To Those I Don’t Follow, Unfollow, Or Otherwise Feel Slighted On Twitter

A couple people have followed me and then complained (or unfollowed) me because I didn’t follow them back. To those who feel slighted, I’m sorry that you feel that way. Let me explain why and how I follow people.

As of this writing, I have 166 followers and 95 96 people that I follow daily. Obviously I follow fewer people than choose to follow me; this is not because I am rude or do not wish to follow back. It is simply a matter of (and I can’t believe I’m using this over-played cliche) the signal-to-noise ratio.

I use Twitter as a primary means of communication with colleagues, friends, people I’ve met, and people I may never meet. When I follow someone I don’t get the option to filter their tweets to a particular topic; instead I get their entire life in my feed every day. For some high-volume people, this could mean two or three hundred tweets a day. That’s a lot for me to read.

So when I follow someone, it’s usually because they’ve piqued my interest in some way. I expect it’s the same way for those who follow me; I’m a PHP developer with an active social life, and if you don’t want to hear about either you probably want to follow someone else. Likewise, if you’re a PHP dev who follows me but tweets primarily about your cooking hobby, I won’t follow you back. Sorry, but that’s just not my cup of tea.

For those who choose to follow me, you can always direct a message at me with the @ symbol. Since I use Twitterific, those messages show up in my direct feed; you can rest assured that I’ll see them. If we talk a lot that way, there’s a good chance I’ll follow you, because you piqued my interest.

But for me, Twitter is a communications tool. I use it as such, and you should neither be offended or slighted by the fact that you must provide me a reason to communicate with you. If we met in real life, you’d demand the same from me.

The original work of Brandon Savage.

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