The Rules Have Changed: Follow ALL Your Twitter Followers Today

by Ryan Rancatore

The debate over whether or not to return-follow all of one’s Twitter followers has been hotly contested for some time. Today, this debate should come to an end. Effective immediately, you should follow every single Twitter user that follows you.

First, some background. On Twitter, when another user follows you, he or she receives your tweets in their timeline. Something you did or said piqued curiosity, and this user wants to read more from you. Whether or not you follow them back is completely up to you.

Personally, I follow everyone back. Why? To me, it is a matter of respect. I liken a new Twitter follower to a cocktail party attendee who walks up to me while I am already speaking. Not following them back is the equivalent of turning to walk away as they begin to add their thoughts to the conversation. You wouldn’t be this rude in person, would you? Why should Twitter be any different?

Those who disagree with me have their reasons, and have voiced them publicly (most notably, Robert Scoble). A few of these reasons:

Some followers are spammers and bots.
Following too many users clutters the timeline.
It is impossible to keep up with x # of users.

I will admit, these were all valid points – until Twitter introduced lists.

Twitter lists are a way to individually segment and categorize users based on any criteria you wish. Lists can be public or private. If you want to create a private list of your top 25 Tweeters, the only person that will know about the list or its members is you. See where I am going with this?

With Twitter lists, you can devote your undivided attention to a small group of Twitter users – all while respectfully return following everyone who has followed you. Brilliant!

"Follow me and I'll follow back. Except you, Kobe..."

Essentially, now you can have your Twitter cake and eat it too. If you are Ashton Kutcher or Shaq, you can return follow all 3 million of your followers, while still listening to only a small, specific list of users. (Imagine the excitement some would feel upon receiving an email notifying them that Shaq was following them on Twitter – wow.)

When building your digital personal brand it is easy to lose focus of just how important the human element can be. Take a millisecond to click a button* and show each follower that you care what they have to say too – whether or not you actually give them your full attention is up to you. (*Or, use an auto-follower tool, like this one)

Do you still disagree with me? Or, if you’ve been following a select group, have I convinced you to change your tune and bulk-follow everyone right back? Let me know!

Update: Lots of counter opinions in the comments below, loving the healthy debate! One quick point I want to add:

Many of my favorite tweeters today I found because they originally followed me (and I followed back). While sometimes tedious, I sort through my list of “all friends” every day, looking for interesting tweets and the people who write them – hoping to learn from and connect with these folks. I likely never would have found them otherwise. There is nothing fake or insincere about this. Just the opposite, I want to open the lines of communication to anyone and everyone.

Update # 2: You have to appreciate when someone comes along and sums up your argument better than you can – in 140 characters or less! @TreyPennington follows all his followers, and chimed in by saying, “Just seemed like paying attention to folks paying attention to me was only honorable thing to do.” And now, Twitter lists allow you to do so, while still keeping most of your attention on the specific tweeters you know and love.

Crowd image by Matthew Field . Shaq image by Keith Allison.

Tagged as: Social Media, Twitter

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Yes, I still would have deleted everyone. Following back automatically is incredibly lame and shallow. It is NOT a matter of respect. I don't feel any better when someone autofollows me back. It totally messes up your account, too, and invites spammers into your DMs. I don't get spam anymore. I used to get tons of it. And now you've revealed yourself as two-faced anyways. I'd rather people just be honest with me and say “no, I'm not interested in what you write.” I really don't understand this belief that you are helping someone by following them back.
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http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Thanks Robert, appreciate the reply and counterpoints. As I see it, in no way am I suggesting being 2-faced. I'm just giving everyone their fair chance to speak with (to) me, just as I would in person.

Also, I can understand why (given your position) you might not see one important benefit to return following. Say I follow you, and you don't reciprocate…admittedly, no big deal. Say I follow a few hundred of your friends, and they don't reciprocate. Maybe a big deal – eventually I will hit a Twitter limit and have to unfollow those I'm interested in. This is why the “little guys” like myself on Twitter appreciate when the big boys (@guykawasaki, @chrisbrogan, @radioblogger) return follow – keeps our Twitter ecoystem running smoothly.

Not convinced? I'm 20 minutes from HMB and I pack a mean punch! (OK…minus the mean punch part)
http://www.coachtia.com/ Coach T.I.A

I disagree. If Ashton was following me back along with 2 million people I'd know 1) he would never see my tweets 2) he didn't do it cos he cares. There's nothing respectful about following people back so they keep following you, showing them you care when you really don't. Inauthentic and fake – two things that can be spotted a mile off.

If I'm building my brand on authenticity and courage, what would that say about me – that I'll do anything to get people to like me? #PersonalBrandingFail.

I follow people who engage with others, inspire me, make me laugh. Or people I learn from, respect and admire. Nothing's gonna change that. Nice try ;)

Tia @TiaSparkles
ingridtappin

I would'nt like people to follow me back just because it's nice?!, for the same reason I don't want somebody to go on a date with me because they feel bad for me that my best friend is my parrot called charles. I want them to want to date me because I'm an awsomely cool chick. You follow people because they are interesting to you and if they think your tweets are worthwhile reading because they crack them up or inspire them, thats a great compliment. And I like compliments. Honest ones. And if you dont have a good one to give. No worries. I'm good. I didnt follow you to be followed back. I still like your stuff. You dont have to like me or act like you do. (but you dont know what your missing. Got some great stuff on charlie ; )

But you dont know what your missing baby. Got some great tweets about charlie ; )
http://twitter.com/piplzchoice Gregory Yankelovich

It is not nice, it is pretending to be nice. Personally, I prefer honesty to fake nice.
http://twitter.com/CharlieGilkey Charlie Gilkey

I'm not sure that I agree with you on this one, Ryan.

First, as many have said, pretending to be nice is not actually being nice. Whether or not Chris or Guy do it is beside the point.

Second, everyone already had the opportunity to talk to you by @ing you. Twitter lists don't change that, and this is actually a closer to your cocktail party analogy. It seems that what you're recommending is more akin to looking at everyone that looks at you, which is different than talking to everyone who talks to you.

Third, some people use your followed-to-follower ratio as a social proof indicator. People who follow more people than follow them can thus get the short end of the stick, but an effect of people following your rule is that they're more likely to get a skewed ratio due to people who follow and unfollow while betting that they won't be unfollowed in kind.

While people wouldn't be aware of it, building your personal brand built on automated following doesn't increase the human element – it does just the opposite. I go through periods where I follow everyone back or don't follow anyone, based upon how much time I have available and how frustrated I am that auto-DMs clutter my Inbox. While this capriciousness may seem wildly inconsistent with what I said above, I'm not claiming that it's increasing the human element or showing respect for people.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

@Charlie, and others: What I'm missing is why following someone,
occasionally reading their tweets as they pop up, and responding to any
@mentions or DMs from them would be considered “pretending” to be nice.
Hell, I'm barely that nice to my “real-life” friends!

All I know is that if any person out there wants to hear what I have to
say, I'm at least going to have a listen to them for a while too. Maybe
they don't get my full attention day to day like some others, but I simply
can't ignore them entirely.
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http://www.firstfound-blog.co.uk/ Andy from FirstFound

No, I'll have to disagree too, unfortunately.

■Some followers are spammers and bots.
- So why follow them back? Why on Earth give these bottom-feeders the validation, just because you're not going to look at the rubbish they spout? Spammers and bots should always be blocked or reported.

■Following too many users clutters the timeline.
■It is impossible to keep up with x # of users.
So the solution is multiple timelines? This might be valid once apps catch up, but Twidroid on my phone doesn't support lists. In order to escape the clutter caused by too many followees, I'd be tied to twitter.com. Now most Twitter users tend to agree that the only thing .com is good for is signing up for the service. Everything else is done better elsewhere.
Relying on lists to micromanage an unwieldy feed would send us right back to a page we didn't want to use.

If the game's going to change, it's going to change with the Apps.
http://twitter.com/CharlieGilkey Charlie Gilkey

What I'm missing is why following someone, occasionally reading their tweets as they pop up, and responding to any @mentions or DMs from them would be considered “pretending” to be nice.

It's the mechanism at play here that's the most salient to me. Using something like Tweetlater to automatically follow people isn't being nice because you aren't actually doing anything – the computer program is. Being nice or respectful is a human activity.

It gets more grey to me if you're manually following people after making sure they're not spammers, scammers, or bots. And, to be honest, I should have been more fair last night, because you really might be “respecting the person” by attempting to reciprocate their action and giving each follower a chance. The more rigid your rule is, i.e. follow everyone except spammers, scammers, or bots, the less it seems like you're being authentically nice or respectful.

The other thing that got me was that, at the same time you're saying be respectful and give everyone a chance, it seems that you're saying that you really don't have to pay attention to them because the list feature means you can pay attention exclusively to the people on your list. So, on the one hand, you're saying you're respecting them by showing them that might have something to say, but, on the other hand, you're saying you're not really going to pay attention to them. This seems duplicitous.

One last thing: your comments are much more nuanced and clear than your post. I'm much more prone to agree with your tempered responses in the comments than I am with your posts. This leads me to think 1) you're recognizing that your post was too quick and too black and white, or 2) your original position was tempered but you wrote it so that it would attract attention (and traffic). I'm trusting that it's the first.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

@Andy – thanks for sharing your thoughts, appreciate it! Your point about
apps is a great one. I use Tweetdeck (for desktop and phone) and have kept
my own “lists” for some time. Viewing the lists as columns within my iPhone
is seamless…but, if someone does not have this capability on their
device, my suggestion for them would certainly change. I only suggest
following everyone when it is still easily possible to keep close tabs on
your few favorites.
kellylux

I would have to disagree as well. I do look at the profiles and timelines of any new followers…however, they are not all people who will add to my goals on Twitter. Before I follow someone I always ask myself if they will add value to my account. I'm assuming that when someone follows me they are doing it because they like what they see (and I thank them for that), and not because they want a return follow. I would prefer to see a clean feed of the information I am looking for than to follow someone just for the heck of it. I see my lists being of more value to my followers than to me. It is an easy way for people who are following me to see others I follow who are tweeting information they are interested in. I'd like to think that everyone I follow is on at least one of my lists — that wouldn't be the case if I followed everyone who follows me.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

@Kelly, thanks for your input, definitely respect your opinion! For me,
following new followers is a way to say thank you, and a way to show that I
care what they have to say too. If it turns out they tweet about issues
unimportant to me, thats OK – they aren't going to get my full attention
like some others, but I'm happy to have at least opened the line of
communication.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

@Charlie, First – I'm glad we've connected, even in our differing opinions.
You've added a lot to this thread, and I thank you for it. [You never know
when or where you might meet someone interesting...perhaps even a new
follower on Twitter? ;-) ]

Regarding your last comment…you might be right, maybe in effort to “cut
the fat” out of my post, I cut out vital information behind my motives.
Lesson learned. Check out update #2 in the post above, something that
should have been in there from the very start.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

@Charlie, First – I'm glad we've connected, even in our differing opinions.
You've added a lot to this thread, and I thank you for it. [You never know
when or where you might meet someone interesting...perhaps even a new
follower on Twitter? ;-) ]

Regarding your last comment…you might be right, maybe in effort to “cut
the fat” out of my post, I cut out vital information behind my motives.
Lesson learned. Check out update #2 in the post above, something that
should have been in there from the very start.
http://twitter.com/hannush Hannush Web and SEO

I'm not big on the all or nothing philosophy. If I'm a small business, who I follow could send the wrong message, in some cases I advise some customers not to follow anyone for political, reputation, or safety reasons (say a school Twitter account for instance).
http://twitter.com/ChefSteve Stephen Pazyra

I agree with you now. There was no way before to be able to read all that is happening. Now we can make lists, that is great!
http://twitter.com/henweb Henry Elliss ®

A very interesting view, and a somewhat compelling arguement – though I completely disagree! If you're just following them back as a “courtesy”, with no intention of actually reading what they have to say (as your lists comment is implying) then you're as good as lying to them. Virtually patting them on the head and saying “Yeah, of course we can be friends… no, I'm washing my hair tonight… no, I'm busy tomorrow too. And the rest of the year actually, come to think of it. But you can say I'm your friend if you like!”
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Chef Steve to my rescue! Thanks!
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Great point, Drew. I should have mentioned that in certain cases I will
actually block users from following me in the future (extreme cases of
racism, inappropriate images, use of slurs, etc). As for as a business not
following anyone…in my opinion, now you enter a Catch-22 where they can be
perceived as selfish and unwilling to engage.

I think we can agree…for marketers, “social” media is a lot trickier than
traditional media! Thanks for your input, Drew.
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denvan

Sorry. I did this until I reached the 2000 Follows barrier. And once I did, I needed to unfollow a bunch of people to make room for real quality voices. Then I started being more choosy, and realized, IT MAKES SENSE TO BE CHOOSY! Spammers, Mafia lords, airheads, trolls, and “online marketers” don't deserve my courtesy because they abuse it all the time. I'm a happier man.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Thanks for your input, Dennis. Checked out your site and your blog – good
stuff. In response to your comment…you are totally right, some folks that
I follow probably don't deserve my attention (and with lists/columns, they
don't get much of it). I have to deal with a bit of noise, but in the
process I make sure that I show my real followers the return respect I
think they deserve. To each their own!
http://5956n.typepad.com Ryan Skinner

Perhaps this should become part of people's profiles. If I automatically follow my followers, I can list myself as “auto-follower”…
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

@Ryan (great name!) Interesting. I've seen some folks actively
mention “follow me and I will follow back”. I'm realizing from the above
comments that some people probably view that statement negatively.
http://blog.monicaobrien.com Monica O'Brien

I strongly disagree. I used to follow everyone back. Then I went to Mexico for a week and didn't have internet access – when I came back, my Twitter account was hacked up and full of spam.

I unfollowed everyone, and refollowed my friends and contacts. Now the only way I find out about spam on Twitter is when everyone else is complaining about it. I never get it myself because I don't open myself up to it.

And I agree with Robert – it doesn't make me feel better when someone follows me back. You either want to follow me or not, and if you don't want to follow me but are for some asinine reason you won't be an effective follower anyway. You won't retweet my links or interact with me, so why do I want you as a follower?

People who need to be followed back just because they are following are using social media not for connecting, but for boosting their self-esteem.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Monica! I appreciate your opinion.
This is actually quite the interesting scenario. I see that prior to this
post I was already following you on Twitter, and you weren't/aren't
following me. Roughly, you have about 6000 followers and follow 500. (I
don't mean what is coming next to sound rude at all, please don't take it
that way)

My takeaway from these numbers is that for roughly every 11 people you
speak to, you are willing to listen to 1 of them.
As I mention in my post…nobody would act this way at a cocktail party or
business meeting, why is it OK online?

I realize I might be a lone wolf in my thinking here – wouldn't be the
first time! Maybe I'm overly sensitive…I just can't find it in me to tell
some people they aren't worthy of my attention, especially when tools exist
to ensure I can still keep track of those most important to me.
http://blog.monicaobrien.com Monica O'Brien

No worries about offending me – you didn't. Plenty of people criticize me for this.

The way I choose to follow people is whether they interact with me on Twitter. Period. It's not that I am only listening to 1 out 11 people, it's that the other 10 are following me but not reaching out – not talking to me, not retweeting any links I put out, etc. Who's to say they are really “listening”? If they were, wouldn't they eventually want to add to the conversation? Take their turn?

You're a great example. To say I'm not listening to you just because I'm not automatically following you back on Twitter is a lie. I came to your blog, I read your post, I commented on it. Now that you've connected with me on Twitter (rather than just following me quietly) I've followed you back (that was actually before I read your comment :), not because of it). Essentially, I initiated the conversation between us even though you followed me.

I also want to point out that people use Twitter in very different ways, and a lot of people use it to get information rather than to have conversation. Also, people have varied interests that may only overlap one way. I like marketing and have a blog about marketing. You like marketing and kittens, and have a blog about kittens. You may follow me for marketing news, but I'm not going to follow someone back who likes kittens and marketing but only posts about kittens.

I could probably give you 3 or 4 more reasons, but I'll just end it here. I've tried the following thing both ways and the way I'm doing it now works best for me.

And I encourage everyone else to try only following people they WANT to follow and see if they enjoy Twitter more :).
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Solid points, Monica. Of course I have counter arguments, but lets just
agree to this: the social web is a place to be unique, and everyone has
their own way of doing things. I might strongly believe in one thing, and
preach it here in my blog. But really, everyone needs to do what works for
them – and I can't argue with that!
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waylow

DON'T BE AFRAID TO UN-FOLLOW SOMEONE! The best point that has been made in the argument to follow everyone that follows you is that you may happen to find someone who dishes out great content, and who knows, maybe even become real live friends one day? That's fine, return the follows, but giving someone the boot because their content isn't up to par is something that should not only be accepted, but encouraged. I just dropped a tweeter after months of annoyance due to over-tweeting, and I feel like a 50 lb bag of bird seed has been lifted from by back. What's the reasoning in filtering this guy using lists to the point where I'm not going to see his tweets at all? Might as well just UN-follow and be selective in who I want to keep up with. It's true, you wouldn't brush someone off at a cocktail party who wanted to talk to you, but you also wouldn't call or email that person everyday after that if you didn't really like the person. To sad thing is for my fallen tweeter is that I liked the subject he posted on, but 10 tweets an hour is too much… but that's a whole different topic for another day.
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

This seems entirely reasonable. If you've given someone a fair shot and
they end up being a spammer, or close to it, no issue in cutting ties. I'm
not advocating you go out of your way to ruin your own Twitter experience,
that is for sure.

Your cocktail party point is a great one – after listening to some buffoon
at a party go on and on, it is only natural to eventually tune them out.
But hey, at least you gave them a shot, right? I think the Twitter practice
you've suggested here is a perfect middle-ground that mimics real life
interaction.
http://www.crystalyan.weebly.com/ Crystal (@crystalcy)

Interesting. I wouldn't always follow everyone that follows me though. What I do though is every time someone new follows me, I click through to view their bio, and last few tweets. If it seems we have quite a bit in common (if they tweet about charity, startups, social entrepreneurship, etc), then I follow them back. If not, I don't for now. There was someone I didn't follow back, but when that user sent an @ message to me with an insightful comment on something I tweeted, I sent an @ message back, and followed that person. I check every single one of my @ messages, even if I don't know the user, because if they're RTing my content, I want to listen.

I have a question though. I'm a Twitter user and I'm 17. Should I follow a different set of rules to be safe?
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Crystal,

Wow, you are certainly wise beyond your years! The foundation you have in
place across the web is extremely impressive, for a person of any age.
First, I think the process you have in places for screening followers is
perfectly fine. You might be right…being 17, (with parents, presumable
college applications, etc) auto-following everyone might unintentionally
throw in some unsavory characters that aren't appropriate (to follow, or to
be seen as following). Although, as you know, via @replies any Twitter user
can communicate with any other user – no way to avoid every spammer out
there.

I can tell that you are using social media to listen, learn, and engage –
that's the point that some folks miss, and the reason behind my original
post here. Keep up the good work. Best of luck, Crystal!

Ryan
http://www.crystalyan.weebly.com/ Crystal (@crystalcy)

Interesting. I wouldn't always follow everyone that follows me though. What I do though is every time someone new follows me, I click through to view their bio, and last few tweets. If it seems we have quite a bit in common (if they tweet about charity, startups, social entrepreneurship, etc), then I follow them back. If not, I don't for now. There was someone I didn't follow back, but when that user sent an @ message to me with an insightful comment on something I tweeted, I sent an @ message back, and followed that person. I check every single one of my @ messages, even if I don't know the user, because if they're RTing my content, I want to listen.

I have a question though. I'm a Twitter user and I'm 17. Should I follow a different set of rules to be safe?
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Crystal,

Wow, you are certainly wise beyond your years! The foundation you have in
place across the web is extremely impressive, for a person of any age.
First, I think the process you have in places for screening followers is
perfectly fine. You might be right…being 17, (with parents, presumable
college applications, etc) auto-following everyone might unintentionally
throw in some unsavory characters that aren't appropriate (to follow, or to
be seen as following). Although, as you know, via @replies any Twitter user
can communicate with any other user – no way to avoid every spammer out
there.

I can tell that you are using social media to listen, learn, and engage –
that's the point that some folks miss, and the reason behind my original
post here. Keep up the good work. Best of luck, Crystal!

Ryan
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http://twitter.com/egesther Esther Goh

Hmm. I prefer to keep my following list lean, so I'd tend towards adding new followers to a specific list rather than following them back. That's just how I like to operate though. Aren't lists great?
http://personalbranding101.com/ Ryan Rancatore

Yes, we can agree on that for sure…Twitter lists are GREAT! Don't know
where we'd be without them. Thanks for stopping by, nice to meet you
Esther.
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