A Twitter user named "Distance Education" with the user name ‘onlinecourse’ has followed me 25 times. This suggests that they have also unfollowed me at least 24 times. This kind of behaviour I’ve heard called ‘follower-churn.’
I may have accidentally unfollowed someone, and then followed them back. I certainly haven’t been using this to gain followers. I follow people because they are interesting to me, and I manually follow each person I find, after reading through some of their tweets. It’s a bit onerous, but it does tend to ensure that I get a better selection of information from the people I’m following.
Distance Education is currently at 6565 followers. I have roughly the same number. Who do you think is interested in actual engagement, and who is just looking to pad their numbers? Hint: It’s called social media for a reason.
Alfonso Gonzalez says:
That same Distance Education has followed and unfollowed me a bunch of times too. I had wondered what was up. Thanks for shedding light on what is up with this twitterer. I think it’s time to block someone.
December 8, 2011 — 11:48 pm
Ed says:
Yes, me too. I kept seeing the same name come up and it took me a while to figure out that this is a tactic. Hint: If I didn’t want to follow the first time, chances are I still won’t on the seventh time.
I often don’t follow back new followers, simply because i find it difficult to manage and get the most of the Twitter experience, when there are too many to follow. But it’s ‘social’ media, as you said, David, so I will always follow back people who actually engage with me in some way.
December 8, 2011 — 11:55 pm