I came across a forum today as I was researching ways to manage my network in Twitter.  Clearly there are many schools of thought on how Twitter is to be used and I was fascinated by all of the comments.  This particular thread caught my attention and wanted to share.  In fact, I wrote a play about it (my background is in Drama after all!).

This play is based on real comments but I did change the names to protect the innocent (even though this is a public forum).

Bob vs Susan- To Un-Follow or Not to Un-Follow in Twitter?

Characters:

Bob- A business person who is looking for new tools and ways to get the most out of Twitter

Susan- A Twitter “purist”.  Does not appreciate people who use Twitter for marketing

Rhonda- A savvy social media strategist and marketer; Very experienced with Twitter

Jack- A forum reader who occassionally comments

(Original Post) Bob: I read about a Twitter application that shows all the Twitterers that I AM following, plus it shows all those  people I’m following who ARE NOT following me back. It also has a “Mass Stop Following” button to stop following the people that I check off, who are not following me in return. Does anyone know which Twitter related website has this application?

Susan: You’d really stop following people that don’t follow you?

Rhonda: I sure as heck would. If they don’t want to hear from me, it’s not much of a social networking relationship there, is it?  I do it the manual way- if you look at your list of everyone that you are following…if you can not send them a direct message…they are not following you. Click REMOVE and that will un-follow them. Yes, it’s tedious, I spend hours on it every week. There is also friendorfollow.com or lessfriends.com.

Jack: Kinda high schoolish isn’t it? If you don’t follow me I won’t follow you. I follow whoever I find interesting and offers value.

Rhonda: Twitter limits the number of people that you can follow. I am on Twitter to a large extent to market my services, although I do it by building relationships on there and giving away free info relevant to my field. But every person who does NOT follow me is taking up space that could be occupied by someone who might become a business contact or customer or even just a friend. If they never hear a thing I say, there isn’t much point in my following them. That’s just me. Everyone has their preferred style.

Susan: I agree completely with Jack, what that tells me is that people like this only join Twitter to market to people. Nothing unethical about it I suppose, but I too follow people I find interesting and can learn from.

Bob: I don’t think you get the reasoning behind my Original Post. Twitter to me is definitely about making friends.  But it is also a way of marketing to those friends. That’s how my business operates. This is a fabulous list building tool.  The people who do not follow me back will not receive my tweets.
So, how can we have a back and forth friendship  if they are not seeing my tweets? Does this make my thoughts any clearer?

Susan: I understand exactly what you are saying, I just don’t happen to agree with it. I don’t view Twitter as a marketing tool in that sense, I use Twitter to actually make partnerships and trade ideas. I follow people like Chris Brogan (he actually follows a lot of people), Scoble (doesn’t follow me), guykawasaki, garyvee, etc.  I guess you can use Twitter any way you like, but I just think that you are using it the wrong way. Twitter isn’t about building a list…at least in my opinion.

Rhonda: Twitter is like my online chamber of commerce. I go there, I hang out, I shoot the breeze, I pass along some useful information about how to write press releases and how to get them in the newspaper, I ask people what they’re up to, I answer questions…and some people hire me to write for them as a result.

In my view, people are abusing Twitter when they send out nothing but links to Clickbank products or even nothing but links to their own latest articles or posts – but then, I just unfollow those people, and so do most Twitter users. I don’t see anything wrong with using Twitter for networking as long as it’s done in a sociable, helpful way.

Bob: Look, I am using Twitter for three main reasons.

1. To find folks who are interesting to follow.
2. To find folks who will be interested in following me.
3. To integrate 1 and 2 above into my internet marketing agenda. (Without Spamming of course)

There are so many people in our niche who are giving away  fantastic ideas, resources, and tidbits of info, I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Susan: Well here is my question then, if you follow one of these superstars and they don’t follow back, are you going to drop them?

Silence….and curtain drops….applause.

Who do you think is right in this dramatic piece?

Web Marketing Therapy Related Links:

• Your Twitter Questions Answered: What Are Follow Fridays & Hashtags?
• Twitter Search – Streamline your Twitxperience
• Friday Web Marketing Funny – eVisibility Robots “No Follow” Tees
• Explaining Twitter to Your Parents