4 Reasons You’re Losing Twitter Followers

Unfollow ButtonOne thing that’s nice about Twitter is that the connections are not as solid as Facebook. On Twitter you have followers, not friends. That means it’s not a big insult to unfollow someone. But it also means that you have to try pretty hard to maintain a good number of Twitter followers. With that in mind, here are four reasons people unfollow you.

Too Many Check-Ins

I have some tolerance for narcissistic check-ins, but if your Twitter feed is nothing but automated Foursquare postings, you’re probably not going to keep a lot of Twitter followers.

Overtweeting

Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn’t have controls to adjust how often you see someone’s posts. This is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you’re not subject to Facebook’s voodoo News Feed algorithms, but on the other hand, it’s a lot harder to filter out people who tweet every five minutes. The easiest way to tune out oversharers in Twitter is to unfollow them. So if you’re tweeting every breath you take, people will ignore you.

Not Tweeting at All

If you haven’t tweeted in six months, I’m going to assume that you’ve given up on Twitter. I try to follow a manageable number of people, and if I can’t tell why I added you in the first place, I’ll probably unfollow you.

Politics and Religion

They say you shouldn’t discuss religion or politics in polite society. Well, the Internet is far removed from “polite society”, but the rule still applies. In fact, Twitter makes it exceedingly easy to follow only people you agree with, and most people do. It’s a sad fact of life, and I’m as guilty of it as anyone else.

Unlike the other rules in this list, this rule is meant to be broken. If you’re on Twitter to discuss hot topics, go ahead and send that political tweet. For every opponent you lose, you’ll gain a proponent. On the other hand, if you’re trying to promote a business or build a widespread following, you should probably think twice before dissing Obama (or Romney).

Finally, remember that there’s nothing you can do to keep from losing some followers. Not everyone’s going to be enamored with you. That’s okay. Some attrition is natural, but if you follow these tips, you should be able to stave off a net loss. With wise management and a little luck, you can be a pro at using Twitter.

Steve Lovelace

Steve Lovelace is a writer and graphic artist. After graduating Michigan State University in 2004, he taught Spanish in Samoa before moving to Dallas, Texas. He blogs regularly at http://steve-lovelace.com.

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3 Responses

  1. June 7, 2013

    […] will migrate to smaller services. I see a day when I could be on Google Plus and you could be on Twitter, but we could transparently stay in touch across the services. It’s just like email. I can […]

  2. February 5, 2017

    […] it works. Not only does it work; it succeeds. In an age dominated by the banality of Facebook and Twitter, how does such a complete reference work ever get […]

  3. February 11, 2017

    […] watching. I honestly can’t think of a legitimate use for this, and I’m pretty quick to unfollow Twitter users that wish to spam me with such dribble. Once again, it comes down to the difference […]

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