Do you get "unfriended" on Facebook? Does your FB Author page lose "Likes"? Does your blog or Twitter account lose followers?
Does it make you insecure and wondering, "What the heck happened?"
I joined a big "Add Friend" post in a Horror group on FB recently. Every day I got notices of new people from the group accepting my requests or got asked to confirm their friend requests. It was cool, and I got about 100 new followers. Yay! But one evening I happened to be online and saw a "1" pop up on my "Friend" icon. In the time it took me to click it and hit the "Confirm" button, I got the message: "This Friend Request has been Withdrawn."
Really??
Hmm.
Well, one wasn't such a big deal...
But on Twitter, I'm new and I've been scrounging for follows. One day, I was really surprised to see my follows drop by 15 while I was adding people! It could have been just the sneaky type who follow and then as soon as you follow-back, they un-follow. But it wasn't.
I found that Twitter doesn't automatically email you with every person who follows you, so you can follow-back. They alert you to about three quarters of them.
If you hit your "Followers" list, I bet you'll find out what I did. That there are a bunch of people following you that you didn't even know about! And if you don't follow them back after a week or so, of course some of them will un-follow.
So check your "Followers" list!
And don't worry about losing a few friends or follows here and there. There are a lot more fish in the sea!
This is a post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. It exists so the community of blogging writers can share and support each other, blog-hopping to cheerlead and commiserate. To find out more, visit:
Insecure Writer's Support Group. Plus, check out the IWSG Website for lots of helpful info and links.
49 comments:
And many of them will unfollow you even if you do follow them.
Give me a shout on twitter.
I've had several people follow me on Twitter out of the blue, only to see them gone not too long after. It's a little annoying, but not a big deal. Losing blog followers is what makes me a little neurotic.
God, Entertainment, & Annoying Things
Don;t worry about Twitter, LEXA.... they are notorious for unfollowing. No matter how many people I follow, I am always losing followers and my follows so many more than my followers.
Social networking is important, but forging friendships with true people takes time and it's the most successful way to network. People WILL KNOW who you are and read your tweets...
All of this unfriending and friending feels like high school, but I admit it bothers me too!
I strangely do get a little sting when I see people unfollow, lol… it's like, what did I do!?!?!? Haha! But usually those are only people who are looking at numbers, thinking numbers matter. It's friendship that counts. :)
The twits who follow me on Twitter, and then promptly unfollow as soon as I've followed them back, drive me bananas! It's SO obnoxious! Anyone who does that to me gets blocked... with relish! ;D
I don't use Facebook so can't comment on that but definitely on Twitter folks come and go. I usually find the ones quick to unfollow are companies or people with mega numbers of followers anyway. I'm just a small fish in a big sea! Those really interested in YOU will stick around.
I don't pay too much attention to that as I'm too busy to get on Twitter or Facebook much. But it's probably like blogging where people do come and go. I have heard of people unfollowing on Twitter if you don't follow back.
One reason i don't get on Facebook or Twitter (besides the amount of time i have, or don't have) is that i don't want to be obsessing over followers.
Yeah, at times the following thing can feel like such a head game. I say - Be you, offer up helpful shares, and add good content on your own. Control what you can and say 'Bah' to the rest!
I am not on Facebook. I like to tweet, but very rarely I get in the mood to. I don't use Twitter as a means of communication. I blog when I have to say something special or have a social issue at hand. I appreciate people who read my posts. I try to read as much as I can, but sometimes work and household get in my way. That's all.
Twitter people unfollow others all the time to increase their own numbers. Periodically, I go through the list of people I'm following and drop them if they have already dropped me.
I even got into a discussion with one person I know who unapologetically admits she does this: "It's the only way I increase my followers," she said. "Twitter limits me unless I do them in batches."
I'm not sure I understood her explanation, but it was pointless to try and get her to see that nobody wanted to follow her if she wasn't following back. She's not a celebrity. She's just a Twitter cheat.
As for FB page likes, don't worry about that. FB only shows your page to 1% of the people who like it anyway. FB sucks. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to have a FB page is because some readers use it as an way to contact you.
My son just said something the other day about someone "defriending" him on FB, so he was a little ticked about it. But really? I've defriended people who just put up constant "likes" that I don't need to read.
I get a LOT of Twitter unfollows, but I also get followed by a lot of spam accounts, so I'm probably not missing much!
I'm not on Twitter or FB yet, so I haven't had to deal with it, but I remember losing a follower on blogger and wondering why.
Then again, I often wonder what the point of followers on Blogger really is. I'm "following" over a hundred blogs, but I don't really have time to visit that many and there's no way I expect participation from all my 130+ followers. So what does it all mean, jellybean?
I do notice when I lose likes on my Facebook page and it always makes me sad. I got a few unlikes the day one of my releases came out. That hurt a lot. I try to tell myself that they don't matter, that the people who unlike my page aren't my target audience, but it still stings.
I'm not on Twitter but I will be joining eventually, so thanks for the tip!
I don't do the follow back thing. I follow people I'm interested in and hope those who follow me actually want to hear what I have to say, not get an empty follow out of me.
I loathe facebook. Twitter is more my style! I don't bother following big names with 20k+ following, unless I've made a personal connection with them. My follower list stays pretty even, but I'm not overly aggressive when seeking Twitter followers. My group is pretty faithful:) I'll look you up!
I still don't do FB or Twitter well, although now that I hae a smart phone, I'm doing better at keeping up. Still, I'm pretty much a newbie.
This sort of thing bugs me too! (When I first saw the title, for some reason I thought you were going to talk about the horror movie, Unfriended, haha).
I try not to care or look at my follower number, but sometimes it's impossible not to.
I don't keep tag of numbers. Mine seem to have levelled out and I'm cool with that. If suddenly I lost a few hundred I'd worry I might be sharing the wrong posts or too many of the right ones and annoyed people. Other than that, I go into my account now and then and 'cull' stagnant followers, but other than that - life's too short! :)
shahwharton.com
I try to check my Twitter followers every single day.
And use WhoUnfollowedMe.com to keep up with those who unfollow after you follow them. I'm usually cautious with people following me who have way more followers than they are following.
It's a bit rarer to be unfriended or unliked on Facebook, but it seems like Twitter is rampant on the unfollow. Too many just want to increase their numbers. Every so often I'll use a site to get rid of some I'm following but they're not.
I didn't know about WhoUnFollowedMe.com. I notice the ones on my blog, but not so much on the other network lists. It's a game. You can't take it too seriously. I know it's not personally if someone drops me. At least that's the way I'm looking at it.
I don't even pay attention to who follows me or not. I follow people I'm interested in, and if they follow me back, that's fine. If they don't, I don't care either…. I'm always surprised when I post something that gets me a whole lot of new followers because it's never anything very interesting.
Yeah, when you popped up letting me know you were following me, I was surprised! I'm going to have to check out my list now.
I have a Facebook page but I don't tend to it very much. It is frustrating when people unfollow my blog. it makes you wonder if you've offended someone.
I'm not on twitter so that's OK and I don't really care if someone unfollows me on facebook. Most of them i never see anyway. My niece did unfriend me though because I did dare to write on her page about The Oscars and I think i was too old for her group so 'Click" and away I went-hahaaaa
I haven't been paying attention to who unfriends me. Their choice, I guess. I've been unfriending people who post on my FB page things I'm not comfortable with. Can't please everybody.
Twitter is the worst about people unfollowing. I try not to pay much attention, but I do notice my numbers. They're constantly changing.
The only time I got concerned about my twitter followers was when I approached the 2000 number of people I follow, which is the point Twitter won't let you follow anyone else if your follower/followee ratio doesn't fit some specified amount. So I had a unfollow party where I dumped a lot of people who had unfollowed me along the way. Then I was allowed to start following interesting people again. :-)
This stuff used to really get to me, but I'm getting better at letting it go.
A "friend" unsubscribed from my newsletter the other day--that one hurt. She was the first person to unsubscribe.
Hm... Right on the money. I lost two followers on my blog last month, and while it didn't put me in a funk, it had me saying 'hm', until I remembered that I'd had to gear back because I was overextended and not giving quality. *sigh* What's your twitter handle? I'll follow you! And you don't even have to follow me back!
This is one of the things that bugs me about social media. All the following to be followed back stuff, which is really disingenuous. I'm not a fan of doing that, so if I see people trying to bait me, I just let them unfollow. I didn't ask them to follow me, after all.
But, it's good that you figured out what was going on!
Yes, I've lost a lot of Face Book friends, but it doesn't bother me. Most of them never commented anyway. Twitter too. If they want to follow, great. If not, I won't miss them, cause my true friends are there. :)
I'm not on twitter. And honestly, I wouldn't notice if someone "unfriended" me on FB. I enjoy having lots of friends, but the people I really really care about are family and day-life friends. Does FB notify you if someone unfriends? Where would I even look to know?
I'm in a few FB groups but I don't follow every post or accept every invite. I'm just so anti social. But I know people who constantly check their friends/followers and really stress over them. Social media is so stressful!!
Social media is definitely a numbers game, huh? Lots of work for the digits.
I enjoyed the blog as much as the responses! I have to say, if you follow me, that's your decision. Same thing if you unfollow.
I think some days it's bothersome and other days it isn't.
This whole social media thing is a minefield. I'm trying to be relaxed abouto the whole business and not follow the numbers too closely. Folk come and go.
I don't pay attention to Facebook friends and on Twitter there's lots of weird stuff going on but the one that hurts is when I lose a blog follower. Maybe since blogging was my first social media venture and I'd watch that follower count so closely. Kinda silly, isn't it, how invested we get in the follower count!
I have this huge defense mechanism in place that protects my psyche. I assume if people unfriend/unfollow me, they probably had bad taste. :)
I don't utilize twitter well enough. I didn't even know going to twitter and following followers was a thing.
I have sent friend requests and then withdrawn- it's usually my own insecurity. I'll suddenly think- they won't know/like me/want to be bothered by me.
I don't mind losing followers, as my FB promotion is almost ZERO. However, I have been unfriended by people I thought were friends. One was a buddy since 6th grade and we had reconnected online a few years back.
That one was a mystery to me.
I'm fine with people unfollowing me from Twitter if I'd never followed them back. But yeah, it's a different feeling if the unfollower is someone you'd been friendly with.
I heard FB was deleting likes off of pages if the people who liked it haven't been active. I know one day I lost 30 something likes in an hour! It was crazy. I have had the same thing happen on twitter, so I try to check who follows me from time to time and stop following the people who follow you and then unfollow right after. I don't mind so much with twitter and fb, as I know it happens- but it sometimes makes you wonder why (especially if it is someone you know or that you connect with already online in other places). Good luck!
~Jess
So true... the follower number fluctuate on all the sites... I don't pay much attention to it anymore to be honest:)
I try to check my followers list daily, because there are some who use apps that drop unfollowers. I dislike the tactic of following to unfollow. During the early days of Facebook I was annoyed when someone unfriended me, but I don't care anymore. Some people delete their accounts or become more private--which is understandable since I might just be an online friend to them.
Facebook doesn't email me when I gain or lose a follower, I think that would drive me mad. I also don't worry so much about lost followers, but I also never noticed 15 at once.
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