Using Twitter More Effectively: Unfollow Everyone?
Loic Le Meur, the serial entrepreneur and CEO of Seesmic, the vlogging web application, has unfollowed almost everyone on Twitter. Until recently, Le Meur used auto-follow script that would immediately add anyone who was following him for him.
“I enjoyed it,” he says in his blog. “I thought that if anybody cared enough to follow me I should also follow them back in return and read my ‘personal firehose’ when I had some free time, instead of watching TV for example. Actually I never watch TV but you get the idea! I learnt a lot by following all my community and it has been a really enjoyable experience.”
But auto-respond tools, which send out generic “thanks for following! I can’t wait to tweet with you! Come to my site!” direct messages started to get on Le Meur’s nerves. As the popularity of these tools increased, it became nearly impossible for Le Meur to use his direct messages effectively.
Le Meur calls it “heavy robot attack,” and it sounds dramatic until you imagine the blitzkrieg resulting from the number of followers continuously added to his following list.
These auto-direct messages are not new. But they do seem to be becoming more popular. The reasoning for using them is beyond me. An automated message immediately says to me, “I’m too lazy to really get to know you.”
I’ll admit that I have 552 pending requests from people following me on Twitter right now. But I would rather browse their profiles as time allows and, if I send them a note, personalizing it based on their bio and recent tweets. Twitter is about community after all, and getting to know one another. Why should you look at my website if I didn’t even bother to personalize a message to you?
It’s spamming and I can’t think of a worse way to start a relationship.
But was that the only thing that prompted Le Meur to unfollow almost everyone?
“Following or friending thousands of friends or everybody is so 2009 [sic] and @scobleizer -ish,” Le Meur said in a tweet late last night in response to talk about his massive unfollowing on Twitter. “In 2009, we want quality not quantity.”
It goes back to the discussion that seems to have taken over in many social media circles in the past couple of months.
Blogger and tech evangelist Robert Scoble, who follows 69,304 people on Twitter, did not miss the shot at him, either. He immediately joined the discussion.
“I use tools so that I can follow both small groups and big groups,” Scoble told Le Meur in a tweet. “Friendfeed’s lists, for instance, or TweetDeck’s groups. Try it!”
But even the grouping feature of TweetDeck, a microblogging platform that competes with Seesmic’s Twhirl wasn’t enough for Le Meur to keep up with his 23,000 followers.
“I used to believe what you said,” Le Meur responded. “I was autofollowing too, this is all bullshit and you know it.”
He pointed out that Scoble himself had stopped using the auto-follow script on Twitter.
“You need to reboot yourself,” Le Meur added. “10,000s of ‘real’ following and friends are so 2008. Get over it, it is just passe, over, finished.”
He and Scoble took the discussion to the telephone. Suddenly, Scoble wasn’t so sure about his tens of thousands of followers anymore. He commented in a tweet: “On the phone @loic makes a lot of sense. Following doesn’t matter now that we have search.twitter.com and friendfeed.”
And so the “unfollow everyone” movement was born. It’s a misnomer—Loic Le Meur is still following 161 people. But you get the picture.
Scoble immediately opened up the discussion on FriendFeed, which allows for lengthier responses than the standard 140 characters of Twitter.
During the discussion, which received nearly 200 comments, artist and blogger Pete Gilbert brought up a good point about Twhirl: “Loic’s company makes a Twitter client. Surely he should build tools into that client to make the overload problem more manageable and certainly not try to set a trend of ‘hey it’s cool to unfollow lots of people now.’ That sort of sends the wrong message to people about your company and it’s thinking.”
He’s right, as mentioned, Le Meur uses the desktop microblogging client Twhirl, which was acquired by Seesmic in early 2008. How his actions will affect user perception of Twhirl remains to be seen.
For what it’s worth, in his blog post about his decision to unfollow people, Le Meur made a commitment to figuring out a way to solve the DM spam problem for Twhirl users. He also assured followers Twhirl was working hard on the filter function in a tweet.
“I am confident we will find a solution,” he says. “Until then, I will remain with a small following list that I will grow one by one daily and remove anybody attacking me again with a robot.”
As of the publishing of this post, Robert Scoble has not followed suit in unfollowing everyone.
What do you think–is massive unfollowing the way to solve the problem?
![[del.icio.us]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[kirtsy]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/kirtsy.png)
![[Ma.gnolia]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/magnolia.png)
![[Mixx]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/mixx.png)
![[Propeller]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/propeller.png)
![[Reddit]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/reddit.png)
![[Slashdot]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/slashdot.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Email]](http://omgomgomfg.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
February 24th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Loic Le Merde is a snob and an elitist. Fuck him. I bet his twitter client doesn’t scale with those kinds of numbers so he’s giving up.
OMG, Mark Beans last blog post: justo:(via kari-shma)
reply
February 24th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I think Twitter should bite the bullet and do a massive maintenance sweep. Sure, people would raise hell after losing a third of their followers, but someday all of these spam accounts may otherwise burn Twitter in a bad way.
Other than that, I don’t get the whole unfollow thing Loic is doing. All of this whining about Twitter and followers, etc, makes me appreciate the genuine folks out there who tweet quality and could care less about the attention it may or may not generate.
Also, the solution is to just ignore DMs. I think Twitter should have an option to turn off DMs all together.
OMG, Andy Sternbergs last blog post: To 90,000 Twitter Followers in 30 Days
reply
February 25th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I’ve only been on Twitter since last summer. I felt bad at first because I sort of broke Twitter etiquette by not doing the automatic follow back. I was selective of who I added because I was truly interested in the tweets of those I was following and didn’t want to be inundated by those who used Twitter more as an IM program or @replied to every tweet they got…or the dreaded marketer. My following and those I follow are still double digits…and I’m okay with that. But I can completely understand how those who have been tweeting since the beginning and have accumulated a massive following might feel it’s time to shed some of those cluttering up the exchange. The *whining* might be from the guilt one feels about unfollowing people. I know I don’t like to do that, and must admit that I notice when someone unfollows me. Still, even if some were in it for the numbers at first, quality is what counts in the end.
OMG, Sandras last blog post: Control
reply
February 26th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Hi.
Sandra, I know what you mean there. I kinda found myself in the same situation. But it is really interesting to analyze the niche trends regarding Twitter. The Google trends classify this niche with an “exponential” growth. (!!) It is amazing if you consider the global impact of all the niches in ansamble.
And yes, the quality is very important, because small term boosts might not be the best solution for making yourself or your business popular.
reply
March 1st, 2009 at 2:02 am
Lets be honest here, the reason he autofollowed in the first place wasn’t anything other than making sure he didn’t lose the people who were following him. He saw some other business angle in it and has suddenly realized that that angle is time consuming and has little reward.
One thing is the sincere community building (which I truly believe in) and the other is the business building techniques that are less fruitful than anticipated.
Most of the people I follow, I follow because I found something interesting in their profile, I only have a little over 500 followers but I do enjoy a lot of what they post.
Unfollowing massively says a lot about this guy ….
reply
March 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I’m not sure there is such a thing as twitter etiquette that states you must follow everyone back.
I follow tweeps back if their profile/tweets mean something to me. Just the way I follow people.
The same way I don’t expect people to follow me back. I’m happy if someone does of course. That just means I’ve reached them in some level.
The auto-DM is just horrible. Why would anyone use that?!
If Loic and Scoble doesn’t follow you, so what?! That really isn’t what matters. There are a lot of interesting people out there. Most of them reply to your tweets. Loic and Scoble can’t do that if they follow 10000 people
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I can see where he might come across as a “snob” or “elitist.” However, when someone is following 10’s of thousands of people, are they really following anyone at all? I would rather be followed by someone who will actually see my tweets. What is the chance of someone seeing anything I write, if I am just a number? It should be about quality over quantity. I follow someone who has content that I find interesting and relevant, regardless if they follow me back or not. While it may be nice for the follow to be reciprocated, I do NOT want to be just a number to that person. You should never feel obligated to follow someone just because they follow you. If you are doing that then using Twitter becomes a meaningless chore.
OMG, Teresa B (Cubiclequeen)s last blog post: You Beta, You Beta, You Bet: Just What the Heck Does Beta Mean, Anyway?
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Greeting
Twitter is a conversation, want a megaphone get a blog. Coversation presumes two-way, follow and back. This is only a problem for those folks that assume that 50K followers equates to mass market for DM spam messages.
As for me, I don’t follow anyone that doesn’t interact when something of interest comes along and eventually I use to twitter karma to clearcut those who don’t follow me.
Twitter is evolving before our eyes and spammers disguised as power users with their 50k followers and 0 following back are passe
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 12:42 am
To answer you question: No. Un-following is not the solution. Not following everyone is. It’s a community. Do you socialize with everyone in your propinquity? Probably not.
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Good post and good comments.
I am fascinated by what Twitter has to offer and the fact that there really aren’t many rules, just common sense and good manners.
When people follow me I look to see what they have to say in previous tweets, bio and website then decide to follow or not. It has broadened the spectrum of different and disparate people I ‘get to know’ and is very enjoyable as well as instructional.
I have DM’d new followers thanking them but won’t any more as it is superfluous. DM should still be available but it is up to us to use rarely and sensibly. Auto DM is pointless – SocialToo have stopped offering it.
So I won’t be doing a massive (relatively speaking) unfollow, just continuing to watch and learn.
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 12:57 am
I do think the premise of being forced into a relationship just because someone else wants it is ridiculous–this goes against everything Mama taught me in high school. In the Twitter world, however, there is a logical sense to auto-following, which becomes the equivalent of shaking the hand of someone who comes up to make your acquaintance and hearing a bit of what they have to say before making a decision as to whether to be their buddy. This does NOT mean I believe in auto-DM’s, the “I’m not really here giving a crap right now, but talk to the hand if you want” approach that eats up my text minutes and is about as appealing as elephant breath on a first date.
As for Loic, he stopped the auto-bot madness by doing a time out and starting fresh. He’s refollowing any who want him to using a more direct, personal approach. I fail to see how wanting to get in touch with people rather than bots has come under such negative scrutiny.
OMG, Lisa Logans last blog post: Feng Shui Friday: Career
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Respectfully dude, anyone “unfollowing” their audience is an idiot…hear me out…can you imagine Oprah unviewing people?!? Maybe they don’t watch her show or experience her media day to day, but the billionaire authority on media doesn’t publicly unfollow her followers. I empathize with anyone’s complaints/angst on spam; but, really. Just be thankful man and simply utilize this amazing technology to filter the information that comes into your life/our lives. And, then spend time blogging/writing about people who are not negating humans but building them up; and, this is my intention for you–you’re obviously articulate, smart, and tapped in to your passion; so, pass you along
Hell, follow everyone on Twitter. Utilize the simple filters to follow who you want to while still meeting interesting people interested in following you. Spam is so 1990’s and it really is an easy fix to deal with, whether it’s twitter, facebook, or your in-box. Quit whining and/or propagating the hassle of using a button that says delete or a strenuous mouse click to un-follow.
reply
March 14th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Seriously now it’s not that they just used auto-follow. They (Jason C as well) actively followed people. (I.e made the first contact by starting to follow someone)
Dropping everyone like that just causes resentment. If you JUST have an account about what you eat or what you’re doing following tones of people so they will follow you back is just a source of narcissistic supply.
On the other hand if you have a free service that caters to the social media crowd it’s a great way to virtually “shake hands” with thousands of people and from there most likely develop working relationships with many of them. That’s why I have no clue why he’d stop following people. It was a great way to get the word out about his numerous products.
If you went to #SXSW for instance you may meet dozens or hundreds of people but end up developing working relationship with a smaller portion. Twitter is similar in the digital realm but on steroids.
There is no right way to use twitter.
reply
March 15th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I’ve never understood the whole “tens of thousands of followers” thing. I’ve grown to following about 700 ppl and being followed by about almost 600 very organically in a little less than a year. I look for lists of folks in my industry – analysts as well as practitioners. I look for retweets by people I follow. I look to bloggers I follow to see if they are on Twitter. When people follow me, I only follow back based on their recent posts and their bios.
Through this model, I’ve built a large extended network of mostly “on topic,” thoughtful, relevant professionals who share similar interests (and some who don’t, to make sure I get a good diversity of perspective). I understand how people can get to thousands of followers using this model. I know @jimstorer (fomerly @jstorerj) and @aaronstrout have both been pretty organic in their growth too, and they are well into the thousands. But the tens of thousands thing just seems ridiculous and about as far from authentic as a “community” can get.
OMG, Dave Wilkinss last blog post: Running Your Business Like a Community
reply
March 16th, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] saturation that comes with following that many people on Twitter. She confessed she’d pulled a Loic just a few weeks ago to make her stream more manageable and reflected on how annoyed some people [...]
March 16th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Great article. I wonder how drastic your following would be cut if this was acted upon. Understanding that reading about what the latest tweets are for 10,000 or 100,000 followers is hard to grasp but then removing any relationship could become detrimental to your group surroundings.
OMG, Digital Photographys last blog post: What Does The Branding For Your Photography Studio Say?
reply
December 14th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
I think it all depends on how you plan on using Twitter. I don’t auto-follow anyone and never have. I review the people who are following me when the time allows and make a decision on a case by case basis to determine if I want to see their tweet stream.
Part of my enjoyment of Twitter is the fact that I get information from a variety of sources. If I were to unfollow everyone, what would be the point. It would be like carrying on a conversation with yourself in an empty room.
reply