Web Business by Ken Burbary

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Twitter: Unfollow me, it’s not personal

November 6th, 2008 · Comments · Social Media, Twitter

Fact: Twitter is growing fast……very fast!

Not only is Twitter growing, but the ecosystem of tools and services that are based on the popular micro-blogging service are springing up more rapidly that one can keep track of. Everything from tools that grade your Twitter usage like Twittergrader, to a group Tweeting service like Tweetworks, down to some new services that provide real time updates if you’ve been “unfollowed” by another Twitter user. Twitterless and Qwitter are the 2 services that can do this for you. This post isn’t about explaining the nuts-n-bolts details of how they work. For those details, go here and here. Instead I want to talk about the effect these tools are having on Twitter culture.

Twitter culture? Come on, you kidding me? Absolutely not. Twitter has culture. Lots of it. And the culture is being subtly influenced by these “unfollow” tools. It seems their usefulness doesn’t come without controversy. You see, in the old days on Twitter, it was easy to unfollow someone without any mental or emotional repercussions. It was a simple act, a single click that left no trace or sign to the individual that was unfollowed. Their ego remained intact, free from the unfollow sting that now accompanies a notification that is delivered PROMPTLY to you only moments after it has taken place.

I’ve noticed this conversation topic is being discussed more frequently on Twitter lately. And as you can see below, there are a number of varying opinions ranging from preferring never to know when someone unfollows you, to taking personal offense.

Why does someone unfollow in the first place? It can be any number of reasons. Some Twitter users stop following because of too much tweet noise, not enough relevant tweets, list paring (following too many, social media fatigue). Whatever the reason, it’s clear that this is a highly personal and subjective decison. What works for me may not work for you.

The real impact is on the receiving end. Why did someone stop following after that last tweet? Am I not providing value to him/her anymore? Did I offend them? The questions are infinite. And this is precisely why knowing is changing how some users behave. Sure, not everyone will be bothered by it. But some simple research suggests many ARE. Why not let it roll off your back and avoid taking it personally? Because it’s easier said than done. When taking to a someone face to face, no one likes the feelings that accompany signs someone is ignoring you, or doesn’t like what you have to say. This human behavior is weaving its way into our social interactions online, because the feedback loops provided by these tools that were once impossible to obtain, are now being provided, with ever more detail and immediacy.

I’ll be watching this trend closely as we continue to forge ahead in our digital relationships. Logically, I know I will never truly understand or know why someone stops following me, so I won’t take it personally. Then again, we’re all human and knowing the gory details makes the sting real. Go ahead, unfollow me, I don’t care….I think ;)
What is your opinion on being unfollowed? Do you want to know? Do you care? Do you ask why? Please share.

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Viewing 35 Comments

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    UNFOLLOW.

    Just kidding. But I track down the people who unfollow me - at least to see why or even if I was following them. In many cases these days - for people who have been on Twitter for almost two years - the base you've developed as a twitterer isn't going to vary that much.

    I've found lately that most of the people leaving my tweet stream are ones I'm not following. They're the real estate marketer in California that followed 2000 people and has 14 following her. It's the SEO pro who has the same sort of ratio. Or more increasingly, it's the PR pro who isn't very professional about what she sends out as tweets. I mean, cut the crap with the constant pimping of stuff. Participate a little and when you do pimp something it will have more value.

    And isn't that the reason we're spending time on Twitter anyway? If the conversation here starts to lose its value, I'll bring it somewhere else and have it. IM, blogs, forums, even cell phone.

    Yes, the tools are myriad but the purpose remains the same. At least for me. To chat with some smart people. To share my life a little. To learn stuff. To have fun.

    Seriously. Twitter. No, not that seriously.

    Hmmm, is that a haiku?

    Good blog post!
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    Very nice insight on the unfollowing, and the topic is also something I've noticed popping up lately too. My personal opinion is that I don't mind if people unfollow me, however, I rather not know about it either (like blog subscribers). I assume that if someone unfollows me, then my content is no infer relevant to them anymore, and I'm ok with that.

    I don't think I'd question why though, because I assume that it's for the same reasons that Ive unfollowed people....their content became irrelevant to my interests.
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    I quit Qwitter for the exact reasons you outline above. I started to think about why people were unfollowing, and I was worried that it was going to change the way that I use the service.

    What I realized is that people are going to unfollow for a variety of reasons, but most of those are unrelated to anything that I can change (the were just trying to do link building, they got soc. media fatigue, etc.) so I shouldn't worry about it.

    In addition, if someone quits just because of something that I said, then they weren't really following to begin with, so it's no big loss. (Assuming that the something I said wasn't offensive.)

    For now, I'm a Qwitter quitter, and I hope to stay that way, because it doesn't matter why people unfollow you. What really matters is the reasons someone would want to follow you in the first place. Focus on those, and provide value to the people that choose to follow, and you'll be a happier Twitter user.
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    To date, I haven't been bothered by the sting of an unfollow, but it is probably because as Jeff points out, just about all of my unfollows have been people that I don't follow. However, the sensitive guy that I am, I am sure that it will catch up to me at some point. Even though the information has been available via other tools like Twitter Karma or FriendorFollow, the immediacy of Qwitter tied to the last tweet can increase the insecurity. Since I am often paring my list, I hope that I am not inflicting pain on anyone else unnecessarily. I think Qwitter will cause me to have second thoughts about pressing that unfollow button.
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    I've only been receiving Qwitter alerts for about a week, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

    So far, I treat them with the same curiosity I have for the new follower notices. I click through to see who the person is, take a look at their stream to see what they're all about and see the size of their follower base. Call it an ongoing anthropological study... I'm not hurt or offended, just interested.

    I realize the volume of my tweets may be too much for some people and the content (especially all the #redsox talk) might turn them off too. Life's too short to get hung up of why people stopped following me on Twitter. I'm amazed they were following me in the first place.

    Jim | @jstorerj
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    p.s. I'm going to unfollow @warrenss right now just to see what he does. ;-)
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    @jeffcutler I share your approach (I think). Don't take it too seriously, really. That said, easier said than done for most people.

    @jwphillips Does that mean you're not interested in using Qwitter/Twitterless?

    @coreyobrien In my simple research, I found many people shared your opinion on knowing, and were not users of Qwitter/Twitterless. They prefer to not know. I suspect this may be the majority

    @warrenss You're the perfect example of my point. The new tools are changing user behavior. Some ways are subtle, some more obvious. It's an interesting social phenomenon, no?

    @jstorej I've experienced the same result when live-tweeting a conference. It's too much for some people and they unfollow. hilarious re: unfollow @warrenss
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    I'm mostly kidding when I say that I take Qwitter personally. With my number of followers and their various, unknown objectives, it's obviously impossible to think that it was (literally!) something I said.

    I'm actually more like Jim Storer -- I do see who is unfollowing me because I'm curious. I'm less offended than interested. Very often, I notice that my Qwitter unfollows don't use Twitter the way I do: they usually follow/are followed by very few people... or they have tons of people following them but only follow a handful.

    I'm always curious about the various ways people use Twitter, or Facebook, or any other social platform. So in a way, Qwitter offers another window thru which to view behavior.

    (Providing, of course, you have healthy self-esteem. (ha!))
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    Ken, to answer your question, no I'm not really interested in using those tools. I don't think it would change the content that I'm posting to Twitter. I'm still humbled that more than 10 people chose to follow me, so as long as I keep posting the stuff that interests me, I know some other people will be interested as well.
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    qwitter...lol that is one i haven't heard before. I do wonder why people un-follow but it certainly doesn't make me think twice.

    Great post Ken!
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    I tried Twitterless out of curiosity, but it was difficult not to take personally. I'd rather not know. I pare my following list every once in a while for various reasons, and so does everyone else. I guess it's a bit of a double standard... so in this case, ignorance is bliss. :)
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    Ken:

    Personally, I've never taken much offense to anyone choosing not to follow me any longer, leaving a mean or poor comment on my blogs or sites. I believe the ebb and flow of followers and visitors more often than not always revolves around content that you happen to be tweeting or blogging about.

    It has been my experience that Twitter users don't do a very good job of sticking to one topic. Where a blogger tends to stay in their own little topical realm, the true essence of Microblogging allows for a lot of personal thoughts and statements to find their way into the conversation just by the nature of the limitations of 140 characters. I might tweet a lot about SEO, Social Media or digital tools and goodies, but I also gripe about my day, the state of the auto industry, etc. I tend to believe that a lot of twitter users (and users of the Internet in general for that matter) are just plain narrow casting their channels, which is really too bad, because we all have so much to learn from one another via Tweets.

    Great post.
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    I use Qwitter out of curiosity. Most of the unfollows seem to be folks who were fringe followers - maybe they were hoping I'd auto-follow (I don't - I check out EACH follower to see if I think there is value and a workable signal/noise ratio for me) and then they drop me when it doesn't happen. Sometimes, it's because of something controversial or snarky I've said, but again, these are generally not my devoted subscribers. The sting is minor, but I do use it as an advance warning signal - if there is a trend of unfollows due to a specific tweet or theme, am I being unnecessarily abrasive?
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    I had to quit Qwitter because I did exactly what you did. In many cases, I decided to follow the people who had unfollowed me.

    Like Steve Woodruff, see comment above, I don't follow everyone who follows me, especially those who don't speak languages I speak.

    Finding out what I'd said that pissed off followerers enough for them to quit became an obsession.

    Some of it was about me. Yes, a political comment they didn't like or a snide comment that backfired lost people. And rightly so.

    But sometimes we weren't a great fit, just like life.

    It was driving me too crazy so I gave up Qwitter, preferring to track global stats instead of angsting over individual unfollows.
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    So people really care that much if a random stranger stops following them on a web site? what happened to our country? are we that insecure?

    and while there is a 'twitter' culture, my question is: who defines this culture?

    in reality, there has been, for a long, long time, clear definitions of who defines a particular culture (i.e., old, white men in the u.s.)...and yes, it has been changing, but culture is created by people and in the case of twitter, who are these people? are these the people that participate in the dialogue the most or are they the people who pay attention to petty things like qwitter? are they the ones who follow the most people or have the most followers? and if they have the most followers, does this make twitter a popularity contest...or worse, like high school? :)

    you raise some interesting questions and am curious to how this social media experiment will continue to evolve.

    @josh_sternberg
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    i like Qwitter for the reasons @swoodruff mentions above. it's a lot about curiosity. before, when i lost a follower, it took me 20 mins to look at my lists and try to guess at who was missing. now that work is taken out for me.

    i don't take it personally. mostly, like Steve said, the people who unfollow were people i didn't follow back for one reason or another. likewise, it's nice to see if there's a large-scale trend. but i don't sweat the small stuff.

    i think i've only had 1 "authentic" unfollow, where i know the girl chose to stop following because she didn't like what i was saying. doesn't bother me. & cheers to @swhitley & @JPmicek's statements above.

    xxo
    @thegirlriot
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    I've noticed that if someone unfollows me, 99% of the time I haven't been following them. They most likely used one of the twitter tools to see who wasn't following them and they trimmed down their list. It's understandable.
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    Ken,

    Just wanted to say again that you wrote a great and especially relevant post here. Thanks to a discussion started by Terry Bean, this was yesterday's topic du jour for a few hours.

    As I told Terry, I was once pretty miffed by people unfollowing me. I don't censor myself, but I try hard not to be excessively polarizing. I assumed, then, that a user who chose to unfollow me did so because he or she was offended in spite of my best efforts.

    Maybe that is the case, but I can only speculate. As I struggled to reconcile what was really going on, I turned to a great deal of reflection that has suggested to me that I'm a pretty damn great guy! That is to say, I don't do much that would offend your average person.

    Based on that reflection, I like to think that the few users who have made that choice to unfollow me were simply not made for me, nor I them. A simple incompatibility in humanity; it happens.

    I find proof of this in the Qwitter messages I have received ever since my first unfollow. All the tweets that have preceded an unfollow email have been benign and conversational with others. I stepped back and objectively analyzed what I had to say, but could not find anything offensive.

    With all of that said, I still continue to believe that a lost user is an offended user. I am not hurt by this, but I believe the worst so I'm not offended by lesser reasons. It may not be the healthiest approach, but it works for me.
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    I don't particularly care about who unfollows me. I do use Qwitter, because I am trying to network with certain individuals and I'm testing if my tweets are counter-productive. At the same time, I don't really take it personal.
    I considered following a ton of people to attract new followers, but I have taken a stance that I would rather it happen organically. I am running into plenty of decent Tweeters on happenstance, just like I ran into this blog.

    Don't worry about your followers, you do good work Mr. Burbary.