7 Reason Why I Won’t Follow You on Twitter

Twitter is a great tool when used properly. One of the biggest problems with Twitter is that everyone and their mother is trying to use it, and unfortunately I’m not going to follow everyone and their mother. Here are the seven reasons why I won’t follow you on Twitter:

1. You post nothing but links. I’m not interested in your dozens of links about a topic I’m already not interested in. Twitter isn’t a link mill. Do something else.
2. You use Twitter only to promote yourself and refuse to be a part of the community. I don’t follow people I know I’m not going to be able to chat with. I want conversations, sharing, and cooperation, not a one-sided borefest. There are exceptions, of course, for publishers.
3. You type in textspeak or are otherwise incapable of using even basic English spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I know you only get 140 characters, but if I need a chatspeak dictionary to decipher what you’re writing, then you’re a waste of my time.
4. You follow ten times more people than follow you. Unless I already know you, I’m likely not going to follow you if it’s clear to me that you’re on Twitter to spam.
5. You try to force me to buy your product. Chances are, I don’t want it, even if it is something up my alley. Tell me about it, and then shut up.
6. You’re just another of those self-proclaimed SEO masters or whatever other nonsense Web 2.0 titles are out there. Honestly, I don’t really care. I’m not on Twitter to find out how to make my blog the next Boing Boing or whatever. That, and, there are about ten trillion of you people out there, and none of you offer anything new. I can Google most everything you say.
7. You’re interested in subjects that I’m not interested in or you don’t have a bio. With rare exception, I am not going to follow you if your bio indicates that you are into something that, quite frankly, I could care less about. I don’t care about horse racing or bingo or how to sell dresses. My bio indicates what I am interested in, and unless I know you or somehow find you interesting, I’m not going to bother following you if your Twitter account will be dominated by subjects I find exceptionally boring or inappropriate.

What about you? What reasons do you have for not following people on Twitter? Let me know in the comments, and if you like this post, consider stumbling or digging it. Thanks!