Quit Begging, Start Engaging

It's a pandemic; Tweeple begging other Tweeple to follow back.

Whenever someone tweets me (usually for the first time) saying, 'follow me back!' or any variation thereof, I get the overwhelming urge to block them right then and there.

Maybe they don't know any better, so I just ignore it. Sometimes I'll direct them to my article about how following back is a choice, not an obligation.

But most of the time, I'll look at their Twitter stream and it's not just me that they're begging to follow them back.

If you're having to beg someone to follow you back, are you really worth following?

Instead of sending a pity tweet, send a tweet that will actually start a fulfilling conversation and, in turn, intrigue them enough to check you out and probably follow you back.

Even if it's just something small like, 'I really loved your tweet about'' or, 'I agree with you about your recent blog post on''

Get involved in THEIR lives before expecting anything in return. Show them that you're interested in more than just increasing their follower count. Show them that you're not a spammer. Show them that you're an interesting person to follow.

If all you do is beg people to follow you and complain when they don't, you're not someone I want on my Twitter stream. I may be in the minority here, but I actually like to engage with people on Twitter, so I look for people who have interesting things to say and share.

And let me clarify, even if you do share interesting things on Twitter, those interesting things may not pertain to ME, personally. For instance, I don't like sports, so I don't follow anyone who talks a lot about sports (unless they're good friends who I have other things in common with), because I won't engage with them as much as I will with someone who tweets a lot about dogs or social media.

See what I'm saying?

Find people you have common ground with and get to know them.

Some people will never follow you back, no matter how hard you try. At that point you gotta ask yourself: Am I following this person because I love their tweets or am I following them just to get a follow back?

If it's anything other than you're interested in their tweets, then just unfollow. It's not worth it. Your energy and time is best spent elsewhere.