoring my @’s
I think one of the great things about twitter is it is a one way follow. Not friending. I have friends of mine that I don’t follow, and a lot of my friends don’t follow me (I do tweet frequently
. So not following someone does not mean you aren’t acknowledging them as a person or something (nor that you wouldn’t be friends with them), it just means you aren’t very interested in a lot of the things they tweet.
Okay this comment has become way too long and rambly, my point is I don’t pay attention to that ratio. I’d much rather know the ratio of the number of times someone is @’ed to the number of times they reply
I love your input on a largely unspoken topic. I agree with everything you’ve said! Thanks so much for writing.
I’m working through my Twitter ratio myself. I’ve found that many of my followers are simply spam-bots. I block them when they spam me but usually leave them be otherwise (don’t care to waste my time with them). Or they’re people that follow me for one of my websites or blogs. I don’t have a problem with that either… but I want to follow people who engage with me – not just someone who simply follows and consumes.
So I’ve gone through recently and cut nearly 200 people from my list of people I follow simply because they don’t engage – even when I try and engage with them. I’ve also cut back on the news & organizations I follow as well. If something major is happening, my friends will retweet it in plenty of time – I don’t need to know everything about everything all the time.
Definitely! Dial it in for what works for you.
Always good to cull through your followers and report spam…helps the global Twitter community.
I realize I’m late to the party on this post. I pretty much agree with you Vince. I use lists and organize people in my desktop app so I can focus in on the people I know post good stuff and that I know or met at a conference or whatever… so there are of course going to be people I follow that I might miss their tweets on a daily basis. I will however always keep that column of “All Tweets” right in front and if I see something in there I like, I’ll click it.
Plus… like others have said… DMing people is a good way to communicate. So I like it when people follow me back.
@gbrenna
never too late
I think I disagree. I don’t think there should be an expectation on me to follow the people that follow me which is what happens when we start talking follower ratios. If I’m not interested in what you are saying on Twitter, I’m simply not going to follow you. My only exception to that is people that know personally, offline.
I think it’s a little silly to follow people that I don’t want to see in my feed so much so that I have to create lists and filters to get them out without them knowing. When that happens, “following” on Twitter becomes some kind of artificial thing much like “friends” on Facebook is now.
There’s no way I can keep up with 200 people on Twitter, much less 2,000. Don’t we all know this to be true? Do any of us think that Andy Stanley, or anyone else with 1,000 plus followers, REALLY listens to all those people? Of course not! They have filters and lists that allow them to ignore all the people they follow that they aren’t actually interested in. So, in reality, their follower count is artificial and means very little.
For me, when I see a follower ratio that is off I just think that person is being realistic about how many people they can really listen to at one time. It’s why I think Twitter is way more meaningful than Facebook. Being someone’s “friend” on Fbk means almost nothing now. That same thing is happening to Twitter and I think it’s a shame.
I also think your right on with the ratio point. Great post