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Thanks for the follow; sorry I can’t follow you back

I guess we are riding the back edge of the wave, but with everyone in media and entertainment talking about Twitter, it just seems natural for folks to want to jump into the action, whether it is to try to connect with their favorite celebrities, keep up with breaking news, or promote their business.  I am pretty active on the platform and have been for a few years now, but this post is not about the Zen of Twitter.  I follow and interact with some very interesting people,  so I pick up a hand full of new followers every day.  Most of them I don’t follow back.  Here are some reasons:

1. You don’t have a profile – You may be the most interesting tweeter in the world, but with no profile, I don’t know what you are about.  Complete your profile before your first tweet.
2. You have red flag word or phrase in your profile – If you are a self-described “social media guru”, or want to help me make quick cash, don’t expect a follow back.  And those are just 2 examples.
3. You are an extremist – Religious or political, left or right.
4. You have an X-rated or offensive profile picture
5. You don’t have a profile picture
6. You have 10 times more followers than updates – I look closely at these, as it implies to me that you might have bought some followers.
7. You don’t practice what you preach – You claim to be an online or social media marketer and strategist, yet you have only a few updates.

I used to follow you but now I don’t anymore

So you pass my rather loose criteria for me to follow you back.  Here are a few reasons I might un-follow you:

1. You send me annoying automated DMs – promoting yourself or your business as soon as I follow you.
2. All your posts are automated – Are you human?  Everything you post is from an RSS feed, automatically posted by a service like Tweetspinner or Twitterfeed.  Those services have their place, but you abuse them.
3. You abuse hashtags – Hashtags (#) have a very useful function in Twitter.  You negate their usefulness when you append trending hashtags to  your off-topic, self-promotional tweets.
4. You tweet too much –  your tweets dominate my Twitter stream.
5. Your content is irrelevant to me – It’s all about content.

These lists aren’t comprehensive, and they are very subjective; but isn’t everything in social media?

Your comments are welcomed.