Friday, November 12, 2010

Friendly Twitterly Observations

IN THE NEWS:Looking for drugs, NY man calls cops by mistake. Read more here.

Well, I would totally be stinking at NaNo if I was participating in it, but at least I've been very good with keeping my nose to the grindstone of my new wip. So, yay me. :)

As a result, my social networking time has gone down a bit this week. I know. Boo-hiss. Don't worry, it's not gone, just gone down. But this lack of time spent on various social networking sites has not inhibited me from observing what I think is strange behavior on Twitter.

Ah, hem. Allow me to explain.

First, let me announce to the cyber world that when it comes to Twitter, I'm almost a guaranteed auto re-follower. Yes, that's right, folks. If you are kind enough to follow me, I WILL follow you back.

However.
There are a few exceptions...

Exhibit A: If you follow me, and I go to your Twitter page and there is NO information about yourself and/or no blog or website listed. Well, I probably will NOT follow you back. Why should I? You know me but I don't know who you are. I don't like that element of surprise.

Exhibit B: If you follow me, and I go to your Twitter page and you only have ONE TWEET and it points to your blog. Then I go to your blog and I'm even more confused than if you posted nothing about yourself. Well, then I probably will NOT follow you back.

Exhibit C: If you follow me, and I go to your Twitter page and I see that you have over 1,000 followers but I also see that you've never written one tweet. NOT ONE. Well, then I'm probably NOT going to follow you back. Why? This is a social network. If you don't tweet then... what am I following exactly? And I'm also wondering how you got all those followers if you've never tweeted too.

Exhibit D: If you follow me, and I go to your Twitter page and your tweet postings confuse or scare me. Well, then I'm probably NOT going to follow you back. Sorry. Nothing personal against confusing-scary people. Must be me.

See? I'm really not that picky. :)

Although I can't help making one more "friendly" little Twitter observation that left me a little confused. I was reading a blog (not from my normal blog list so don't worry) and there was an author interview. "Great!" I thought. I love meeting new authors and hearing about their books. Well, at the end of the blog post, she said, "Come follow me on Twitter!"

Oh, how nice. Another social net worker. So I clicked on the link that brought me to her Twitter page. And you know what I saw? She had quite a few hundred followers (I can't remember exactly, but it was a good amount). But you know how many she was following back?

ZERO. Zip. Nada. Yep, she wasn't following one single person.

Well, that struck me as really odd. What does that say to you? Well, basically what that author was saying to me was "Come follow me because I have such important things to say but what other people have to say is not important."

Okay, maybe I'm putting words in her mouth. LOL But you get the gist. Why do people--especially authors-- insist on being antisocial on a social site? It boggles the mind.
MY mind, anyway. :)

That was all I picked up from Twitter this week. But I thought it was a lot considering I was hardly on it.

What about you? Notice any odd happenings on Twitter?
Are you an auto re-follower too? Or are you more picky? What makes you follow someone or NOT follow someone?

25 comments:

Matthew MacNish said...

I pretty much follow everyone who follows me, unless I click on their name and it turns out they are an advertising robot. Then I block them.

Unknown said...

That sounds pretty close to my rules on twitter follows.

Joanne said...

I haven't started tweeting, pretty much for the reasons you mention here. I just really have to focus my writing time elsewhere.

Wendy Paine Miller said...

Yeah, I get weirded out when someone has hundreds of followers and they follow two people. Hmmm.

I also think it's funny when someone FF's me (well now, that sounds worse than it is for non-Twitter people) and they're aren't even following me. ;)

~ Wendy

Rula Sinara said...

Wise observations! I'm not on twitter yet, but I'm adding your 'exhibits' to my 'do I, don't I?' scale.

Kristi said...

What good timing and awesomeness of a post!

As you probably know, I'm new to Twitter, and I've been struggling with these same issues. I'm generally a re-follower but have quickly picked up some of these EXACT thoughts and rules for following.

Linda Kage said...

I'm still trying to learn Twitter. Only just a few weeks ago I made my first comment back on someone else twitter report. It was a big step for me.

And besides, I feel like one of my brothers whenever they flip through one of my books. I keep thinking, "Where's all the pictures. Facebook can post pictures! And videos."

Jennifer Shirk said...

Wendy: YES! I find that very odd too, when someone #FF me and doesn't even follow me. LOL

Or mentions me and something totally unreleated to me. LOL

Joanna St. James said...

yeah I cant stand the advertising robots too, and the #ffers maybe they think they are following you. I got one of those today we tweet at each other a lot but she does not follow me, she is out of my league though so I am not mentioning it to her

Linda G. said...

You sound a lot like me. Another of my pet Twitter peeves: someone who follows you, waits until you follow back, and then quietly unfollows you, thinking you won't notice. That annoys the heck out of me.

Jules said...

Well I have to say up front Twitter scares me in general. I have a button but rarely go there. Every time I do that blue bird tweets telling me some weirdo is here. :D I'm happy with just blogging. Is that a bad thing?
Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow

Ryan said...

I haven't tweeted for ages, there are a lot of genuine people on there it's just that recently it seems that bots and spammers have become much more prevalent.
Good advice though.

Cindy R. Wilson said...

I don't do Twitter. Not yet--don't know if I ever will. But I've read a lot of posts about it lately so I guess I'll be informed if I ever decide to start :)

Shannon O'Donnell said...

I don't Twitter, but if I did my rules would be very much like yours. that's how I run the blog. :-)

Kelly Polark said...

Definitely valid reasons. And omg about the tweeter who follows no one!!
I haven't joined Twitter yet. I'm afraid it will be a time suck. But I am intrigued enough to look into it finally when I'm finished writing my current mg.

Susan R. Mills said...

As you know, I'm new to the whole Twitter thing, but I think my rules will be much the same as yours are.

Maria Zannini said...

I heard somewhere that following 135 people is about the limit most people can follow comfortably.

But don't some people use lists or some other device to only see the people they want?

A friend of mine recommended it but that seems to sort of defeat the purpose of Twitter.

I'm not a Twitter expert so maybe I'm just not doing it right.

I can keep up so far, unless someone on the list is really chatty/offensive--then I unfollow.

Tana said...

I always look at the follow to followers ratio. Who knew there was a mathematician inside me after all. ;)

Diane said...

Twitter is definitely a strange beast. I have a similar list of not following you back, also if there is nudity or strange self-help guru language.... :O)

Karen Lange said...

I got off Twitter because I couldn't figure out how to keep unsavory sites from following me. Didn't have time to look into the whys and hows. Someday, perhaps, I will return and come to see you there. :)
Happy weekend,
Karen

Susan Fields said...

I don't do Twitter yet, but I hope to take the time and figure it out someday. If I ever get there, I'll look you up. :)

Have a great weekend!

Nick said...

Sorry Jennifer, I'm a Twitterphobe.

Anonymous said...

LOL! Okay I don't have a facebook or twitter account, but I do have a blog. I like your post though :O)

Bossy Betty said...

Twitter? What's that? Is it a candy bar? Because I would so follow that.

Meghan Ward said...

Hey Jennifer, I agree with you. I don't follow people back if they're an obvious marketing machine or if they don't follow anyone back. But I do try to follow back most of the people who follow me. It's good Twitiquette!