Twitter Rage?

Copyright © Jeremy Sandy
FullThrottleMarketer.net

Mike Dillard unfollows thousands, and causes a Twitter uproar.

For those of you unaware of it, Mike Dillard recently made a public announcement that he was going to unfollow thousands of people on his Twitter account. This seemed to cause a huge uproar from those who were following him. The anger started flying:

"why would you abandon me?"

"well, I'm going to unfollow you then!"

"who do you think you are?!"

A lot of people bought into the theory of Twitter karma, i.e. you follow me I follow you. Mike was no exception. But as his Twitter following list grew, he noticed a problem: he was no longer able to sift through all of the garbage on Twitter and find what he was really looking for.

His Twitter stream became over populated. It was no longer a pleasure to use Twitter, but instead became a chore. He no longer liked Twitter and started using less because of this.

Mike was now outside is comfort zone. Twitter needs to be a fun experience. If it isn't, you need to change it.

If you are following someone on Twitter and they are only providing you with garbage, then why are you following them? For the sake that they will follow you back?

You should only follow people on Twitter that you have an interest in or would like to have an interest in. The same applies to your followers. If they have no interest in you or what you have to Tweet about, why follow you?

Personally, Twitter would be no fun for me if I had to sort through 30,000+ people in my Twitter stream. It would become a headache for me. I like to interact with people on Twitter. I follow those I think are or could be interesting. If I am not following you, don't take it personal. I treat it just like I do offline relationships.

If I am at a party and you are boring or just have nothing in common with me, then I move on. I find someone else to mingle with. Twitter is no different.

Remember why Twitter was created and why you are there. I love to connect with people and I love to create new relationships. Twitter allows me to do that on a much larger scale than I ever could offline. As long as I use it for connecting with people, then it should always be pleasurable.

Maybe you should look at your Twitter account too. Maybe you need to unfollow a few people. Maybe you need to start following some that you didn't before because they weren't following you.

Make your Twitter account productive and pleasurable. And for crying out loud, stop worrying about who is following you. If you really want someone to follow you, add more value to your tweets and give them a reason to.