Twitter Auto-Follows are Stupid. No Kidding!

The “Twitterati” have finally recognized something I said months ago: “auto-following people who follow you on Twitter is stupid.”

Today leading social media blog, Mashable, breathlessly posted a piece called: “TWITTER PURGE: Top Twitter User Unfollows 106,000 People.”

It details the "shocking" discovery that when top social media user Robert Scoble (@scobleizer on Twitter) UN-followed 100,000+ people, he suddenly received a lot fewer spam tweets.

Scoble is quoted as saying “When I unfollowed everyone all my spam just stopped. Dead. No more spam. Not since Monday. Twitter is actually quite enjoyable.”

No Kidding!
Is this really news?  Back in March I posted a piece called “4 Annoying Twitter Myths about How to Use Twitter.” That post was a long time coming. 

I had been struggling for months to reconcile what many gurus were saying I was “supposed” to do on Twitter with what made sense to me personally as a marketer and businessman.  #3 of my four points in that post was “Myth: You must follow back everyone who follows you.”

My “4 Twitter Myths” post turned out to be my most popular post EVER. People worldwide visited ScottFox.com to read and agree and comment.

Now, 5 months later, Mashable’s Pete Cashmore (@mashable on Twitter) concludes: “…it seems, users are learning that having 100,000 “friends” you’ve never met is much less valuable than connecting with a select number of people you know well.”

Oh, really??!

Can’t say I’m surprised…

The lesson here?  Be sure to balance what the "gurus" say against your own common sense.  New social media doesn't change the fact that no one knows your business better than you do. 

Read the rest of my most popular post ever “4 Annoying Twitter Myths” here and follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/scott_fox. 

What "Twitter Best Practices" are working (or not) for you?  Please let me know in the Comments.

[Twitter bird courtesy of Latulippe.]

[UPDATE - November 25, 2009:  Almost 4 months later, another online marketing "guru", Joel Comm, today announced he is unfollowing everyone, too.  His reason?  Because "...my (Twitter) stream had become unmanageable. There was no way in the world to keep up with the natural flow of the people I was following."

No kidding!  I would have thought that was obvious to guy smart enough to write a whole book about Twitter!  As I detailed here almost 9 months ago, Twitter is about following quality people, not quantity. Read my "4 Annoying Twitter Myths" blog post here for more helpful Twitter guidance.]

Comments

[Marianne Dow]

Scott -- You're preachin' to the choir, here, but I am glad for the affirmation.

When I suggest to friends that they try Twitter, they always respond with something about not wanting to read all that drivel.

I am tired of having to explain that you choose whom to follow, and you can read their tweets to see if they write things you want to read.

There's no value in indiscriminate following.

And I also hear comments about having to block people from following you -- why would you do that? The more my tweets get out and about the better.

Anyway, thanks for all the good advice you write. Even though I've been selling online for 10 years, and try to keep up with advances, I got so many good ideas from your e-Riches 2.0 book. Much appreciated!

--Marianne Dow msdowantiques.com

[Shaun]

For Twitter automation i've got to say Twimbo from iq143.com was one of the easiest to set up and one of the more intelligent bots.

It only took a few minutes to set up and it's currently priced low for early adopters. My traffic has doubled since using it and I now have a great following on Twitter. I've even had new paying customers as a result! Winner.