Two years ago I wrote, Mass Unfollow: Trending on Twitter? The post discussed a lawyer and a couple of Twitter mini-celebrities at the time and the often hard edged positions people took in the debate of the ethics of such an action.
Now one of Twitter deity has done the same, unfollowing all of his 100,000+ followers, only now realizing that he can’t read the stream if it’s 131,000 people big! The comments on his blog post go on and on covering very little new ground.
In my prior post, I was simply curious about the trend and subsequent debate. But is it also disingenuous?
Let’s take a look:
Auto-follow back – there are clearly two camps here. Some follow back everyone, while others only strategically follow back those who add value to their stream. Folks even argue about the ethics of each. But really, be prepared for the consequences if you do.
Complaining about DM spam – this is so disingenuous, it’s downright embarrassing. When you follow everyone, it’s with the knowledge that many, if not most, will be bots and spammers, and that they now have access to your DM inbox. Don’t even go there!
Almost no one gets 100,000 followers organically – unless you’re Beiber, Oprah or Gaga. Most get to that number by following an equal number (not that there’s anything wrong with that), some by using services to basically purchase followers. Of course, after a mass-unfollow, the user is still left with thousands of now dormant Twitter bots, resulting in a nifty following-follower ratio.
Is it disingenuous to mass-unfollow and to attribute it to the newly discovered cause of DM spam? Or can we chalk this up to a correction in the evolution of the medium?
(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronbennetts/5516621911/)
