Recently, I have read a number of posts and tweets about how people are unfollowing their accumulated “follows” on Twitter in large numbers. I guess at least some of this action was generated by a proclaimed “national unfollow day” that was made up and broadcast out by someone with a little media influence. Of course we should not tell folks how to use Twitter, since it is a matter of personal preference as to how each user uses it and what each gets from it, so the best we can do is model what we see as successes in our own personal use. It is also important to note that many educators use Twitter as part of their Personal Learning Network to personalize their learning. That should require an initial screening or vetting of those to be followed. An educator’s Twitter account is not typical of those who use Twitter for general social media interaction.
These unfollow posts had me look at my personal Twitter numbers. I have been on Twitter for many years and now follow 3,766 tweeters, mostly educators. No, I do not read each and every tweet streaming into my timeline. After seeing these postings, I wondered whether I should be unfollowing large numbers from my own account. Before I was to take any action however, I needed to figure out why I followed these folks in the first place. What was my personal follow policy?
Twitter is based on People being connected to other people. If one is connected to a specific group of people with a specific interest, the tweets will be mostly geared to that interest. If educators follow educators, the abundance of subject matter coming across through tweets will be education based. When I consider whether or not to follow someone, not being an educator or education affiliated is a major factor.
Another factor is that by following someone it encourages him or her to follow you back. Having more educators follow you back increases your reach and that increases your influence, as long as you are also thoughtful and rational in your ideas. All of this in turn develops and increases the number of followers that you acquire over time. Yes, it is a numbers thing. However, even considering the arguments for follows that I have put forward here, always remember the most important thing is whom you follow and not who follows you. Using Twitter professionally as part of a Personal Learning Network is most successful if it uses the right numbers, educator specific numbers. The greater number of great educators you follow will increase the odds for best results in gaining valuable education sources.
My follow numbers have been built up over the years with education bloggers and authors who clearly offer education ideas. I also add people who intelligently participate in education Twitter chats. I follow many educators that I meet and have contact with at local, state, national, and global education conferences.
Of course the primary method I use in gathering people I follow is by following those who engage me in conversation on Twitter. I consider it an acknowledgement of respect for another educator who has put him or herself out there to engage and hopefully collaborate on subjects dealing with education. That is how I have built up my Follow list. The method for reducing that list with “unfollows” is to unfollow negative influences. I unfollow those who are in my estimation mindless naysayers, disrespectful of others, or social media bullies. Hence, my Follow list has grown to an almost unmanageable number.
Manageable is very important when it comes to Twitter. The simplicity of Twitter when dealing with large numbers can be overwhelming complex. There are apps for that!
Out of necessity I use an application other than Twitter to organize and manage the Tweets that do stream to my account. I use a free application called TweetDeck to organize my account. Hootsuite is another app that does similar things. Both allow me to create specific lists of Tweeters and follow them in their own column. Even though I maintain my main timeline that streams all of the Tweets from those who I follow. I have other columns that I follow more closely. I follow a column just dedicated to the #Edchat Hashtag as one example. Additionally, I have a list of about 140 people who I have most closely associated with over my years on Twitter. I call this “My Twitter Stalwart List”. Accessing anyone’s Twitter profile gives access to his or her public lists. Anyone can follow the people on those lists with a simple click. Here is my list that you can follow: https://twitter.com/tomwhitby/lists/my-twitter-stalwarts/members
It is also important to note that in order to receive Direct Messages from people they must be following each other. The person needs to be following you, as you need to be following back in order for the DM to happen.
I know of several prominent education thought leaders who limit their follows to less than 100. I don’t get it because I use Twitter differently than they do. That is the point. People use Twitter in the ways they need to use it. However, the more people understand how Twitter works and what the possibilities are, the better choices they can make in personalizing their own learning.
If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators.
Interesting question Tom,
I’m very discriminating when it comes to following folks on Twitter. I follow the like-minded, as well as, those who stretch and challenge my perspective. I typically “unfollow” inactive, disengaged tweeps.
Reeds law states the utility of a network scales exponentially with the size of the network. https://goo.gl/gpiFre So, size, in this case, number of followers, does contribute to the effectiveness of the PLN.
My conclusions after reading your post, it’s not just the size of the network that’s important, the utility, or cleanliness, of the network is also an important efficiency consideration. Did I just hear someone say “balance”?
Happy New Year!
Bob
Robert
Don’t be too quick to unfollow what you think are disengaged Tweeters. There are many tweeters who are cyclical in their participation. They are off for long periods of time before actively re-engaging.
Excellent post, Tom. Appreciate your leadership and ability to bring perspective to this issue.
Tom-
I often have the same thoughts. I think following someone is about engagement. If someone engages me in meaningful conversations, I want to follow them to see what they are up doing and thinking. If someone just blasts out their blog or advertisements, then I tend to not follow. I am weary of those that use twitter as a one way tool. I see twitter as a gateway to connections. It leads to reading blog posts and meeting face to face. Other see it as a one way advertising stream to push out their own thoughts.
I guess the real answer is you should follow those you want based upon how you use twitter. Do you want to connect or advertise?
Thanks for inspiring educators and making us think.
Todd (@blocht574)
Tom: Your “Stalwart List” looks a lot like my “Varsity List.” You can’t go far wrong with these folks and I’m very proud to be on your list. Unless you are a rock star like some of the folks on your list, it’s probably a good idea to follow people who follow you as long as their profile fits your interests. For me that’s pretty broad as my readers are educators or all stripes and parents. Since I started blogging in 2009, I’ve grown my followers gradually to 4400+ today. This may sound like bragging, but I think anyone could do this with some hard consistent work. What’s even more amazing is that my followers are in more than 70 countries. This shows how Twitter can allow you to connect globally. When I see people who aren’t celebrities with 10,000+ followers I have to wonder if they resorted to buying followers. It seems like every week someone follows me who is in the business of selling followers. Thanks for your list and keep up the good work. Best, Dr Doug
I’m not sure why it would be necessary to limit Twitter followers to 100 when we have Twitter lists. I love the connections I make even the ones with educators with whom I don’t always agree. I get being discriminating, but I also think variety is a good thing. Either way, to each his own.
Great read. Thanks, Tom.
Thanks for a great post Tom. Many questions that I’ve been pondering lately. I use Twitter to connect my class to the world and to model the positive use of technology to my students. The walls of my classroom have literally been blown away and the opportunities for authentic learning and connecting are endless.
I tag specific people (usually followers) who I think may find my STUDENTS work interesting and worthy of sharing. The tweets are usually engaged with many times and many interesting interactions follow. However, what should I do if a person never engages in the tweets that I send? Because they follow me, I’m assuming they’re interested in what I’m doing with my students in the classroom, so that’s why I tweet them. I also value their ideas and opinions and sometimes my students and I are simply hoping for a little feedback. I’m conscious of the frequency I tweet people but feel like perhaps I’m inconveniencing/pestering a few.
If someone tags me in a tweet, I’ll usually like the tweet as I know the person thinks the content will interest me. If I have time or am immediately engaged I’ll dig deeper into the tweet and perhaps retweet it or reply. If I’m not following the person who tagged me, I may check out their profile and follow back.
So, back to my question, to tweet or not to tweet the people who don’t engage in my tweets? Quite honestly, I wish they’d just unfollow me. I’d get the hint.
There is no accounting for how frequently individuals get on Twitter. Some people are frequent, some infrequent, and others are occasional users. Some people go through their timeline and answer previous tweets while others only respond to tweets while they are tweeting. It hurts nothing to follow people who do not respond and it holds open the possibility that someday they will respond. You would never know that if you unfollow. Whatever you are comfortable doing will be fine. As a rule you may not want to base your tweeting habits on the tweeting habits of others.
Next week I’m introducing another class of pre-service teachers to Twitter as the #1 place to grow a PLN and stay up to date with emerging issues in education and #edtech. I’ll be sharing this post with them as you’ve done a great job discussing the value of following quality educators, and your “Stalwart List” is a great collection of educators to follow at the beginning of a Twitter journey.
[…] several resources for me to use right on his blog. I obviously followed him and from his article, “To Follow, or Not to Follow-That is the Question.” I found what he calls “My Twitter Stalwart List.” Oh my goodness, this list is chalk full of […]