Follower Ratio Idiocy Will Kill Twitter
// July 26th, 2010 // No Comments » // Random Thoughts
Yeah, maybe I’m stating that title a little strongly. Maybe so. But if it doesn’t kill Twitter, it is certainly going to decrease it’s value to the social web world. This much I am sure of.
If you’ve been happily living unaware of what a “follower ratio” is, allow me to briefly explain. Many people in the twitterverse these days proclaim that if your ratio of people following you vs. people you are following is really far apart then this says some bad things about you. At the very least, it’s bad form, bad manners, and communicates that you do not care about listening to others and only care about others listening to you. You are a broadcaster, not a social media participant. You are an irresponsible netizen.
Hogwash.
This is precisely the reason why your list of “friends” on Facebook means nothing now. This is why Facebook had to create a “hide” feature in your feed so you could hide away friends that you don’t like without actually having the unfriend them. That’s silly.
One of the primary ways that you find other interesting people to follow on Twitter is through the Following list belonging to the people that you already follow. The assumption is, “If I am following you, you are probably following some people that I would find interesting.” So you check out their list and follow some of them. This is one of the primary ways that Twitter grows and spreads.
Now, if you put pressure on twitter users to follow those that follow them then you automatically begin decreasing the value and authenticity of their list of followed users. It ceases to mean anything to them. It ceases to mean anything to everyone. Soon, Twitter will have to invent ways to unfollow people without actually unfollowing them just like Facebook has done. Again, that’s silly.
Does anyone actually believe that a human being can keep up with more than 100 active people at a time on Twitter? Sure. Create your lists, Tweetdeck filters, and all that jazz. Go ahead. You still won’t follow that many people. You will have the list that you follow that filters out the people you don’t care about, while everyone else gets relegated to a column off-screen somewhere. You’ve in effect unfollowed people without actually unfollowing them and now your “following” list means about as much as your Facebook “friends” list does right now. Just a hair more than nothing.
Stop the madness. Only follow people you care about and don’t follow more people than you can realistically keep up with. Don’t be silly, and don’t succumb to the pressure to make social media socially shallow. It doesn’t have to be, but it will be if you start following people that you could care less about.
Recently, several people I know have told me that they are quitting twitter, or have just stopped using it because the people they follow say annoying things. This is a symptom of what I’m talking about here.
As for me, I will only follow people that interest me or that I know personally, offline. If that means you won’t follow me, then so be it. At least you will be able to look at who I am following and know that every person on that list has some significance to me. You will also know that if I follow you, I will actually read what you say and not drop you in a filtered column of purgatory off -screen. I currently follow a little over 200 people on twitter. Only 75 – 100 of those are active at all. Very few of the remaining ones tweet every day.
What are your thoughts? Am I right on this one?