The Ugly Reason I Stopped Following You #SocialMediaMarketing #AuthorPlatform #SocialMedia
When I started this ‘whole social media gotta have an author platform’ thing – which was way more work than I ever could’ve imagined – I was the follow back queen. Seriously, I had a crown and everything. So what if the crown was an orange plastic thing that came in our Queen’s Day kit my mother-in-law mailed to us in Germany? It was a crown damn it! But slowly and surely, I’ve lost my follow back queen status. At this point, I’m abdicating. It’s a good thing too because my crown sprung a leak.
Obviously, I’ve learned not to automatically follow just anyone. It didn’t take me long to figure out who was a spambot. The line “buy 10,000 twitter followers for $49” was my first clue. But then there are those tweeters who take advantage of these deals. It only took me slightly longer to learn to spot those. Anyone who has thousands more followers than follows, but isn’t a household name, does not get an automatic follow back from me anymore. I’ve also stopped following accounts that are in foreign languages I don’t speak. I mean, what’s the point?
But why would I stop following you? You who is just going along doing your thing, not using a tweet service, and religiously following back your followers. There are basically three reasons:
No activity. This is an easy one. If you don’t post any content on whatever social media outlet is the latest rage, I won’t be following you back. Why would I?
Automatic Twitter DMs. Direct messages are annoying. Trying to keep up with my social media accounts is hard enough without adding DMs. And then there’s the fact that 99% of DMs consist of unsolicited marketing. It’s awesome you have your first book published. I’m totally proud of you. But if you want me to market or review your book sending a DM is NOT the way to go about it. First of all, it’s lazy because those DMs are always the same – how unoriginal. It’s hard enough to get me to review your book when you actually send me an email. A DM is just not going to cut it. (PS You can easily find how to contact me – as well as my review policy – if you just look at my profile that links to my website.)
It’s all about you. How many times have you heard this one? Don’t only promote your own books or products? Still. It’s not getting through to a lot of writers. I recently joined Instagram and was frankly shocked to see how many writers were constantly posting pictures of their books. Apparently because it’s a different social medium, the old rules don’t apply? I get it. You’re excited about your book. You want to sell copies. But I won’t be buying one. I’m sure it’s a perfectly lovely book, but I just don’t care anymore. Not after seeing five posts a day with different pictures and teasers of your book. In fact, I’m unfollowing you. Click.
So, there you have it folks. The ugly reason I stopped following you. It’s not an original reason. Not by a long shot. It’s just the ugly truth.
Ditto all of the above. Great post.
Thanks and thanks for stopping by!
Great post! I learned the same things and now have a pretty similar ‘policy’. Things I’ll unfollow for:
– Auto DMs
– Constant book promotion
– DMing me requests to “crowdfund” your self-published novel (seriously, this happened)
– That awful TrueTwit thing that requires people to click a link and verify they’re not spammers before they can follow you. I haven’t seen it in a few months so perhaps it’s no longer operational, but who on earth thought it was a good idea? Making people jump through hoops to interact with you, wtf?!
I also learned pretty quickly that it’s incredibly easy to gain followers – all you have to do is follow the max number of people a day, most of whom will follow you back – but that it isn’t *desirable*. Quality over quantity. I value the people who engage with me and make me laugh 100x more than all my other followers put together.
I had the crowd fund thing as well. Still wondering what the money was for?!?!
This one was for giving the author a “salary” so she was free to write. :O
I’ve had stern words with myself about avoiding conflict under my author name (and in general…) but I responded with something like, “I’m sorry but I think I misunderstood. Are you really asking other authors to subsidise your writing?” and she replied, “Yeah, pretty much, I guess.”
I don’t even.
OMG! I’m causing old people on the bus to wonder about me with all the cursing coming out of me
Well said.😏
Great points! I don’t follow back companies or services that aren’t things I’m especially interested in, accounts with no bio or background picture, only a picture of a pretty girl (= not a real person), or accounts where the bio is unintelligible (what are their tweets going to be like?). I unfollow and block anyone who tweets anything that resembles pornographic images (sorry, certain erotica authors).
And those bios that are only hashtags? Half of which I don’t understand 🤔
Ugh, terrible!
I had to check that we were still following one another, as I’m often guilty of number three.
I was recently the recipient of a really slick DM. The person concerned had obviously gone to a lot of bother. There were about four paragraphs of text about his book, none of which I read, and it addressed me by name. I still unfollowed. I have even put in my bio that I unfollow on receipt of automated DMs. Some of them are so bad they’re funny and it’s tempting to keep following just to read whatever other rubbish they come up with.
I had a look but I don’t think you’re guilty of number 3 but then again maybe I wasn’t clear. It can totally be about you and your life all the time but not just trying to sell your own books constantly.
Right. Got it. I don’t do that and I don’t follow people whose profile is full of tweets about their book. There’s a bit of leeway if it’s launch week.
I agree. Launch week is too exciting not to share
Yes, yes, yes! DMs and those ridiculous Follow-trains are triggers for me! I blog about them every few weeks…then send them straight to offenders. *Evil is as evil does* 😏
I think folks have totally missed the point of Twitter, which means they don’t understand social networking…period.
An internet connection in the wrong hands is a dangerous weapon. 😉
OMG! I’m completely jealous of your evil ways right now.
I was driven to this by the constant barrage of DMs asking me listen to songs, follow OTHER social networks, buy books, and subscribe to Youtube channels! 😟😟😟😏