You Don't Have To Follow Everyone You Like In Real Life On Twitter

I want to let you all in on a little secret: You don't have to follow everyone you like in real life on Twitter, just because they have an account there!

Simple, right? Well, not really. A lot of people seem to have a disease whose symptom manifests itself in the form of a question, "Why don't you follow me on Twitter?"

Guess what. I can choose follow people I don't like in real life on Twitter. And I can choose to not follow people I enjoy speaking to in real life. Maybe you tweet so infrequently I forget you're there. Maybe you're boring. Maybe you don't engage. Maybe I don't even have to explain myself.

It doesn't mean I don't like you. You might just suck at Twitter. Let me give you one example. I unfollowed @MorningMika (http://twitter.com/morningmika) today. She co-hosts a terrific morning show on MSNBC, "Morning Joe" - I watch it all the time. But her tweets are boring. And she doesn't engage her 13,000+ followers, almost ever.

So, follow people who add value to you. And link up with other people on Facebook, LinkedIn, the comments section of their blogs, whatever and whenever adds the most value for the least cost.

If using Twitter were the same as real life, it wouldn't be very unique, interesting or useful, would it?

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Comments (4)

Oct 28, 2009
Tanya said...
This does get into that social media etiquette side of things, doesn't it? I mean, technically we should write a penned thank you note to the host after a dinner party too, but few rarely do.

Twitter (and blogging, and Facebook, etc) ARE real life. It's simply a new way to communicate and get information. Some I follow are more "passive" than others. Some more interactive. But that's living in community, after all.

Oct 28, 2009
Mark Drapeau said...
Tanya, you're right that there are real people involved, but people do not have to use the tools to interact with their networks in the same way. Twitter is unidirectional "following," whereas on Facebook people have to agree that they are "friends" and on LinkedIn people that don't know each other can be in "groups" together. If they were all the same, we'd only need one.
Oct 29, 2009
clarke thomas said...
Initially on I nearly followed everyone that seemed interesting. As time went on(& I grew over 200+ people), I review the tweeters 2way communication on their last 50+ tweets. If they've rarely or never reply, I don't follow them.(other than for news providers like @bbcnews) I follow a few non-SM life friends, but mostly as a courtesy for them doing the same.

I've taken to weeding out people I'm in contact via a different source more often, or who don't have content that very interesting. It doesn't matter to me who you are or how many followers you have, if you're providing good content & are not a 1 way data stream, then I'll follow.

Oct 31, 2009
Refractive Communications said...
Another approach is to follow them on Twitter, but use TweetDeck's Group columns as the main interface with only the sapient select appearing.

I still occasionally browse through my online Twitter stream to check for any unexpected gems and may advance that person to TweetDeck. In this way, I'm very engaged with a variety of insightful personalities and keeping a casual eye on those less so.

To your point, though, there are those that I no longer follow.

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About

Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist, government and private-sector consultant, and prolific writer on science, technology, innovation, government, and society. He is currently an adjunct faculty member in the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and until recently he held the position of Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., where he is still engaged part-time in a number of activities. Mark is currently a regular writer for Washington Life, Federal Computer Week, and numerous high-profile blogs. He is a co-founder of Government 2.0 Club and is the co-chair of the O'Reilly Media / TechWeb-produced Gov 2.0 Expo. Mark has a B.S. and Ph.D. in biology and has held postdoctoral fellowships from the NIH and AAAS. His research has considered many topics, from the origin of insect behavioral instincts to the honeybee genome to government operations during pandemic flu to the uses of biological metaphors in national security.