Ladies and gentlemen, he has seen the light!
Why I Unfollowed 45,000 People On Twitter
I want to have my “follow†count for something. In the future, when you look over the list of people I follow, you will see a group of value-adding individuals I endorse fully. They will be people I learn from, who make me smile, who inspire and challenge me to improve myself and give back to my community…
….I’m not suggesting that you unfollow everybody on Twitter. You might not want to unfollow any at all. But perhaps there are a few accounts that you’re only keeping around because they follow you back. Perhaps you’re afraid of losing followers if you speak your mind or state what’s on your heart. If there’s a chance that my action will inspire you to action of your own, whatever that action might be, I’ll be happy.
Everybody following everybody isn’t a networked community; it’s a madhouse. Enough of the madhouse. Let’s build something truly powerful and show the world all the beauty we can bring about with that power!
I stand by my assertion that I tweeted several months ago: “If you’re following more than 500 people on Twitter, you’re not following anyone at all.” I rarely follow people back who follow me, not out of some misplaced snobbery, but because someone following you is not a reason to follow him or her. And when I do choose to follow someone, I don’t get offended if that person doesn’t follow me back, because then I would be following that person for the wrong reasons.
I wrote a MediaShift article on this very subject a few months ago: Dealing with Friend Inflation on Twitter, Digg
The problem is that then you’re not in a true conversation with either set of people. Not following people who follow you seems a lot like blogging, but not allowing comments.
(I understand that there are realistic limits to how many people you can actually pay attention to, but that would be true whether you are following 500 or 5,000. And, of course, you’re under no obligation to follow anyone who doesn’t interest you or is clearly a spammer/networker.)