10 Ways to Guarantee I Stop Following You On Twitter
If I am currently following you on Twitter and you are looking for a way to get me to stop here are some suggestions:
1. Send me a DM (Direct Message) inviting me to join your ninja dojo or mafia family. This is so annoying and unprofessional that it will always cause me to unfollow you and then delete the dm.
2. Have a Twitter profile picture of a man or women with little to no clothing on. I assume people who feel the need to have mostly naked women on their profile are either promoting a business or product that is pornographic in nature or they think that dumb males will be more likely to follow them or click their links because of the image. Either way it makes me angry and guarantees an unfollow. Super unprofessional.
3. Send me a DM with a superficial and virtual gift, such as “I just sent you peace and happiness. You Should send me a gift back.” I hate these pointless and insincere games and I the only way I participate is by hitting the unfollow link on your profile.
4. Tweet 3-15 times within a 2 minute span. I follow more than 4000 people currently and so if I see more than one of your tweets on a single page of my timeline that means you have a serious problem. Either addiction to Twitter or you have a program tweeting constantly for you during the high traffic times of the day. Either way it just somehow bugs me. Perhaps because people like this very rarely have anything good to share.
5. Tweet the same link with a variation of text every 30 minutes. Some twitter profiles seem to have only one thing on their mind and that is to get you to visit their site. They change up the sales pitch to make it look different but the link is the same. They expect you to not notice because you don't spend a lot of time in front of Twitter or because you follow enough people to make their redundant tweets not-noticable. Either way I think they are spammers and have nothing of value to offer me.
6. Use foul language. I don't tolerate anyone who feels the need to use profane or foul language. The use of any generally accepted cuss words is a quick way to lose me as your followe. Its just not professional and while you may speak that way to your friends you shouldn't do it with strangers. Either way you want to think of it we will both be happier when I stop following you.
7. Twitter snobs don't get my follow. Some people feel so important about themselves that they expect people to follow them by the thousands when they are not willing to follow anyone back. Either they truly don't think that anyone else has something of value to offer or they are simple hypocrites. Either way I won't be one more follower that strokes their ego. There are of course some celebrity exceptions. People who have already been so successful that I don't expect them to follow one million people just because that many people are interested in what they are doing.
8. Send me a DM with a link that is going to help me get more followers or learn how to make money on Twitter. I will first check your profile to see if you have more followers than I do. If you don't (95% of the time) I will have to assume that your amazing program isn't working for you and I don't want to associate with spammers at all. If you have tons more followers than me I might even check out your link but I'll still probably unfollow you simply because of the marketing methods.
9. Tweet in a foreign language that I can't read. Its nothing personal but I just can't justify following someone I can't understand.
10. Setup multiple twitter accounts that all tweet the same thing. I don't know for sure why people do this but if I figure it out I am sure to unfollow all of your profiles.
Do I sound like an angry person? 
Do you disagree with my tactics or would you like to add your own reasons for unfollowing people?
Jacob S. Paulsen
Great tips; thanks!
If I understand you, I think #7 misses the point. I’m not a snob, but I’m not going to follow someone just because they follow me. I will assume that you have a reason for following me but, if I don’t know you or your twitter history doesn’t interest me, I’m not going to return the favor. That’s neither snobbery nor rudeness; I just don’t want to clutter my feed with something that doesn’t apply to me. Perhaps I mistook your point, though.
Iain, You are right that I didn’t explain well what I meant. I don’t think anyone should feel obligated fo follow anyone for any reason. I guess what I was trying to talk about was the ocassional person who joins twitter because they think they have something valuable to contribute but they don’t think anyone else has anything to contribute back. Its a sense of superiority and you usually find it in people who have less than 10 people who they follow. I think it goes against the general principles of social media. Hopefully that’s makes better sense.
Hi Jacob, what a great blog post, you’ve inspired me to write my own list too, I have similiar pet hates too on Twitter, but i’m just a newbie here.
Interesting post!
I made the large mistake about six months ago, of using on of the ‘get followers’ services. I thought it was a way to more easily connect with people who were interested in what I was. Instead I ended up with a slew of people that only posted about who to follow and who they followed in between other really vulgar and icky tweets. I learned my lesson! 🙂
One of my annoyances are the impersonal and sterile DMs that come automatically after I follow someone. I mean, at least write a good one!
Depending on where I am at in life, it can take me a month to follow someone back. I don’t auto-follow because I want to take a few minutes to make sure we will have a nourishing connection with each other.
So, when I get the chance to follow the people, I see them re-follow me. So, I know they followed me just to get me to follow me back in the first place. I don’t unfollow them, but I am less likely to connect with them further.
Our time is valuable, and we don’t have time to waste anywhere, including Twitter with people who are purely ‘takers’, so, you don’t sound angry at all, just very wise with your time! 😀
Have an excellent day!
😀