What’s Your “Follow Back” Policy?
Like you, I get any number of “Follow” or LinkedIn requests every week. I didn’t think about having a “Follow Back” policy until reading a blog post from Ted Coiné.
I have to admit that I was proud of my early adopter status on LinkedIn (72,222 – December 16, 2003; site launched May 5, 2003). Did you get the email for being in the first 100k? But I was a late adopter (by geek standards) on Twitter (16,180,194 – September 2008; site launched July 2006), relative to my normal geeky peers.
I’ll have to admit that my policy for the two apps tends to be different and not particularly well thought out.
For LinkedIn, I’ve accepted very few invitations to connect to people whom I’ve never met or talked to before. I’m sure I’ve suffered from a momentary lapse in judgment and accepted a few. I’ve gone back through my list and rejected anyone that calls themselves a “visionary” or “visionary entrepreneur“.
For Twitter, I hadn’t thought about any specific “follow back” policy. In the early days, I followed everyone that followed me (unless they had a picture of an egg or they were clearly spam)… of course, I knew most of them. Over time, I haven’t consistently followed back, but I agree with Ted, I’m not more important than my followers.
Indeed, I’m grateful every single time a person compliments me by following me. It’s their way of saying, “Hi Ted! I want to get to know you better.” For me to snub their kindness would be ungracious –
So here’s my new policy – I follow everyone back on Twitter. (Just about)
I have to go follow some people now… Only 7.11B people in the world…
5 Comments
-
Ted Coine (@tedcoine)
Oh! And anyone who calls himself “Visionary” is just asking for a wedgie! Good man.
-
DaveParkerSEA
LOL… yes they do! I had a LinkedIn request last week from a young man that looked to be 20 and was a visionary entrepreneur. Yikes!
-
Donna Eaton (@DonnaEaton)
I would follow back everyone who follows me. But Twitter won’t let me. :
-
Ted Coine (@tedcoine)
Dave, you’re awesome! Thanks so much for the h/t. I love this post – short and cheeky, just like my daughters. (The 4 mega-celebrities, though… it’s demoralizing to know that some folks have 40M followers on Twitter (even before they reach puberty in one case).
I didn’t join LI till 2005. You’re way geeky-cooler than me, amigo.
Best,
Ted