Comments on: To Friend or Not to Friend

By: Tawny Press

Tawny Press — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:25:16 +0000

Great post and comments. I can see a few, previous followers, in your delightful and humorous descriptions. I would add, in addition to the previous examples, I now block followers with no name, no bio or link. Those either are hiding something or completely don’t understand the concept of Twitter.

By: Home Office Warrior » Home Office Tips and Hints…Links

Home Office Warrior » Home Office Tips and Hints…Links — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:59:05 +0000

[...] CherylSmith999 — To Friend or Not to Friend [...]

By: Rick Wolff

Rick Wolff — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:34:54 +0000

I know I’m fairly innocuous to follow on Twitter, and try to actually keep earning the “followship”. The only place where I have trepidation is LinkedIn. For instance, I know you’re on it, but I hesitate to connect with you, because if we said we know each other, it would be untrue. I don’t want to be part of the problem of dilution of the meaning of a LinkedIn connection. Twitter, that’s a different story!

By: WTL

WTL — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:46:50 +0000

I’m a fairly active blocker. I have my main account @wtl, and a second account @WTL_iTunes, which for some reason the twitter spammers seem to love – so I block the spammers there from my @wtl account. Feel free to do the same. ;-)

I wonder if Twitter will do something about this soon – stopping of high-volume following, I mean – it certainly isn’t “natural” in the sense of how things normally work in the social Internet.

Good post.

By: Cheryl Smith

Cheryl Smith — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:37:05 +0000

Paul, you make a good point about unfollowing people, which I’ve not done yet. I’ll have to give that some thought. Anyone want to weigh in on that topic while we’re at it?

By: Cheryl Smith

Cheryl Smith — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:35:55 +0000

Mark,

Don’t make it hard, because we tend to put off the hard stuff or don’t do it at all. When I receive the email notification about the new follower, I check then if I have time. If not, I save the email in my inbox (wiping out inbox 0 in the short term) so I can go back to it later and check it. The link is there, so it’s easier than scrolling through pages of followers, though I do that periodically as well, in case I’ve missed some.

Make it easy and painful, and according to your schedule and processes, not others’.

By: Mark Goodyear

Mark Goodyear — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:26:08 +0000

Oh dear. One more thing to worry about. I figured there was no harm in letting them follow me. But now I’m not so sure.

Ack! Too much to do. Too little time! I need a social networking counselor just to sort through it all.

By: Louis Columbus

Louis Columbus — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:48:55 +0000

Cheryl, you have captured the spirit of what social networking really needs to be about, and that is enriching others with knowledge, insights, and experiences. Great post.

By: Ann Handley

Ann Handley — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:31:38 +0000

This is an issue near and dear to my heart, as I’ve written about it in the past. I’d add another “personality” to the list of folks to block “guilt-free”: The Ego Player. Similar to Leisure-Suit Larry, he’s a one-note band pushing his own posts, etc., but he also Never Follows Back!

By: Paul Monaco

Paul Monaco — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:01:19 +0000

Those are the easy ones! What about the nice people that are annoying? A class in which I know i’ve fell in with some. From the “blockee” perspective I make it easy by making the occational post about how “It’s okay to unfollow me.. I know I may be too social for some” – But what to do about those that don’t give you that easy out? I have no easy answer to that one.