Twitter Snobs

by Dave Saunders on December 14, 2008

I watched  this video from @perrybelcher on the concept of the “Twitter Snob.” It’s a pretty simple thing. There are some people out there with tens of thousands of followers who themselves follow a small handful. This is like going to a cocktail party and leading people around like a momma duck and never turning back to see who’s there.

This is in contrast to someone like Guy Kawasaki who is followed by around 30,000 people and in turn follows about 30,000 people.

There’s another type of Twitter snobbery I’ve observed as well. This type of snobbery is displayed by people who consistently ignore, and do not respond to, @replies sent their way. These people typically only interact with a tiny group of people and ignore the rest. This is as snobbish, I think, as the type of Twitter snob described by @perryblacher.

Obviously, you can’t respond to every single message that comes your way on Twitter and some @replies simply don’t warrant a response. However, there are people out there who ignore it all. Using the cocktail part analogy, this would be like someone staring you down in silence after you said hello.

I occasionally get some messages through Twitter that make no sense to me. When those arrive I try to reach out and come up with the most polite version of “what?” I can think of. One time this exchange actually revealed that someone really liked my avatar and just had an odd way of expressing himself in his first message. By not being a Witter snob I opened myself up to a cool exchange with a new friend.

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  • I totally agree with this. I'm just trying to engage with people on twitter (cause i'm new) and the blatant ignorance makes me feel like a stalker! lol

    Ps: Add me! hahaha :)
  • I often wonder how guys like Guy Kawasaki can follow so many people. If you have tens of thousands of people that you follow, how do you keep up with them all? What if you miss important tweets because your stream moves by so fast? I worry that when I get that many followers how I will manage that.
  • @Allen I think the short answer is: you don't. I've collected thousands of business cards and I've given away thousands. I don't constantly look those people up to see what they're doing but they are a part of my network. I look in on Twitter a few times a day and I enjoy engaging anyone I happen to see in my watch list. I just take it as it comes. :)
  • I used to auto follow anyone who followed me... and I thought the goal of twitter was to get as many followers as possible... That is extremely easy, you just follow a few hundred a day and it becomes and exponential thing where you can have 1000's following you in a matter of days. I did that then realized I couldn't manage following all of those people that had similar interests. Also there are a bunch of people that follow me that are simply spammers who either twit.. see my blog update incessantly or tell me they are going to a meeting, drinking coffee, changing a diaper, etc...so I don't follow them and if someone auto ad's me and sends me a message with BUY THIS... SEE ME.. I'M COOL type of thing I stop following.

    I don't see it as being a snob... I do say "hi" at the dinner party, but if I have nothing in common with you or I find you trying to SELL me too hard... I wander off to find other's to socialize with at the party.
  • I'm not sure I completely follow you (no Twitter pun intended here).

    I'm the last one to come off as an expert on Twittequette, but "followers" follow because they like what someone says - but the automatic reciprocal follow shouldn't be assumed. This isn't a popularity contest (really - at least I think), it's a blogging platform. You follow back if you, in turn, find their content interesting.

    I think this is a pretty above board litmus test. Agree?
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