I’ve been noticing a trend lately. Like most people, whenever someone follows me on Twitter, I get a notification.
Me being the inquisitive person that I am, I usually take a quick look to see if they’re someone I’d like to follow back. Sometimes I follow, sometimes I don’t.
It’s often nothing personal, I just tend to follow people who manage to intrigue me with either some element of their profile, their time-line or their site. If I don’t see something interesting right away, I generally don’t follow right back.
Lately, there’s been a group of people who I’ve noticed have followed me one day, then I guess when I don’t follow back, they decide to unfollow me, then a few days or a week or two later when they think I’ve forgotten, they’ll follow me again. 
The problem is – I have not forgotten.
I guess I should make it known now that I have a pretty decent memory when it comes to people. I’m the weirdo who remembers the birthdays of family members and acquaintances that I’ve known since elementary school. I’ve aced many tests solely based on memory and nothing else.
So, I’m not going to forget someone who just followed me a few days ago – I’m going to wonder what’s going on? What are they expecting me to do – follow them back after they’ve un-followed me? That’s not a very effective method to get my attention.
There are much better ways to do that. It’s not hard really, I pretty much revealed all of my ancient Chinese secrets in 10 Ways I like to Thank Twitter Followers for Retweets. I don’t mind following back most times, but I don’t like my choice taken away either. I hate to disappoint, but following, unfollowing, and refollowing is not going to work.
I’m curious to know if I’m the only one who has experienced this follow/unfollow/follow trend? Have you ever had this happen to you? Is that crazy or what? How did you deal with it?
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About Kiesha Easley
I have had the experience som times, but I never know how to behave in that situation! Any thoughts anyone?
I have recently had a few followers that follow, than unfollow quite soon thereafter, but I haven’t really noticed that they follow back again! How should I interpret this?
Lately I have noticed that many of my new followers are just spam. So I usually do not follow anyone back until I’m sure they are real people.
Of cause you can follow someone just to get a follow back .. In real life .. don’t you sometimes hang out with people just to look more popular. Twitter is like real life.
I think that following someone just because he/she is following you is wrong in the first place. A follow should be because you are really interested in that person or company.
It’s sad that a community like Twitter is full of all those bots flying around making trash. I come from Sweden and we don’t have any “swedish bots” but there are a lot of english-talking bots following everybody in an attempt to make profit in different ways. I just keep reporting them to Twitter in hope for suspension.
I’ve also noticed that lately even though i don’t have as many followers as you do some people still follow me one day and then unfollows the next, to follow again another day.
Great post by the way
When someone follows me I recieve an email, in that email there’s a presentation of that person or company. If I want to socialize with that person or company – I follow them/her/him to. :)
Albin recently posted..Tron Legacy 3D
Whenever someone follows me, I do what you do: I take a quick look at their profile to see if they’re anything to have.
If they’re not: I’ll just forget about. I honestly don’t care about the number of followers I have and such. It’s not about that.
/Nabil.
Twitter: BrankicaU
says:
I do the same thing when someone follows me. I see if there is something interesting and follow back. If not, as you say, nothing personal.
I hate people that follow and unfollow the same day. So they think I am 24hrs online just waiting for people to follow back.
I even never used that techique people often recommend, follow 1000 random people and you’ll get at least 800 follow backs.
I mean, what do I do with 800 people that are not interested in what I have to say.
Ok, some of them will be but I prefer targeted followers :)))
Brankica recently posted..How to create Facebook Fan page the simple way
I’ve experienced the follow/unfollow/follow trend though at the time I felt it was a fluke in Twitter’s system. Now I know better. Doesn’t really bother me that much now as I’ve turned off the new follower notification thingy.
Udegbunam Chukwudi recently posted..Top 3 Misconceptions About StrictlyOnlineBiz
Very obviously, you are not the only one who has been facing this issue. There are technique of following people in bulk and then unfollowing people who do not follow back. People resort to such techniques and it causes irritation to see X follows you one day and then again X follows you after a couple of days!
Vishal Gaba recently posted..How to increase comments on your blog
That happens a lot to me! and I think almost every day. It’s irritating when you see them following you again, though I’m not the type to ignore those who follow me, so I’ve no choice but to follow them back (even I know that they’ll be unfollowing me any time soon.
I missed reading your stuff here kiesha :)
Regards,
Jason
Jason recently posted..Keyword Research – Developing an Effective SEO Strategy Part I
Sometimes I experience this but I check their feed if their posts are good, I mean if they would not be flooding my feed. If I see that the person has quality tweets, I go ahead and follow back.
I don’t analyze Twitter followers to know who bounces around. I have followed and then unfollowed someone. Usually due to being let down by the quality of their tweets versus marketing and spam. I follow blogs I like when I read them on the fly. But doing it this way I don’t always find the same quality to them on Twitter. This is a shame cause once they are gone from Twitter I am not likely to go back to the blog either as I don’t have time to keep track of blogs. I just keep a feed for about a dozen that are friends or blogs I know I don’t want to miss.
Laura recently posted..They Move Onto Dance
As tweets can easily be sold and instant automated followers system is being sell online real time tweets bots doing harder.
i used wordpress plugin and tweets tool which helps me tracking of automated program and help me stay away from tweets scams fake followers etc
great post.
seospidy recently posted..Search Engine Optimization SEO
Interesting post Kiesha!
I don’t know why, but i hate twitter, probably it’s because my own fault. When i was new on twitter, people follow me and i follow them back, the result, people tweets spam..grrrr
Then i unfollow them, and since i don’t have traffics from twitter, i don’t use it much.
Kimi recently posted..How to check website-blog speed
To me, twitter is still like a bar. I enter and i leave as i please.
My mind sometimes needs rest, and that very hard when i know there is a lot of stuff to read in my twitterstream.
Solely for that latter reason i only follow 13 people. If i need/want to read more, i can open the twitter stream from my event.
That also leads to the following: when an interesting discussion is taking place, i sometimes have to follow somebody, so i can read the complete conversation.
Later that day i will unfollow again.
The fact of my follow unfollow has nothing to do with how interesting somebody is.
I’m sure that i,myself have nothing interesting to say, so i find it strange to begin with that people follow me;) i end up in to many list called “i follow you but i don’t read you’ list, and is’t that worse then follow/unfollow?
Anne recently posted..Klavertje 4
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Anne,
I can totally understand why you’ve chosen to do it that way. It can get overwhelming when you’ve got tons of followers. That’s okay when you’re tweeting for personal reasons, but I’m not sure it will fly if you’re trying to create a brand – at least not in the growing stage.
Hi Kiesha, I also follow people again who I may have unfollowed before. But this shouldn’t be a big problem. The simple solution for you is to block people who are trying to follow you repeatedly.
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Andreas,
Yeah, I think that’s what it’s going to come to.
I haven’t noticed it actually. I just signed my twitter on a website where I automatically follow those who follow me. Hmm, I think I should stop the auto-follow thing on my twitter and take a look at this issue. Thanks for the heads up!
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Jay,
You might want to consider that, because you could be following a lot of people who don’t exist. Especially those people with the original Twitter logo as their profile with lots of numbers in their names.
I haven’t read all of the above comments so maybe someone already said this, but what’s likely happening is that they are following other people’s followers. When you don’t follow back, they unfollow you which is pretty normal. Then, they go and follow someone else’s followers. It’s hard to figure out who you’ve followed previously unless you keep track (which they don’t) so it bites them in the butt.
Tia Peterson recently posted..Follow Friday- Must-Read Posts- SeededBuzz- and Why Faking It Sucks
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Tia,
Yeah, that might be what’s happening. I thought they were doing it to make me rethink about not following in the first place.
I haven’t really encountered this problem yet but one thing that I do is use one of the many sites that analyze people you follow to determine if they are worth following or not.
One I love to use is The The Twit Cleaner because it pretty much spells it out for you. It tell you who doesn’t interact with people, who only posts links, who never RTs, who hasn’t tweeted in a long time, etc. This way you can trim down the bots and people that aren’t really adding any value to your timeline.
Wayne Howard recently posted..Intro- Driving Your Life
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Wayne,
In that case, I’m very glad I made the cut! :) I’ve tried Twit Cleaner before – I haven’t done that in a while because I generally don’t worry about who’s NOT following me, but it is nice to get rid of those people who don’t Tweet anymore; who are just taking up space.
I suppose there’s one way this could happen which doesn’t specifically indicate any ill intent, although it does indicate a lousy understanding of social networking (particularly if they’re around the magic 2000 follower limit). It could be an interaction of tools – for instance, using a directory service like Twellow (or even Twitter’s own recs) to find suitable people to follow, then using something like Twitter Karma to weed out those people who haven’t returned the favor. Next time they return to Twellow, they possibly see the same recommendations.
I agree, it’s annoying. Choosing to follow someone because a recommendation service says so, or choosing to unfollow someone simply because they don’t return the favor within some arbitrary timeline – pretty lousy, but who are we to say how people should use Twitter?
Chris Nash recently posted..Book Review- A Spy At Home by Joseph Rinaldo
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Chris,
I can understand how that might happen using the directory service – but there clearly would be more than a few days in between the follow-unfollow-follow practice. Generally I’ll notice someone follow me, then maybe 2-3 days later – most times I haven’t even realize they unfollowed me, but then they are following again. So weird…
I tend to follow people that my favorite twitter folks recommend. I’ll read their profile, if they don’t look spammy I’ll follow them.
The only time I unfollow someone is if they simply don’t interact when I engage them in discussion. I’ll try interacting with them a few times, if I see a tweet that interests me I’ll interact with them again. No response, I’ll unfollow them. When I use twitter I tend to interact a lot, so nice having like-minded folks that do the same with me.
I don’t track people that unfollow me. I know there are addons that tell me whether people unfollow me, but that doesn’t interest me.
HealthyOpal recently posted..How to make your own dream pillow Sweet Dreams Pillow Recipe
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Opal,
I’m like you, it doesn’t matter who unfollows, I’m just tired of the annoying tactics :)
Twitter: dragonblogger
says:
This is actually a tactic used by automated twitter follower software, but also by other software too. In some cases if your follower limit is reached typically what people do is follow until their limit is reached, a few days later unfollow all who don’t follow back, then repeat process as your limit increases as you gain more followers.
I agree this is a poor tactic, but I use a variation on this tactic myself regularly. I would follow people with the “tag” blogger because they were following another blogger I followed or admired. Then I would filter out and unfollow several that lost interest.
I repeat this process, but because I look for people with “blogger” in their profile that follow @Ileane one week, I will follow them. Then another week I may look for people with “blogger” in their profile following @Kikolani another week.
Since in many cases the same people follow common people, it leads to duplicate follow/unfollow. It isn’t deliberate just part of the follower sculpting in this case.
Justin Germino recently posted..Insert Code into Windows Live Writer with Code Snippet
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Justin,
That’s an interesting tactic – that might be why I don’t have as many followers because I just don’t want to have to do all of that. Might give it a try one day in the future.
Twitter: Ileane
says:
Justin, I like that example you gave :) very smart!
Kiesha,
I’m pretty sure this is how Buzzom operates also. For now I’m staying away from any type of automated services. I was using Buzzom this way for about 1 week and it just gave me an uneasy feeling. Later I found out that Twitter came down on Buzzom and they needed to alter their strategy and limit the number of follows in a give time frame. I remembered thinking to myself “see I knew there was something weird about that”. LOL!
Ileane recently posted..Power Twitter User In The Making
Hey Kiesha,
You have way too much time on your hands to notice this :-)
I must admit that I don’t recognize people who follow, unfollow, and then follow again. I have noticed that my numbers have increased a bit (yeah) and I do check out who follows me from time to time. If they are a real person, I’ll check them out and decide whether to follow them or not. If they are hiding behind some company name, chances are that I won’t. It’s actually kind of cool now that Twitter has the feature of suggesting people to follow, based on who you follow and have in common. I’ve discovered some new, cool people to follow that way.
I still get notifications, but I should turn them off like Jean. So annoying. I’m going to check out Social Oomph because that sounds like what I need. Thanks for the tip.
Karen
Karen recently posted..Just For Today Challenge – 31 Days To A Better You eBook Launch
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Karen,
LOL! I just like to take a moment to check out who’s following me and see if they’re worth networking with or not. I don’t always have time for it, but when I do, it gives me an opportunity to meet new people. I’m moving more towards the idea of turning the notifications off and not worrying about it. The noteworthy people will come to the surface one way or another.
Hey Kiesha,
I don’t pay any attention to this. I use to, but now I just follow those people that are of interest to me. If someone follows me and they are interesting and we have similar interest, then I follow back. I never really follow-up to see if they stopped following me.
I will, however, check out what Jean has mentioned and see how that works. Just out of curiosity. :)
Take care!
Evelyn recently posted..Healthy Vegan Sweeteners
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Evelyn,
I agree. I’m thinking about trying out Social Oomph, too.
I turned off all notifications so I just check who is following me and follow back the ones who appear to be real people and not spammers. I generally try to follow every real person who follows me as a way to say thank you. Twitter is supposed to be interactive and inclusive. Every once in a while I will use http://www.friendorfollow.com to unfollow those who were no longer following me.
Trevor B. Reed recently posted..Thesis 18 Review
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Trevor,
I didn’t want to do that, but it looks like turning off the notifications is what’s going to have to happen. I’ve tried that site, it doesn’t really matter to me whether or not they’re following me, I just don’t want them to keep toying around with me.
Hey Kiesha,
I pay no attention to them. I don’t let something like this distract because typically is nothing more than an automated software doing it. I know they were talking about stopping the automated friend request. Does anyone know if it happen?
Have a great weekend…
Josh
Josh Garcia recently posted..Stop Struggling Identifying Your Target Market
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Josh,
I have no idea if they’ve stopped that or not, but I’m going quit worrying about it, that’s for sure.
Twitter: bbrian017
says:
Personally I find it annoying but maybe it’s because I get it a lot. I’m sure they are using automated software to follow and unfollow so many people.
Before I follow anyone back I make sure they are still following me first now.
bbrian017 recently posted..We want you to write for us on our community blog
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Brian,
It’s very ANNOYING! I don’t really care whether they follow me or not, I just don’t like the games. Either follow me because you want to OR don’t. Just stop the games! :)
Great post! I notice this ALL the time and it drives me crazy!!!
I often recognize their names too and once they follow/unfollow I do not follow back.
I also only follow those who follow me who I happen to find intriguing. If I don’t, no follow.
What DOES bother me and WILL make me unfollow someone I am following if it is a blogger who is pet related (either a pet company, pet or cat blogger, which is what I am) and I follow THEM I really do expect for someone writing about the same genre as me to follow back and I think it is rude when they do not. If I discover they haven’t followed back then I will unfollow them. But I don’t keep playing the game over and over again.
I get notification of followers but not notification as to those who have unfollowed (unless I check the application you can use to check) How are you getting emails to show who has UNFOLLOWED you? I would like to receive those.
caren gittleman recently posted..Cody- aka Wascally Wabbit Or Rabbit Boy
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Caren,
So I’m not alone! That’s the good news…but the bad news is…it’s still happening :(
I turned off the email notifications because it was one of those ‘time sucking’ things I felt wasn’t adding value to my blogging.
I use Social Oomph and have it set to automatically follow those who follow me as another time saving thing. If I remember right, there’s a setting on there to automatically unfollow people who don’t follow you in a certain time period. But, as to why someone who unfollowed would then follow again – that must be some other automated thing. Seems nutty to me :)
Jean Sarauer recently posted..21 Signs That You’re a Blogaholic
Hey Jean,
I’m going to check that out! Thanks for sharing!
Evelyn recently posted..Healthy Vegan Sweeteners
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Jean,
I might have to try this out, too. I just didn’t want to automatically follow people or unfollow people just because they aren’t following me – sometimes I still want to get their tweets. I’ll have to try it and see how it works out.
I’ve used SocialOmph for that. I didn’t like it. You often end up following spammers or other shady people automatically. I find it much easier to do it myself.
I have the New Followers column open in TweetDeck. I see when someone has followed one of my accounts, and–if there is something interesting in their bio or I think they look/seem familiar–I check them out. When I KNOW they are familiar and that I meant to follow them ages ago, I just click follow right there in tweetdeck. Just another option that makes vetting people easier without the risks I associate with autofollow
Gurl recently posted..Hearty Mac and Cheese Dinner
Twitter: davelucas
says:
It totally drives me NUTS! I notice many of “them” will come back and “unfollow” me in a few days after I have followed them back… so unless someone I really care about (or could care about) follows me, I’m not following back (especially if my new follower is following 18,787 other tweeters!)
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Dave,
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one. I was starting to think I was going crazy.
You know, this may sound awful but I thought that for sake of being efficient and giving the most value, I will no longer get any notifications from Twitter. Every few days I notice how many new followers have come to my profile. I look to make sure they are not a crazy weirdo/spam/p0rn etc in which case I block and report them (this used to happen first few days of my twitter life, no more). After that, I am simply happy that people wish to follow me. I feel no obligation whatsoever to follow back. I have about 6 times the followers that I myself follow and I am fine with the ratio growing or shrinking. I just love being me and not worrying so much about growing to be someone I am not to get 3000 more followers for instance……Yes, crazy, I know! Whatever happened to my ambitions? ;)!
Farnoosh recently posted..The Importance of Being Punctual
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Farnoosh,
That doesn’t sound awful – I’m actually considering doing the same thing. I just didn’t want a few people to ruin it for everyone, but it’s really starting to get annoying.
lol, :-).. happens all the time, Kiesha. They are just bots trying to amp up their follower stats. Best to pay them no mind.
James Tayo recently posted..How to shatter the glass ceiling and get more people to buy your stuff
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi James,
You’re right… I’ll just have to ignore them. It just bothers me because I don’t want to totally turn off my notifications, because I actually like checking out the profiles of the people who are following me. A few are ruining it for everyone.
I’ve seen this a lot, especially recently. For the most part I follow back most of those who follow me, but I don’t follow the ones selling stuff.
Like you I remember, I see when they follow, then I get the notification that they unfollowed. Then in a few days, I’ll see that they followed again. For the most part I ignore it, but I have had to block 1 because they did it everyday.
Michael recently posted..The Passenger’s Seat
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Michael,
Yeah, I’m considering blocking it because it’s getting on my nerves :)