I have roughly 4500+ Twiter followers. For some, that seems unobtainable, while to others, it appears I am still fairly new to Twitter.

If you have spent anytime on Twitter monitoring your Twitter count, you will notice that your number of followers fluctuates too… daily! — like the stock market ( up / down)!

So, I wanted to construct an article that would not only provide background into why another Twitter user stopped following you, but what behaviors you could deploy to maintain their interest.

The reasons I blog and am active on Twitter is because I want to reach a worldwide audience. I have ideas and opinions that I want to share… and that equations become impacted when I have more followers. Period.

Let’s take a look at the Top 10 Reasons Why People Have Stopped Following You On Twitter! You might be employing a strategy that is turning off more Twitter users… than engaging them!

The first thing you have to realize is that there are tools that Twitter users to evaluate you. When your Twitter activity falls under these categories, you will be unfollowed. Plain and Simple. Here are some examples of that as well as other things that “red flag” you.

Top 10 Reasons Why People Have Stopped Following You On Twitter!

1. You Didn’t Follow Back?! — Other Twitter users want followers just like you do. Often this factor alone will be the deciding factor. So, realize, unless you are a celebrity (where an endless supply of Twitter users gravitate to you in droves), you must reciprocate their follow with one of your own. And yes, regardless of how fantastic, stupendous, and awesome your tweets are… No FollowBack = No Love!

2. You Stopped Tweeting?! — Twitter users use 3rd party apps to help identify problem areas in the list of people they follow. Somewhere along the way, you just stopped tweeting. Maybe you took some time away from your blog or some tool you use to automate your tweets stopped working… whatever the reason you came up on the radar.

3. You Are An Annoying Spammer! — A day does not go buy online where some guy, somewhere has not developed “an amazing money-making program, guaranteed to … (fill in the blank)” and is circulating that idea all about, especially on Twitter. Automated tweet after automated tweet… even DMs… chock full of spam and spam links!

Not only were you unfollowed, you were definitely #BLOCKED!

4. You Live On Twitter! — Are you guilty of this? Can you clog your Twitter timeline like nobody else with tweets galore? Nobody likes a big mouth though. Pace yourself!

5. Fanatical Celebrity Pursuit — Everyone has someone in the entertainment industry they emulate or find intriguing. The difference is, they don’t spend their day RT-ing everything the celebrity tweets, or have one-way conversations with said celebrity. Worst yet, is when that celebrity is a trending topic and you continue the debauchery.

Bottom line: We’re creeped out by all the obsessiveness. Seek professional help.

6. Personal Attacks — We live in a culture that values only one opinion, our own. Why do we feel the need to be in complete control, blame everyone else, and be right in every situation?

Social media awakens us to the reality of opposing viewpoint. Instead of the harsh critiques, name calling, and intolerance, try understanding. Discussions always improve this way… as will your Twitter experience.

7. Politically Correctness — Many users want people they follow to conform to their line of thought. Conflicting interests would mean you would get unfollowed. It’s natural though. You would rather be a true representation of yourself than some billboard.

Unless, you are a billboard — meaning you are marketing a product or creating a brand on here. The reality is people on Twitter often have a preference to converse with real people, not someone with a networking agenda…. and trying to jam their product up my ass!

8. Offensive Topics, Offensive Language — No need to explain this one. Is there?

9. The DM’er — I use an auto DM service. But, I honestly use it to greet a new follower and encourage conversation…

But, not you. You don’t need to encourage the person to “Like” your Facebook Page, subscribe to your blog, connect with you on LinkedIn and subscribe to your YouTube channel all in the same DM… do you?

10. One Dimensional — Every tweet., Every day. The same topic. From wanting new Twitter followers, to talking sports, or religion, or politics, of hip hop… nothing ever changes…

Bonus: The Sharer — Do I really want you to tweet the link of every blog and news article you read after work?

Sure, sharing is great, but leave some of that mystery for yourself.

Overtime: Automate it! — Not sure where these automated posts, quotes, and affiliate links for products are coming from… but, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of value from it. See Reason #3 — The Annoying Spammer!

Of course, as a blogger I use automated strategies on Twitter to entice readers — and for the most part, it works! But, I do try to keep the automation to a minimum. There is still plenty of human interaction on my part that more than offsets that.

In Closing

The reality is that you will never be able to please everyone on Twitter… and most comical of all, the majority of Twitter accounts do not appear to be operated by real people anyway. They’re either spam or an old abandoned Twitter account for something that used to be marketed that failed. Many Twitter accounts are suspended.

People are fickle.

Well, there you have it: The Top 10 Reasons Why People Have Stopped Following You On Twitter!

In the comment section below, what are some of the reasons you have unfollowed other Twitter users? Did you make a snap judgment… or was the reason a valid one?

More Source Blogger Articles On Twitter: 

How To Add Your Twitter Tweets To Your Facebook Fan Page

JustUnfollow: Should You Unfollow Twitter Users That Do Not Follow You?!

As my time has come and passed with a slew of different social media & blogging communities over the past year, most notably, Digg, Blog Catalog, and SERP’d, I have come to realize, as a blogger, there is an extremely limited number of venues of where to submit your blog content with any real value. Think about it. How many sites can you send your blog updates to that do not hassle us with reciprocity, badges, or heavy-handed moderation…and yet, still gets real exposure…and generates pageviews? Outside of  Blog Engage, which has been hot/cold for me, I can’t think of too many that really work. Can you?

For consistent, long-term traffic generation, Twitter has become the clear choice for many bloggers due to its ease of integration and growing popularity.

A while back, I committed myself to having more of a presence on Twitter and NOTHING happened. It took about a year to go from 250 followers to 410! I had to have been doing something wrong!

I decided to make a change to my Twitter strategy and ultimately tripled my followers in 3 months, going from 410 to 1220 Twitter followers!  Question is: What did I suddenly start doing differently? And how was it free?

My Twitter Strategy: Before And After

Originally, my Twitter strategy was to hand-select a very small community of blogging gurus, internet marketing mavens, SEO specialists, social media aficionados…and follow this small crowd.

And while sure, this enhanced my “Twitter Experience” by limiting the amount of input I received from following thousands of Twitterers, it also severely limited the number of potentially new readers I could have for Source Blogger.

It really boiled down to one thing. Following back. I wasn’t doing it. Why? Perhaps I overvalued the transaction? Or maybe I over-analyzed what I should have been doing? Perhaps I thought I was going to be like the blogger, Steve Pavalina, and have 15k followers… and following 0 in return! (See Below)

Following 0?

Regardless, other bloggers had 4k – 5k followers…and I had 410. If I was going to do something about increasing my Twitter count, I better do it right away.

Could the right combination of third party Twitter apps and a few Twitter plugins do the trick? We’ll just have to see.

How I Tripled My Followers

— Twitter List Management

1) JustUnfollow — is a Twitter-based app that displays your Twitter contacts that do not follow you back followed by the option to unfollow them with one click.

I like you and everything…and don’t mind what you put out on Twitter, but the trade-off is you’re going to have to see my stuff too by following me. It’s just good business.

I use Just Unfollow on a daily basis. Those that have unfollowed me sincle the last time I checked… ZAP! You’re gone…unfollowed!

I recently wrote about Just Unfollow here: JustUnfollow: Should You Unfollow Twitter Users That Do Not Follow You?!

2) Who.Unfollowed.Me — Do you ever just want to see a recent list of who unfollowed you? You have a right to follow/unfollow whom you wish; that’s your prerogative. But, if you and I know each other, I may ask you why you decided to unfollow me?

3) UnTweeps — I’ve struggled with whether or not to use this. Let’s see the good and bad:

Good — Allows you to screen people you follow on Twitter based on their Twitter (in)activity. Honestly, I use 15 days as my screener — meaning if you have not tweeted once in over 2 weeks, you’re history, pal!

Bad — (I want you to pay close attention to this part.) First of all, why would you want to follow someone who has been recently inactive?

The first assumption is that they have abandoned their Twitter account (or blog) and have no interest in continuing its use. Is there a likelihood that someone would return to their Twitter account after a long period of inactivity? I’m sure it’s happened.

But here’s the real bad part: Are you breaking the chain? This is my theory on “the chain” and you can tell me if it’s crazy or not?

When someone follows me, Twitter sends a notification message of who it is. When you look below the person’s bio Twitter sends in the e-mail you’ll notice this:

From that detail,  there is a list of three users that I follow who also follow who just followed me. Below that,  is a list of three users the person who just followed me follows who also follows me.

My point is that there is some type of harmony in the Twittersphere that allows your Twitter name to recommended to others that too much “list management” may impact in a negative way. You know what I mean?

What I’m trying to say is that twitter appears to be one big “six degrees of separation”" with Twitter users that all seem to be relating to each other based on who they follow and who follows them. And breaking that scientific balance good could be counterproductive.

— Automation

4) SocialOomph — allows me to automate what I do on Twitter. This was the missing piece of the puzzle. Now I auto-follow which gets followed by the auto-DM. You may be using a different service for your use of Twitter?

It appears there is a lot ore I could do with this site and have actually yet to explore the possibilities. But the basics are covered.

— WordPress Plugins & Blog Navigation

5) Follow Me On Twitter — I am often surprised by the number of bloggers with no presence on Twitter. I have scrolled up and down over many blogs without seeing a way to follow them on Twitter.

If you are on Twitter, make it easy for blog readers to connect with you. This is how it’s done on Source Blogger: (See Below)

6) Tweet Button — OK, so you aren’t quite sure about making the leap to Twitter. But, you can still allow Twitter users to make your articles viral there! i’d definitely recommend an easy to locate and identify Twitter button before (and preferably after) each blog post.

7) Tweet Old Post — Is one of the best Twitter plugins I have ever come across. Where else can you promote your archived content…and do it all based on automation? You set the frequency of how often you want your old content to be sent to Twitter as well as any categories you want omitted and also the minimum/maximum age of the content. (Perhaps you don’t want content from 2007 retweeted?!) I love control!

In Closing

The worst thing about Twitter is not using it to its full capacity and not having a bonafide strategy. And yes, there is a direct relation to the number of followers and conversions from Twitter to your blog!

What other strategies have you used to increase your Twitter count?

While increasing Twitter followers is important to the marketing and promotion of your blog, it is not blogging. Obsessing over Twitter followers is not productive. A Follower count doesn’t say anything about how influential your followers are. Automate what you can, but you’re only ever going to be as good as the content you offer on Twitter.

What’s next?

Read even more about Twitter here on Source Blogger: Source Blogger/Twitter

Sometimes it can be a little confusing with all the 3rd. party Twitter app sites offering to help you maintain your Twitter lists or perform some other Twitter-based service. It appears a while back, Twitter had put restrictions on what these sites can and can’t do. Many blog articles written between 2007 – 2009 about sites that support Twitter users, list sites that have disappeared or fell completely out of favor with Twitter over time.

Like most online services, people will eventually find a way to exploit and abuse their Twitter lists.

You’d probably prefer to have more followers by e-mail or RSS, but as Bloggers, if we can walk away from your visit with a “follow”, there is a potential for someone to become more involved with our site’s community down the road.

But, what about the followers that do not follow you? Can we discuss this? I will share with you a site I discovered that is practical, easy to use, and allows you to unfollow the Twitter followers that do not follow you pretty efficiently…if this is your thing?!

Should I Unfollow Those Not Following Me?

Twitter users, as a blogger, I can tell you that the two easiest ways to get my attention is to leave a comment on my blog, or to begin following me on Twitter. I have been fortunate to have been exposed to many blogs/bloggers this way.

I’ll admit, my stance on unfollowing Twitter users who do not follow me has changed…particularly if we blog in the same niche/category. Why wouldn’t you follow a fellow blogger in the same industry?

Running an small business, offline, with two Fortune 500 companies as clients, can be a complete drain on time. So, when I log into Twitter and look over the Twitter timeline, I want to quickly identify dynamic content that directly pertains to my interests. Therefore, I’m pretty selective of who I follow. Aren’t you?

Yet, I see Bloggers that feel compelled to reciprocate a follow with everyone and anyone who follows them — even the spammers! It is solely up to you to make the call of returning the follow of someone outside your blog’s general category. But also note that it does impact the quality of your Twitter experience.

JustUnfollow

If you happen to be one of those people who feels offended by someone not following you back on Twitter, you can easily recognize and unfollow them using JustUnfollow. It is a Twitter-based app that displays your Twitter contacts that do not follow you back followed by the option to unfollow them with one click.

To use JustUnfollow, simply go to the site, login with Twitter, then authorize the app to access your account. You can now see those people who do not follow back. This app also displays the number of friends and followers of the users that it displays.

If you presently have a few hundred or even a few thousand followers and are committed to now unfollowing those not following you on Twitter, you will have to exercise great patience, since there is a daily limit of 50.

JustUnFollow. That’ll fix ‘em!

What Do You Think?

Have you seen these headlines? “Blogging Is Dead?” It stops you in your tracks, doesn’t it? First of all, who would write (or blog — irony here…anyone?) something like that…and why? As a blogger, do you feel you are exploring a medium that is in decline? Ask yourself; were you the type of individual who was holding dearly to their typewriter, VCR, and pager despite new technology advancements? As a blogger, I had always been under the impression the filed was still in a growth period?

About a year ago, I saw this heading from “Mr. Copy Blogger” himself, Brian Clark. Those that know his blog know it is based on copywriting techniques and many of his articles surround what he calls “magnetic headlines”. So…was it safe to assume that this was merely another dramatic, eye-catching affair or was there more to the story?

In this article, Source Blogger is going to take a deeper look into articles that have addressed this topic; some as recent as within a few weeks and some from years past.

Some say blogging is dead? Is it…really? What say you?

Twitter & Microblogging

In Copy Blogger’s article he sites this article as reason for concern over whether bloggers were cashing in their WordPress blogs for social media.This is not the only example I have seen that supports this argument. For me, at no point in time will Twitter EVER replace my blogging operations. I use Twitter primarily as a marketing and networking tool. Twitter could never do what a blog does…in its 140 characters or less format. Blogs are a collective environment of learning, inspiration, and vivid communication. Twitter is very temporary…and becoming less and less as viral as we thought it to be.

For some, Twitter is a much better approach to online engagement. Particularly for the legions of failed blogs and failed bloggers. It’s a natural migration that makes a lot of sense.

Independent vs. Established Media

Eventually the print media giants realized that a transition from print media to the virtual had to be made in order to remain viable. The recession was a wake-up call to the entire industry.

There appears to be some essence of arrogance or bravado that assumes that when Big Media makes the decision to fully vest itself into online operations, many of the larger, existing blogs (that haven’t been bought by AOL) will be crushed.

Recently, Big Media is reveling over Gawker.com revealing their financial performance. Gawker stated their network of sites range between 15 – 20 million dollars annum. Large media corporations like the New York Times and the Washington Post both make several times that amount…easily!

The 30 million dollar sale of Tech Crunch to AOL, ushered in the ideal that no other sites were worthy of acquisition…thus declaring the blogosphere dead was necessary.

Blogging Is Not Dead! Those That Declare This Could Not be More Wrong!

Recently, the eMarketer.com came out with past and future projections in three key areas that should serve to give a lot of hope to bloggers like you and I.

Statistics included projections for the number of bloggers, the number of blog readers, and the projected amount set aside for blog advertising. Let’s have a look.

U.S. Bloggers 2007 - 2012

U.S. Blog Readers 2007 - 2012

U.S. Blog Advertising 2007 -2012

Massive Domestic, U.S. Growth In The Number of Blogs, The Number of Blog Readers, and Blog Advertising

As a blogger, you can’t be anything other than encouraged. These statistics do not even take into account overseas volume specifically from the U.K., India, The Philippines, Malaysia, Canada, Europe, etc. As we know, some of the most total and consistent flow of blog traffic stems from existing blog readers.

Is Blogging Dead? Umm...s-sure it is!

As we slowly migrate out of the free-fall recession from the last few years, the projected revenues for blog advertising seem somewhat conservative in my opinion. Many bloggers’ sole source of income comes from advertising. Even I am hoping for higher CPMs and more Direct Advertising participation.

So, what do you think? Is blogging dead? Or is this a marketing campaign by Big Media to run off the existing competition that exists in this space?

As we’ve discussed many times on Source Blogger, the trend to intertwine social media into our blog activities is imperative for adding reader functionality and reaching new markets.

Because of this, more and more Bloggers are discovering clever tools to integrate Facebook and Twitter activity…together. As you know, manually updating your Facebook Fan Pages is not very convenient, is it?

Recently, I discovered an app(lication) called SmartTwitter that allows bloggers to update their Facebook Fan page’s wall from their Twitter account…every time they tweet! Yes!

However, be mindful it will not copy twitter updates that don’t belong on Facebook like retweets, @replies, or #hashtags.

Let’s get right into the short tutorial that is: “How To Add Your Tweets From Twitter To Your Facebook Fan Page”

How To Add The SmartTwitter App

• Go to Facebook Smart Twitter page, sign-in to your facebook account and click ‘Allow‘ button to add the app.

Choose your Facebook Page, click ‘Set Twitter Account‘ and add your twitter screen name.

• Give permission to the application by clicking “Allow” buttons when prompted.

You are…done!  Your Facebook Fans will now start seeing your Twitter tweets appearing on the Facebook Fan Page!

OK, Source Blogger, Now What?

• How To Customize Your Facebook Fan Page URL
• Are Facebook, Blog Catalog, and NetworkedBlogs Stealing Your Adsense Earnings?!
• How To Integrate Networked Blogs With Facebook And Your Blog
• How To Create A Facebook Page For Your Blog
• How To Expose Your Blog To The Explosive Market That Is Facebook

Article: How to Reinstate Your Suspended Twitter Account

Has your Twitter account been suspended? Not to worry, it’s not like being banned from Google AdSense.

Assuming you haven’t honestly been involved in devious activities like luring Twitter users to sites carrying malware or other malicious content? Have you?

If not, let’s get your account reinstated, shall we?