My Twitter Follow Policy

I'm a passionate about Twitter. I spend more time in on it than in any other social media venue.  Twitter has been good to me. It is the source of leads for my text and video blogs, not to mention several very nice consulting and speaking offers.

But the real value is in the friendships I've made and maintained with diverse people all over the world. While Twitter is a virtual space, these friendships are very real or so it seems to me.

Like blogging and Facebook before it, Twitter is suddenly and abruptly enjoying massive adooption or so it appears to many Twitter champions who see a new wave of adopters coming in. This should make us all overjoyed at our newfound groundswells of apparent popularity.

I greet this with ambivalence. As a Twitter champion I am happy to see this accelerating success. But I fear the changes this popularity may bring. I remember the speed of which facebook went from being a wonderfully social place to the haven for camp followers and snake oil peddlars.

For me, Twitter is the most up close and personal of social media. People play and joke there. There's a lot of kidding, teasing and even flirting. We behave like denizen of a small neighborhood, one where it's safe to speak out, where strangers are scrutinized by locals this all happens at a certain easygoing pace.

But now newbie influx appears to be accelrating to avalanche. And they are making it much harder to be up close and personal. I see many new Tweeters who reveal no clear name, no place of residency, no personal photos, no web or blog site. I do not know who they are. I do not know why they wish to follow me. Like most Tweeters I like popularity, but it makes me nervoius when I do not know why you want to follow me.

There was a time when I established a Living Room Policy on this blog because of rude intrusions, then later I declared a FaceBook friend policy, which was not enough to let me enjoyably use that service. Now I find a need to declare a Twitter Follow Policy, which I hereby declare.

• If I do not know who you are, or what you look like, or where you are coming from I will not follow you.
• With very few exceptions, I will not follow brands, candidates, causes or company names. I wish to talk with humans, not brand icons, neither surveys nor bots. If you are a real person & you are passionate about your work, then I embrace you. If you are a Direct Marketer using Twitter to push you brand into my forehead, I will block you.
• Even if you are a real person, I may not follow you. I need to see that you are talking either about topics or people I care about.
• If you disagree with me, do it under your own name and I will respect you. If you personally insult me, I will block you. If you are consistently unpleasant or just boring, I will unfollow or block you.
• With extremely rare exception, I will not follow anonymous Tweeters.

Comments

[Joseph Thornley]

Shel,
A good policy. I follow the same rough guidelines. And as I have done this, I have consistently followed about 50% of the people who follow me.

It makes a little more work in that I must visit the Twitter home page of every person who follows me and then their blog pages before I decide whether to follow them.

But as a result, my twitter flow is manageable and it is populated by people who I have prequalified and therefore I know I want to hear what they have to say.

[Christopher Herot]

I agree with what you said and follow much the same policy. One piece of advice I would offer is that it's best to use your real name, or at least a username that provides more than a hint of your identity, e.g. Scobleizer. When I see a username that looks like it belongs on MySpace I'm much less likely to check out the profile page/blog than one that looks like it might be a real person.

[/pd]

"Even if you are a real person, I may not follow you. I need to see that you are talking either about topics or people I care about."

But, unless you follow them, will yo be able to know if their talkin aout topic/people that you care about !! Twitter, does not broadcast their msg into your iframe , unless you are fellower.

So in principle, I agree. However, the MO is that you need to follow them for a little while before you can make that decesion..

[Shauna]

I am new to Twitter (so having too many people to follow is not a problem for me just yet). I am really starting to enjoy the service. I keep adding to the list of people I follow (just as I would my delicious bookmarks) by the recommendations I get from those I already follow. That is actually how I "stumbled on" you! :)

Perhaps Twitter could implement a feature where a new user could send a greeting to someone when they start to follow them. Like I could say "Hi Shel, great video interview. Thought I'd follow you a while!"

Just I thought from a new user with little or no pull in Twitter-land!

[Connie Reece]

Echoing Joe - similar policy has me following 50% of followers. I sometimes tweet that I do not auto-follow, but if someone I don't follow @'s me, I will (w/ rare exception) see it & respond.

[Albert Maruggi]

Take note companies to the second bullet. Companies are comprised of individuals and those that interact with the company would like to have "a friend in the business" so to speak.

You can clearly ID who you are with and even link to the company or better yet, a personal page the company sets up for you.

On the follow side, I am disheartened by the spammers taking to Twitter, however, I do follow companies just to see how they are using it, if they do something good, I'll blog about it, it not, it too is food for the presentations we all do.

Shel, just a note on candidates, Obama's campaign does have a keen sense for social media. It is a cultural phenomenon that is interesting to watch.

PS: Also enjoyed the Hugh MacLeod interview

http://tinyurl.com/2swfjf

[jesse]

i must be one of the most non elitist people on twitter...i can't hardly imagine a reason for not wanting to read what other users have to say...
in the words of chris brogan, (posted on some idiot's blog who was trying to make declarations about how to tweet) following those i either don't think i agree with or don't know if i agree with can lead me to "places I might otherwise not have gone" (paraphrased, didn't bother to go look up actual quote, but that's the gist)...
on the other hand-although i've never blocked anyone (if i can't out argue someone then i probably deserve to "lose" the argument and probably need to shut up myself, not vise versa-as I only argue steadfastly when fact backs up my claim)...I can see a few reasons for not following folks, and I think you covered them in essense quite perfectly.
anonymous- why? won't follow typically.
brand/spammer- don't need that.
language i can't read- while i know this is a personal fault of mine, not theirs, it's just too much for my already amazingly overwhelming stream.

so all of you all...come on by, follow me back!
http://twitter.com/jesatiu

[Coach Deb]

The last bullet:

With extremely rare exception, I will not follow anonymous Tweeters.

Does that mean you often follow anonymous tweeters?

Or is that supposed to mean rarely you will follow them?

[Ed Stafford - @pixel8r]

Shel,
Nice honest post. I received my first 3 spam followers in just the last two days. Their tweets are nothing more than random quotes sprinkled with links to their "questionable" sites. Sad really. I try to follow anyone who follows me but before I do, I check out their profile looking for a link to their site or blog. I also check out their conversations to see how and who they are engaging. If I see some value there, then I will follow, otherwise, I'm less likely to follow. I takes a little bit effort, but the payoff can be well worth it. On another note, I don't follow people because I expect them to follow me back. I do it because I want to listen to what they have to say. There is significance to the saying "listen and learn". If they choose to follow me back, then great, but I don't think any less of them if they don't.

[Ontario Emperor]

The third bullet (I need to see that you are talking either about topics or people I care about) is probably the most critical, which is why I don't get all bent out of shape if someone chooses not to follow me. It's certainly possible that I could be interested in what person X says, while person X may have minimal interest in what I am saying.

Regarding the popularity of Twitter, or Facebook before it, or FriendFeed after it, this is always going to happen. Whatever communication platform you are using, you have to take whatever steps are necessary to maintain the quality of the experience. In Twitter, not following (and blocking) are the tools that allow you to do that.

[Susan Cartier Liebel]

I appreciate your policy. Being new to Twitter, I looked at those people I 'knew' to see who they followed so I could hopefully learn from them.

When I look to follow someone it isn't actually hoping others will follow me (the same philosophy I employ when linking to others when I blog), it is simply to find other interesting people, conversations, blogs, posts, and authors. I have already done that in just a couple of days.

Whether following someone implies you are requesting to be followed, maybe that is a standard expectation on Twitter, but not my personal expectation or why I follow anyone. Just thought I would share my perspective as a newbie on Twitter. (I just happened to recognize your name from conversations with a friend, Liz Strauss, and chose to learn more about you from the information you choose to share.

[Rodrigo Jaroszewski]

To be honest, I don't know why people have to follow everybody. I follow you, Scoble, Pirillo, Calacanis, Winer, and I don't expect you to learn Portuguese to read what I'm twitting about. When one of you speak something that I can comment on, I just @ you.

It's not immoral to show what is obvious: one can care about what another person thinks, and the contrary may not apply. I see so many people blog and write about the issues they have by having to give their attention to so many things, why should we go the old way with Twitter? Shouldn't it be something to earn, to be one of the people an important person follows?

I do know it's dangerous not to be open to other people's point of view directly, but then you have to make a conscious decision that you do want to spend the time doing that, and not default follow everybody.

[Saleem Khan]

It is, of course, your prerogative to decide who you will or won't follow. Spelling out those terms makes some sense. But just as you have the right to decide how you use Twitter or another service, so, too, do others. That includes those who fall outside of your terms. We each decide what is acceptable, which collectively makes community norms. Experience proves trying to dictate is fruitless.

[Lisa Weinberger]

Great blog post and agree with establishing a personal policy on Twitter about following anonymous profiles. If they can't share anything about themselves, then how can you establish any type of connection with them or understand why they want to follow you?

[John Phillips]

I like your policies on following, and I somewhat adopt the same things. I've noticed that more people are starting to follow me that I have no idea who they are. Though it's flattering, I do wonder why they choose to follow me, yet I don't follow them back. With every person that follows me, I look at their profile, visit their site (if they have one) and read a few of their blogs and their about page. I like to know who is following me.

[DrBehavior]

After practicing for more years than I actually care to remember - the one thing that sustained me and had my esteemed Colleagues referring to me was something called "Menschlecheit". Succintly, it meant that I taught them that they would be far healthier if they didn't need to control all situations whilst I demonstrated to them that I didn't need to control them or anyone else either. Whenever I read a long list of dicta I know that the writer may be interesting despite or on account of his/her problems, however, with so many kind people in the world - - why would anyone want to associated with a 'control freak'?
Everyday in the office I see this sort of behavior - - why would I want to take it home with me and call it either amusing or interesting?
So - Mr. Don't worry - take me off your list and/or block me or whatever it is you do to control...

[Kristasphere]

Shel: Good food for thought here. I had not really been actively policing my Twitter followers, but I think you make a very logical argument here. Will also process your Living Room and Facebook friend posts.

I blogged on a social justice issue a couple of years ago. My policy was I would accept pro and con comments as long as they used the "king's English". I figure life throws me enough negativity without courting it, so no need to allow epithets and profanity. Ended up one of my staunchest critics emailed me and thanked me for allowing him to air views I didn't agree with. To me that's what blogging is all about; you don't have a conversation otherwise.

[Kim Haynes]

Shel,

Couldn't have said it better myself and with your permission may very well post a similar post to my blog. I too don't tend to follow folks that don't tell me anything about them. The exception is newbies that I've been introduced to by someone I trust. I'll give the newbie time to figure out where to upload their pic and where to place or what to place on their bio. I also reserve the right, because I believe that my Twitter world is my Twitter world to block those that I may have previously followed should their actions or words offend me in any way. I have my own personal standards that I must live by and I also believe that as an HR Manager / Corporate Reruiter that I can not ever really disassociate my profession with my persona on a social networking site. Thanks again for sharing such a wonderful thought with us.

[GeekMommy]

Not surprisingly, my own post on why I do/don't follow someone on Twitter is also my most often viewed... so I expect this will generate a lot of traffic for you as well.

We each have our own ways of utilizing Twitter, but yours is much more like mine than not.

Still, as the sudden influx of new users is happening, I find myself wondering if I'm not going to have to be even more restrictive in the future.
I'm not sure I can have "meaningful interaction" with thousands of people. I've been considering this point a lot lately.

But one thing I'm utterly certain you're right in is that I don't want to waste my time on people that I can't see as "people" - if I know nothing about someone at all, what basis for interaction is there?

[Kathryn Jones]

Shel!!!

thank you so much for the post! While prior to your post it has been unpopular to admit it, I do not follow everyone back who follows me. My twitter community is very important to me and I want to be able to respond and interact with it in the most meaningful way possible for me. I personally can't follow thousands of people in a way that feels productive and authentic for me, so I always check a new followers twitter home page and links to their sites...numbers don't seem to matter as much to me in this context, they might even be a detriment for me personally in terms of my enjoyment and productive use of the twitter i love!

[vaspers aka steven e. streight]

Depends on what your goals are on Twitter. Following people doesn't mean you are actually reading all their frenzied tweets 24 hours a day. Figure on even your loyal fans only really reading about 2% of your Twitter messages.

[To Think Is To Create]

Hi Shel, I followed you because Savvy Auntie (Melanie) told me you did something very nice for her. I like this post, and since I'm relatively new to Twitter it will help me stay organized and not let the follows get bogged down. I've not followed everyone who follows me, and I've blocked a few creepies who don't interact and only follow women.

`Arianne (ToThink on Twitter)

[Mary Anne Davis]

Hi Shel-
I am a slow adopter of the tech I find interesting and fun. I found you as Tweetbejesus mentioned you and some one else and was reminded of your fab book about blogging, which I read upon publication. I am a potter and a producer. My advocacy is for making and owning the means of production, which tends to go against the grain of a lot of tech development. Anyway, I don't mind if you choose not to follow me but I am happy to follow you! ;)

[shel israel]

Mary Anne What a nice note. I will be happy to follow you. I have sent you an email asking for your Twitter handle, whcih I could not find.

[Prokofy Neva]

I'm not a newbie. I was there from the beginning. If you find mild criticism "an insult," you are too thin-skinned for the Internet, especially the intense conversation of Twitter.

I respect the idea of insisting people you converse with have a real-life name and place. But it's also necessary for you to respect that some people wish to write under pen names or avatar names precisely because the Internet is a nasty place and people stalk and harass. My name is easily Googled and linked to my RL name if it is somehow imperative for you to have it.

I think you are simply unwilling to listen to free conversation with new ideas, you are unwilling to cede the power of social media tools that you and your close circle of friends had a hand in developing and promulgating, and you don't wish to share power. But it's going to have to be wrested from you. You don't get to dictate the terms of the conversation on Twitter. You can make your little Twitter enclave with your special friends and block yourself even, but other applications and Google then show you up.

Of course a conversation is predicated on civility and chosing your partners and topics. On the other hand, you are controlling and influencing at a higher level and pressuring others with your memes, like the pro-Chinese position you've taken with is unhelpful. So you have to expect a really major pushback on things like that: you do not control social media such as to broadcast from it.