5 Reasons I Won’t Follow Someone on Twitter

I’ve started to get a lot pickier when deciding who to follow on Twitter. I’m tired of my feed being littered with nonsensical updates that I have no interest in. That’s why I’ve come up with a quick list of points that determine whether or not I’ll follow someone.

Here are 5 reasons I choose not to follow certain people on Twitter.

They’re clearly a spammer—Twitter is plagued by spammers, and I’m not just talking about the obvious bot accounts. There are plenty of real humans out there using Twitter in a way that I feel is very spammy. It’s usually pretty obvious to spot the spammers. They follow tens of thousands of people, and their Tweets are typically promotional in nature.

They don’t share anything of value—I could probably sum up the whole list with this one statement. Quality is really what it all boils down to. If the person doesn’t Tweet anything that I find interesting, useful, or entertaining, why should I follow them?

They clog my stream—We’ve all come across this person on Twitter—the incessant Tweeter. If I’m following a few hundred people, there’s no reason that one person should be clogging up 95% of my Twitter feed. Posting dozens of times each hour is just too much for me to handle, so I won’t follow someone who does this.

We don’t share the same interests—Social networking is about connecting and interacting with people that share your common interests. In my case, I follow people on Twitter who are interested in a range of topics: marketing, SEO, sports, entertainment, local news, etc. If someone is Tweeting about a topic I have no interest in (say, gardening), there’s no reason for me to follow them.

They refuse to engage in conversation—If someone isn’t going to be “social” on a social networking platform, there’s no reason for me to follow them. I connect with people on Twitter because I genuinely care about their opinions, and I expect to be able to interact with them in some form or fashion. I understand that you can’t expect to have a conversation with a major celebrity on Twitter, but they have to at least put forth an effort to interact rather than just Tweet a bunch of one-way, promotional messages.