Notice where he wrote, "People who are following me just to get another count on their follower numbers are just plain, well, lame." Although I do agree that following simply to get numbers up is lame, but what the hell, he 'auto followed' 100 000 people. There can't be any other reason for this than to simply get you numbers up. What a hypocritical idiot.
Benjamin Dobson
· 4 months ago
He auto-followed those who followed him. That doesn't increase your numbers at all.
Fiona
· 4 months ago
well, it does if people know you auto-follow and follow you because they know you'll return the favour
GadgetJase
· 4 months ago
he was a fool for auto following his followers in the first place then. Why follow that many people? Just plain stupid.
Tyson
· 4 months ago
DM's are really the only form of debatable spam on Twitter! Twitter is Opt-in, thus if you are seeing spam, you simply unfollow. It seems like this debate will never be settled.
MichaelApproved
· 4 months ago
That's not true. I follow mentions so I know if someone who is following me has a reply for me even if I'm not following them. Well bots know this is a normal practice and send spam in reply to some of my comments.
johnhutson
· 4 months ago
I have to say, I'm still amazed that even in the early days people were slow to realise that autofollowing back is pointless.
I have always believed it's about connecting with qualified followers rather than a numbers game. I only follow about 50 people. Not to be rude to everyone following me, but it's about getting value out of Twitter. Learning new things from people you respect in your industry and giving value back in return.
It's a shame it took so long for him to realise. Following 50 odd people is quite task in it's self!
Kerstin W
· 4 months ago
most people realized way earlier how pointless following too many people is and that automatically back-following everybody showers you with spam. what are we supposed to do here? congratulating @scobleizer on being a little slow on the uptake?
imrat
· 4 months ago
Robert, like several others, has come to the realization that auto-follow is not a great practice and I think its fantastic he has made this move. You might want to check http://stopautofollow.com so see who else has done this and learn more about why auto follow will ultimately harm twitter.
eskimon
· 4 months ago
Love the last line... I'd almost fo so far as to say "people are finally remembering that it was the social (i.e. interactive) aspect of social media that attracted them in the first place".
I've got a lot of respect for Scoble for what he's done. It must have felt weird losing all those 'friends'.
Wikus du Plessis
· 4 months ago
Same here. Had about 1 700 followers on my @wikusdp account, but most of it was spam and junk being advertised to me. Mass unfollowed everyone and my followers count dropped to 600. Been idling at that count for about a month and a half now.
Advice: DO NOT use auto follow scripts. Period.
buckybit
· 4 months ago
By the rate Robert Scoble meets new people and connects with them, he probably exceeded 100.000 last year or so;)
I am just amazed how he is able to organize and manage all the real connections he has AND leaves room for 'random' people, even invites them to join the conversation - or just a beer.
Chubbs
· 4 months ago
shrug. isn't 100,000 people about what watch the late night test pattern on tv?
Gokul Salvadi
· 4 months ago
I use to unfollow as and when I find I need, I do one at a time
Yuping Liu
· 4 months ago
I really identify with this. From early on, I've been trying to carefully select who I follow on Twitter. Even following 60 people is not an easy task. Just like real-world friendships, I'd rather build deeper relationships with people than to have a big superficial group of friends.
I think Twitter should offer opting-out of receiving DMs.
Maybe you'll be handicapped by not receiving the "important" DMs from your friends, but better that than receive 1 important DM (which you can also receive by mail - by leaving your e-mail adress in the Bio field) and 100 spam DMs...
If Twitter offers something like that, I'll immediately turn it on :)
Benjamin Dobson
· 4 months ago
How about you just don't follow spam accounts?
Miladinoski
· 4 months ago
The auto-follow option for everyone who follows you doesn't offer removal of spam accounts, so many times I have to go and remove the follow of the spam accounts on my own.
Sometimes I forget it and just leave it that way...
Oh and it still doesn't offer a solution for @mentions spam you receive, which I have in loads (which I weren't talking about in the first place, but I'm just saying)... :(
IM & Social Media Connections
· 4 months ago
Uh, leave your email address in your profile? Are you crazy? Then you'll be sure you're inbox is flooded with spam.
Miladinoski
· 4 months ago
I think you're not that dumb to think that I would leave the email address in its original look in the bio field.
You will protect it with a URL and a Captcha, something like this service offers: http://tinymailto.com/
murliman
· 4 months ago
No rational person would willingly follow more than, oh, about a thousand people? Makes no sense.
Leonid S. Knyshov
· 4 months ago
I follow 1600+ easily.
Steve Walker
· 4 months ago
Leonid, when you say you follow 1600 people easily, can you define "easily", please? What tips, tools and techniques have you for engaging in dialogue with that many people? Many others say following 50 is enough; I follow 300 and don't have the time to engage properly in their discussions. How do you cope?
carocat
· 4 months ago
I follow 600 properly and engage in the conversations. I tend to read every tweet posted, too.
It's just a matter of slowly scaling up rather than going on following sprees.
Leonid S. Knyshov
· 4 months ago
I use Twhirl and Ada with a dedicated monitor for Twitter.
Twhirl for historical record and ada for real-time tweets. Ada can display about 25 tweets per screen. I'll finish an article on this shortly.
Leonid
nwjerseyliz
· 4 months ago
What is Ada?
Leonid S. Knyshov
· 4 months ago
It's one of those lesser known Twitter programs :)
Milan
· 4 months ago
Last line = the most truthful thing I have ever heard. Well said ;)
wecandobiz
· 4 months ago
As someone who makes social media his life, I am surprised Scoble has felt that auto-follow is good practice. Because someone is interest in what you tweet, why assume you'll be interested in them?
He should never have done it in the first place. That he is still doing it so many months later makes me question what he's learning about social media. But then when I read the coverage he's got from the simple act of unfollowing people, I realise exactly what he HAS learnt.
Ian Hendry
Peter
· 4 months ago
Amen to that. And if I could just figure out how to delete the 'silly' posts from those whose comments and esp. links I DO value in the archive, life would be sweeeet.
Allen MacCannell
· 4 months ago
Note that he didn't really separate the spammers in that unfollow and tens of thousands of real people noticed he unfollowed them. He actually said he would refollow if someone wrote something in his FriendFeed soon afterward. This was a smart way to win back the non-spammers who noticed quickly and were wondering what they had said to get him to unfollow.
When doing business you want to listen = concentrate on those who are your customers or will be your customers. There are enough interesting bloggers to follow as well. If companies saw he specifically unfollowed them after following them, they would have assumed their technology was not part of what he wanted to talk about and unfollowed him as well...not out of spite but because they wouldn't expect him to ever write about stuff related to them and figured it would be best to concentrate on other bloggers.
Journalists can get away with such things as mass unfollows of people who follow them. Most businesses should be careful about doing what he did. If a business had done what he did, there would have been some tens of thousands of miffed potential customers or actual customers who wouldn't have publicly complained but just not bought the products. We block about 10 spammers per day but always when it would be very clear that the spammers themselves wouldn't blame us. ;-)
Worst of all is when a very important potential contact for your business follows you but you never noticed and their profile got buried and a month later they unfollow you because of the lack of reciprocity (again, they figured you didn't care about doing business with them so why follow you). That is where an auto-follow would have been good. That is when I follow them and tweet an apology for not following before.
Alrady
· 4 months ago
well i see you point however I am a Robert follower, at least I hope I stilll am. I have mine set to auto unfollows those that unfollow me.... WHY? to protect me from those that follow me for a time just to building block.
I did set up tweetlater and it allows me FOR FREE to block incoming auto DM's IE the spammers. this has worked well.
Robert was brave 106K but I have done similar only inmy tinsy world it is more like 100. Doing that even caused me to hold breathe in case of suspension......
IM & Social Media Connections
· 4 months ago
Auto-unfollow is just as wack as autofollow. So you're essentially saying that if someone isn't all that interested in what you're saying, they must not have valuable info either? We should choose who to follow AND unfollow by doing it in human nature (unless you're like Scoble and have to clean up real quick because you have the numbers he has and just realized that autofollow isn't the way to go).
♫ ♫ Soulfull ♫ ♫
· 4 months ago
Glad to see Scoble's got his piece of mind back, but I agree wholeheartedly with Boshoff comments. It's quite hypocritical to call others lame when you did the very same thing in the beginning.
Luka Novak
· 4 months ago
took him long enough to do it. I agree with johnhutson, 50 people is about the limit of what is manegable for normal person. I follow that number, part of them are automated (or semiautomated) accounts, jokes mostly. and even that number is sometimes a bit much, specially if I don't check my account for a while and have so many new tweets to read.
IM & Social Media Connections
· 4 months ago
He didn't do the same thing in the beginning. He simply auto-followed, not knowing better; he didn't implement any tactics to attempt to boost his follower numbers. He wasn't following people to get people to follow him back - he was following them because they followed him and he didn't know better. You guys have to understand how this all works and read carefully.
Danny Brown
· 4 months ago
Scoble's hardly a social media virgin. Even if he was, let's look at it at face value. Scoble joined Twitter on 20 November 2006. It's taken him more than 2 1/2 years to realize that auto-following is pretty unsocial? That it comes across as "Well, I don't care who the person is, I'll add anyway." That it seems like nothing but a number booster?
Does he befriend every single person he meets in real life? That guy he sat next to on the bus. The library assistant. The coffee barista behind the Starbucks counter?
Scoble seems very apt at saying one thing, then another, then another again. It's cool to adapt and change, but he's starting to look like someone that does a lot of things for dramatic effect than anything else.
hani
· 4 months ago
ayre bi twitter w bi hal tool bi zabre. shi maskhara w madya3it wa'et 3al fade. meen elo jlede welha' w ye'nle'ih. ma3'oul!!!! ayre bi hal fekra shou feshle!!!
It's interesting on how many people are unfollowing huge numbers these days. I wrote a post the other day about 4 top internet marketers that have been unfollowing their followers because of all the Auto DM spam that they are getting.
FRED DESTIN
· 4 months ago
Ah yes, automated scripts to manage your follows. Let's get back to work people...
Whilst I like Robert quite a bit I unfollowed him a long time ago, he was cluttering the flow way too much with semi-incessant random tweets.
Guttu
· 4 months ago
Thats why I don't use auto-follow script. Best is to choose whom you follow. Disadvantage is that your followers count doesn't skyrocket quickly. But I am happy with what I got.
Neil
· 4 months ago
Zappos are following over 402k. That's probably necessary for them. Business/personal have different rules here.
itbay
· 4 months ago
fell victim to unfollow of Robert. I dont care though! I wont unfollow him - a valuable resource if ur new to tech. However, great move on his part - with that many followers, there is too much noise. Lower following counts may increase signals or valued added followings one has recognized. Where there is signal, there is wealth per #singularityu
Ur a product of ur followings, not followers. When someone has a high level of followings and followers combined and then follow u, dont expect an @reply. If they product value as a following, keep them. If not, examine other followings. A combination of shitty followings over time = time wasted and an increased desire to leave. Twitter. However, Twitter apps can manage ur followings more better like into groups with Mashdeck, for instance.
Wc_WhoTheLuckyStiff
· 4 months ago
I always follow sources I really want to
Indranil
· 4 months ago
Who the hell auto-follows everyone who follows them back!?!?!? O_o
IM & Social Media Connections
· 4 months ago
Many people do it. I have a client who does so that ppl can DM them - not my choice or advice, but it works for them (although I have to assume she'll eventually hit the point of Scoble one day). Guy Kawasaki does the same thing for the same reason - so that ppl can DM him but he doesn't try to manage his entire Twitter stream, he manages replies and DMs. I am anti autofollow, always have been but some ppl still have their reasons for trying it out.
Social Media SEO
· 4 months ago
For a business, quality is all that should matter. Just like in any online activity, the more you automate and remove yourself personally from conversation, the less of an impact (positive or negative) you have, and less effective your branding and marketing efforts become. I wrote an article about this today >> http://rdhtech.com/2009/08/06/on-twitter-qualit...
The whole point of Twitter - from a business branding and marketing perspective anyway - is to build relationships, and establish a reputation of trust around your name (business name, personal name, etc...).
Doing things like auto following and purchasing 10,000 followers, etc... builds a foundation built upon spam - not trust - and in fact, you are working directly against yourself and your efforts.
The web - and the people - are becoming tolerant with spam, and it's really because of spam that the element of "trust matters, brand matters, reputation matters" is now the single most important commodity anyone (business, person, group, etc...) can work to build and protect.
Allen MacCannell
· 4 months ago
Buzzom makes a mistake when it just says Flush and then expects you to approve that automatic sign on to the Twitter account. They need to say that you will get a chance to uncheck those whom you do not want to unfollow. Plus, they need to show that they can store the information so you can start to follow back some of the important people you unfollowed if they are important (doing that a lot is spamming however).
Buzzom seems to assume that you didn't painstakingly research who was important enough to follow for your business...but rather followed a bunch of strangers who can be unceremoniously flushed and forgotten. Most businesses don't operate that way with their contact data base.
For instance, what about people you followed in the past 4 days many of whom haven't had a chance to sign on again and/or hadn't gotten around to their weekly or monthly check on who is following them and decision on whether to follow back? We're supposed to "Flush" them? Buzzom seems to not care about the length of time since you followed them and whether the other party had even signed on since.
What they need to do is present a list of all those who have not followed within 14 days after they last signed on where they did follow someone else but not you and where they have not mentioned certain keywords that you would find especially interesting.
Does anyone make a Twitter management product that does that?
A businessperson cannot assume that someone who did not follow back was not interested in his or her company or products.
If the non-following person seems important, the best thing to do is RT something they said interesting.
That often prompts them to see you as engaged enough to follow.
You are only going to specifically do this if you care about a business relationship with that particular person.
rosshill
· 4 months ago
It's great to see more people starting to use twitter like this - the main advantage of twitter over previous networks is that it's asynchronous.
joe_carney
· 4 months ago
Have done the same myself recently. My Twitter stream is much better because of it. I used http://tweetpromote.com to unfollow everyone. I then used the same website to find the best ones to start following again.
Well done Scoble!
Paul Mackenzie Ross
· 4 months ago
It's good to see a high profile twitterer show that it's about quality and not quantity. However, you'd have thought that Scoble, with his level of expertise in the industry, would have thought about this much sooner...
Danny Brown
· 4 months ago
I think the fact that Scoble let it build so long, and did so automatically, shows exactly the "quality" approach he took....
chanux
· 4 months ago
Happy that I didn't follow the bugger :P
Paul OFlaherty
· 4 months ago
Why is this news? Scoble does an about turn on his previous BS about the benefits of following everyone back and joins the rest of reality in realizing that there are only so many people you can meaningfully communicate with!
Let's give him an award for being the last kid to get on the bus!
Jay [ER]
· 4 months ago
DM spam is truly annoying.... can you imagion what happens to your inbox with over 100k followers?! I think this was a good choice!
Steve Walker
· 4 months ago
Sorry. but IMHO DM spam is not annoying, because it's entirely avoidable. Don't autofollow people, but check 'em out before following.
Jay [ER]
· 4 months ago
I do that now :) this was more refering to my early twitter days. I don't follow anybody I don't know or who has not posted anything interesting...!
ShortyBrown
· 4 months ago
thats true.. i dont want that many followers..especially if i dont know ur ass
MKL
· 4 months ago
Couldn't agree more with the last sentence!
I keep my number as low as possible and only want friends or really interesting people. Maybe I'll have 100 followers in few years that way, but that's how I like it.
Tweet Wagon
· 4 months ago
I just made a free tool to do a twitter purge like Scoble. Click the Tweet Wagon link above!
Renee Crabtree
· 4 months ago
I auto follow people who follow my company account because, except for spammers, they obviously want to connect with me and I want to connect with them. If they are spammers or inappropriate content pushers, I unfollow. I automatcially unfollow anyone who has unfollowed me because again, I'm looking for a connection. I do that for both my personal and professional accounts. If someone doesn't want to connect with me then it's impossible for me to connect with them. It's not that difficult to understand.
Michael A. Stelzner
· 4 months ago
I think the reason he got all those unfollows is because services like TweetLater have an "unfollow anyone who unfollows you" option to help reduce spammers from following you and the immediately unfollowing you.
Francesco Paciocco
· 4 months ago
Interesting. Personally, I could never follow more than 250 people, I think the platform would lose its value at that level--I like my follow base to be small and relevant. Ashton, wouldn't you agree?
Francesco Paciocco
· 4 months ago
Interesting. Personally, I could never follow more than 250 people, I think the platform would lose its value at that level--I like my follow base to be small and relevant. Ashton, wouldn't you agree?
Francesco Paciocco
· 4 months ago
Interesting. Personally, I could never follow more than 250 people, I think the platform would lose its value at that level--I like my follow base to be small and relevant. Ashton, wouldn't you agree?
Francesco Paciocco
· 4 months ago
Interesting. Personally, I could never follow more than 250 people, I think the platform would lose its value at that level--I like my follow base to be small and relevant. Ashton, wouldn't you agree?
Warren
· 4 months ago
I don't know how he is able to handle the pressure of all twits, I bet he didn't sleep very much. I would say he did the right thing in the end. One can only procrastinate for so long.
Warren
· 4 months ago
I don't know how he is able to handle the pressure of all twits, I bet he didn't sleep very much. I would say he did the right thing in the end. One can only procrastinate for so long.
Warren
· 4 months ago
I don't know how he is able to handle the pressure of all twits, I bet he didn't sleep very much. I would say he did the right thing in the end. One can only procrastinate for so long.
Warren
· 4 months ago
I don't know how he is able to handle the pressure of all twits, I bet he didn't sleep very much. I would say he did the right thing in the end. One can only procrastinate for so long.
paramendra
· 4 months ago
Hmm.
Jeff Vreeland
· 4 months ago
As others have said I have no clue why this is news?
The great and powerful Scoble finally realized what the rest of the world has known about Social Media for quite some time - its not all about your numbers!!!
Really, why would one desire to follow that many people anyway? I follow about 150 or so people, all of which I know and even all the conversation generating from that group can be overwhelming at times.
Nate
· 4 months ago
Don't get me wrong, I use Twitter a ton, and I get a bunch of use out of it. But with Twitter and Facebook even with being selective about my "friends". The places still seem like big parties where everyone is yelling, and there's even a couple people that want to be the center of attention so they talk even louder. Of course there's a couple great tiny nuggets of golden prose. But like Kathy Sierra. She says a few great things, but ends up tweeting in like batches of a dozen messages because she has more to say then 140 chars. She should blog again :)
And for the people that I consider my friends who I'd jump in front of a car for, I stick to email. I've started creating these email groups, so we can easily blast each other much longer messages in a tool that we ALL have going, instead of just a few of us.
Stajo
· 4 months ago
You can filter people with programs like tweetdeck, there's no need to unfollow them. But this is the case for celebrities and you can do nothing about. I even think maybe it's worth to sell sort of massive unfollow script. Like that Scoble used.
Jennifer Johnson
· 4 months ago
Purely biz move which is probably a good one for him. DM is private and @replies are public. This will move more of his conversations with followers into the public domain.
Stu Carter
· 4 months ago
A mass unfollow should get his account suspended. My account was suspended for a week just for dropping about 1/2 of my 2,000 followers.
who
· 4 months ago
Robert who?
Danny Brown
· 4 months ago
Anyone that uses auto-follow systems is just asking to be spammed. It's like adding yourself to every email sign-up list around without checking what you're signing up for, then wondering why you're getting stuff that isn't relevant to you.
To quote Scoble himself, people who use auto-follows are basically just adding numbers for the sake of it and that's kinda "lame". No sympathy, Robert.
Danny Brown
· 4 months ago
Anyone that uses auto-follow systems is just asking to be spammed. It's like adding yourself to every email sign-up list around without checking what you're signing up for, then wondering why you're getting stuff that isn't relevant to you.
To quote Scoble himself, people who use auto-follows are basically just adding numbers for the sake of it and that's kinda "lame". No sympathy, Robert.
Robin
· 4 months ago
I'm so glad to hear Scoble buck the trend. I have several hundred folks I'm following and that's manageable, but I'm never subscribed to the auto-follow philosophy. I like to fill my stream with folks who I know personally (even if it's just online) or regularly have interesting items in their Tweets.
On the other hand, I hate it when I see celebrity accounts or others with massive followings and they are only following two people. I just don't get that! If all they are doing is watching for conversations about themselves, that's just too self-centered for me.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
· 4 months ago
As a writer, I'd be glad to be on one of those Mega Lists of tweeters. I don't want to be followed by thousands, or by bots, but just by those who are interested in writing, reading fiction, how to write fiction for text or screen, and in how writers can use the traditional Tarot and Astrology knowledge base to build Urban Fantasy worlds that seem more realistic.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
· 4 months ago
As a writer, I'd be glad to be on one of those Mega Lists of tweeters. I don't want to be followed by thousands, or by bots, but just by those who are interested in writing, reading fiction, how to write fiction for text or screen, and in how writers can use the traditional Tarot and Astrology knowledge base to build Urban Fantasy worlds that seem more realistic.
TweetFind
· 4 months ago
Hi Mashable
The script that Scooble used was actually a neat website that does it for you created by www.Shoemoney.com
As a writer, I'd be glad to be on one of those Mega Lists of tweeters. I don't want to be followed by thousands, or by bots, but just by those who are interested in writing, reading fiction, how to write fiction for text or screen, and in how writers can use the traditional Tarot and Astrology knowledge base to build Urban Fantasy worlds that seem more realistic.
Jeff
· 4 months ago
I agree with what someone else said about this guy being a total hypocrite, he auto-followed hundreds of thousands of people for what other purpose than to boost his numbers, and yet he calls people who follow people for the sole purpose of boosting their numbers lame -- interesting :/
Social Media
· 4 months ago
TWITTER PURGE: Top Twitter User Unfollows 106,000 People
Reality check. Unless you are a celebrity, a Twitter professional, or the Twitter gods have deemed you worthy of being a "Suggested User," which will quickly garner you over 100,000 followers http://bit.ly/Cu3K6 achieving a sizeable following on Twitter without proactively following others is an uncommon outcome.
Why would anyone want a sizeable following? A greater base for learning and sharing. And even with a sizeable following, you will establish a core that you communicate with frequently, while others may share passing exchanges that are nice too. The stream of Twitter is one of its greatest charms.
Scoble is not alone among the Twitterati in having mass followed thousands, then mass unfollowed thousands. One who comes to mind follows only a handful, a few hundred, yet has tens of thousands of followers. Pretty impressive. In fact, he often pontificates that the secret to amassing such a following is pure, quality tweeting. Hhmm....Being social and sharing quality content are certainly the keys to social media success. This particular Twitterati, however, seems to forget that he, too, had done a Scoble: followed thousands over time, then mass unfollowed thousands.
I don't begrudge anyone from setting their own parameters on who or how many they follow. There is, however, something to be said for candor.
HOW TO Follow Everyone Back on Twitter Without Ruining Your Experience http://bit.ly/XQccK
meatbagwtf
· 4 months ago
Scoble followed people who mentioned him, even in passing. He did not just follow those who followed him, as this post states. Anyway, one hopes that this heralds the beginning of the end for this type of "factory farm" approach to the social web.
Mark
· 4 months ago
oh, the drama.
jiznakefoo
· 4 months ago
I did the same thing (only on a much smaller scale) - lost a bunch of 'followers' but it's actually much nicer now. I only follow those I am interested in which makes my experience much better and those that do follow me seem to pay attention!
Carol Allison
· 4 months ago
I only follow people that I want to listen to. If I don't have the time or inclination to read their Tweets, then why would I follow them? For me it's about quality, not quantity - same goes for my followers; if they look dodgy I block them.
Well.... - - WOW! - I did find Scoble's Tweets interesting in the past.
With My Measly 15,000 Followers - I guess it would be useless to follow him back now.
Sounds like alot of Whales with 100,000+ followers (Especially those with a social media marketing axe to grind for $) seem to be auto unfollowing others just to get some great attention and show how much they value REAL followers HA!
Well - No Worries - I WILL NOT Be Auto-Unfollowing Any of My Followers. - - - For My Followers Are What Made Me. I listen to their news and love their tweets. BYE BYE Scoble - I look forward to never seeing your rediculous Hulk Avatar ANYMORE!!
Yes in the early days you as many others did, made the promise "Follow Me and I'll Follow You Back" - But now that you have the following, have just given up on many (LIKE ME) who just may have been Loyal Followers.
Body By Chocolates
· 4 months ago
Hmmmm... I guess I just look at it differently. I'm nearing 7000 followers now with my @BodyByChocolate account. If people want to put SPAM bots on me, so what? I believe that real people will still look at these accounts, and as such they help me to get my message out further and further. However, I must note that I've a couple of tricks up my sleeve to get rid of the vast majority of stupidity on Twitter. What are they? I'll never tell... ;)
berni
· 4 months ago
great. so scoble finally finds out what most people already know? even from the early days I was always selective of whom to follow. Best feature for twitter is automated un-follow after x amount of time of adding someone to follow
Guest
· 4 months ago
This was by FAR the silliest non-news story of the week. Not because he unfollowed people, but for actually thinking doing so was worth a blog post to begin with (oh wait...) even on Scobleizer. If he wanted to make a news story he ought to have blocked his 90K followers and started from scratch.
Rob Wilcox
· 4 months ago
Not only is following over 100K Twitter accounts overwhelming and unmanageable, but it is definitely an approach that goes against what my company believes Twitter should be all about--building relationships with those who have simliar things to talk about and content to share. I think people are (hopefully) starting to realize that with Twitter, it's definitely a matter of quality over quantity. Good for Scoble. I think most users eventually find their "sweet spot" in regards to the number of users they follow and I'll be interested to see where his winds up.
iluvblackwomen
· 4 months ago
Being one of the people Scobie unfollowed i had mixed feelings while following 100K seems inconceivable MCHammer does a great job of following 31,239 ppl and he is available through DM. For those of us on Twitter pre OPRAH and pre APLUSK. I think its a sad day when Twitter becomes one way communication
Michael Durwin
· 4 months ago
I couldn't believe that it took Scoble this long to get that quantity doesn't equal quality. I'm very surprised that so many so-called social media experts still automatically follow everyone back rather than being more selective. Following everyone back doesn't mean you're being "open to conversation", it means that you overwhelmed whatever conversation you were having with a bunch of noise. Duh! I read at least the last page of each person that follows me before I decide to follow them back. And, if I start getting alot of crap, like repeated news posts and retweets, self-promotional tweets, DMs just to push traffic to a link, false links, etc. I unfollow, even block them.
A Photo Assistant
· 4 months ago
Spamelizer?
trenoops
· 3 months ago
All I can say to the end statement "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." is - well, DUH!
trenoops
· 3 months ago
All I can say to the end statement "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." is - well, DUH!
hhotelconsult
· 3 months ago
I accidently auto-followed back, and would love to auto-unfollow a lot of people. How can I do it without getting in trouble?
igorthetroll
· 3 months ago
Are you sure Robert Scoble did not Unfollow these users as a PR Blitz to get people talking about him - creating a Buz meme? Robert is very well know for creating disturbances to get people talking about him. Like the time he downloaded all his friends email addresses from FaceBook ultimately getting Banned from FaceBook. Then he cried about it all over Social Media until FaceBook unbanned him!
All Comments
I have always believed it's about connecting with qualified followers rather than a numbers game. I only follow about 50 people. Not to be rude to everyone following me, but it's about getting value out of Twitter. Learning new things from people you respect in your industry and giving value back in return.
It's a shame it took so long for him to realise. Following 50 odd people is quite task in it's self!
I've got a lot of respect for Scoble for what he's done. It must have felt weird losing all those 'friends'.
Advice: DO NOT use auto follow scripts. Period.
I am just amazed how he is able to organize and manage all the real connections he has AND leaves room for 'random' people, even invites them to join the conversation - or just a beer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OxMcdwJCN8
Maybe you'll be handicapped by not receiving the "important" DMs from your friends, but better that than receive 1 important DM (which you can also receive by mail - by leaving your e-mail adress in the Bio field) and 100 spam DMs...
If Twitter offers something like that, I'll immediately turn it on :)
Sometimes I forget it and just leave it that way...
Oh and it still doesn't offer a solution for @mentions spam you receive, which I have in loads (which I weren't talking about in the first place, but I'm just saying)... :(
You will protect it with a URL and a Captcha, something like this service offers: http://tinymailto.com/
It's just a matter of slowly scaling up rather than going on following sprees.
Twhirl for historical record and ada for real-time tweets. Ada can display about 25 tweets per screen. I'll finish an article on this shortly.
Leonid
He should never have done it in the first place. That he is still doing it so many months later makes me question what he's learning about social media. But then when I read the coverage he's got from the simple act of unfollowing people, I realise exactly what he HAS learnt.
Ian Hendry
When doing business you want to listen = concentrate on those who are your customers or will be your customers. There are enough interesting bloggers to follow as well. If companies saw he specifically unfollowed them after following them, they would have assumed their technology was not part of what he wanted to talk about and unfollowed him as well...not out of spite but because they wouldn't expect him to ever write about stuff related to them and figured it would be best to concentrate on other bloggers.
Journalists can get away with such things as mass unfollows of people who follow them. Most businesses should be careful about doing what he did. If a business had done what he did, there would have been some tens of thousands of miffed potential customers or actual customers who wouldn't have publicly complained but just not bought the products. We block about 10 spammers per day but always when it would be very clear that the spammers themselves wouldn't blame us. ;-)
Worst of all is when a very important potential contact for your business follows you but you never noticed and their profile got buried and a month later they unfollow you because of the lack of reciprocity (again, they figured you didn't care about doing business with them so why follow you). That is where an auto-follow would have been good. That is when I follow them and tweet an apology for not following before.
I did set up tweetlater and it allows me FOR FREE to block incoming auto DM's IE the spammers. this has worked well.
Robert was brave 106K but I have done similar only inmy tinsy world it is more like 100. Doing that even caused me to hold breathe in case of suspension......
Does he befriend every single person he meets in real life? That guy he sat next to on the bus. The library assistant. The coffee barista behind the Starbucks counter?
Scoble seems very apt at saying one thing, then another, then another again. It's cool to adapt and change, but he's starting to look like someone that does a lot of things for dramatic effect than anything else.
Whilst I like Robert quite a bit I unfollowed him a long time ago, he was cluttering the flow way too much with semi-incessant random tweets.
Ur a product of ur followings, not followers. When someone has a high level of followings and followers combined and then follow u, dont expect an @reply. If they product value as a following, keep them. If not, examine other followings. A combination of shitty followings over time = time wasted and an increased desire to leave. Twitter. However, Twitter apps can manage ur followings more better like into groups with Mashdeck, for instance.
The whole point of Twitter - from a business branding and marketing perspective anyway - is to build relationships, and establish a reputation of trust around your name (business name, personal name, etc...).
Doing things like auto following and purchasing 10,000 followers, etc... builds a foundation built upon spam - not trust - and in fact, you are working directly against yourself and your efforts.
The web - and the people - are becoming tolerant with spam, and it's really because of spam that the element of "trust matters, brand matters, reputation matters" is now the single most important commodity anyone (business, person, group, etc...) can work to build and protect.
Buzzom seems to assume that you didn't painstakingly research who was important enough to follow for your business...but rather followed a bunch of strangers who can be unceremoniously flushed and forgotten. Most businesses don't operate that way with their contact data base.
For instance, what about people you followed in the past 4 days many of whom haven't had a chance to sign on again and/or hadn't gotten around to their weekly or monthly check on who is following them and decision on whether to follow back? We're supposed to "Flush" them? Buzzom seems to not care about the length of time since you followed them and whether the other party had even signed on since.
What they need to do is present a list of all those who have not followed within 14 days after they last signed on where they did follow someone else but not you and where they have not mentioned certain keywords that you would find especially interesting.
Does anyone make a Twitter management product that does that?
A businessperson cannot assume that someone who did not follow back was not interested in his or her company or products.
If the non-following person seems important, the best thing to do is RT something they said interesting.
That often prompts them to see you as engaged enough to follow.
You are only going to specifically do this if you care about a business relationship with that particular person.
Well done Scoble!
Let's give him an award for being the last kid to get on the bus!
I keep my number as low as possible and only want friends or really interesting people. Maybe I'll have 100 followers in few years that way, but that's how I like it.
The great and powerful Scoble finally realized what the rest of the world has known about Social Media for quite some time - its not all about your numbers!!!
And for the people that I consider my friends who I'd jump in front of a car for, I stick to email. I've started creating these email groups, so we can easily blast each other much longer messages in a tool that we ALL have going, instead of just a few of us.
To quote Scoble himself, people who use auto-follows are basically just adding numbers for the sake of it and that's kinda "lame". No sympathy, Robert.
To quote Scoble himself, people who use auto-follows are basically just adding numbers for the sake of it and that's kinda "lame". No sympathy, Robert.
On the other hand, I hate it when I see celebrity accounts or others with massive followings and they are only following two people. I just don't get that! If all they are doing is watching for conversations about themselves, that's just too self-centered for me.
The script that Scooble used was actually a neat website that does it for you created by www.Shoemoney.com
Its called www.TwitFresh.com.
I used it all the time to unfollow people.
Ruben
The script that Scoble used was actually a neat website that does it for you created by www.Shoemoney.com
Its called www.TwitFresh.com.
I used it all the time to unfollow people.
Ruben
Reality check. Unless you are a celebrity, a Twitter professional, or the Twitter gods have deemed you worthy of being a "Suggested User," which will quickly garner you over 100,000 followers http://bit.ly/Cu3K6 achieving a sizeable following on Twitter without proactively following others is an uncommon outcome.
Why would anyone want a sizeable following? A greater base for learning and sharing. And even with a sizeable following, you will establish a core that you communicate with frequently, while others may share passing exchanges that are nice too. The stream of Twitter is one of its greatest charms.
Scoble is not alone among the Twitterati in having mass followed thousands, then mass unfollowed thousands. One who comes to mind follows only a handful, a few hundred, yet has tens of thousands of followers. Pretty impressive. In fact, he often pontificates that the secret to amassing such a following is pure, quality tweeting. Hhmm....Being social and sharing quality content are certainly the keys to social media success. This particular Twitterati, however, seems to forget that he, too, had done a Scoble: followed thousands over time, then mass unfollowed thousands.
I don't begrudge anyone from setting their own parameters on who or how many they follow. There is, however, something to be said for candor.
HOW TO Follow Everyone Back on Twitter Without Ruining Your Experience http://bit.ly/XQccK
With My Measly 15,000 Followers - I guess it would be useless to follow him back now.
Sounds like alot of Whales with 100,000+ followers (Especially those with a social media marketing axe to grind for $) seem to be auto unfollowing others just to get some great attention and show how much they value REAL followers HA!
Well - No Worries - I WILL NOT Be Auto-Unfollowing Any of My Followers.
- - - For My Followers Are What Made Me. I listen to their news and love their tweets.
BYE BYE Scoble - I look forward to never seeing your rediculous Hulk Avatar ANYMORE!!
Yes in the early days you as many others did, made the promise "Follow Me and I'll Follow You Back" - But now that you have the following, have just given up on many (LIKE ME) who just may have been Loyal Followers.
I read at least the last page of each person that follows me before I decide to follow them back. And, if I start getting alot of crap, like repeated news posts and retweets, self-promotional tweets, DMs just to push traffic to a link, false links, etc. I unfollow, even block them.
Robert Scoble is a Social Media Whore!
http://www.igorthetroll.com/robert-scoble-socia...
Oh and Robert Scoble picks fights with me every few months. Just because he thinks he can! SAD