Let's Not be Friends

It's no secret that Twitter is my favorite social media platform. But, even though I've been using it since 2008, I'm still trying to work out my own best practices. Part of that is studying what others do.

Quick aside for those of you who pay attention to the details. I set up my author account Mary jean Adams in 2010. I had a work account for two years before that. I can't claim to be an early adopter when it comes to most tech advancements. Case in point — I just started texting a couple of years ago after numerous pleas from friends and business associates. Now, looking back, I wonder how I ever got by without it! But, for whatever reason, I "got" Twitter the first time someone told me about it.

Back to Twitter best practices. Aside from the sporadic month-or-so hiatus to meet a book deadline (just finished one), I try to review my new followers every morning. Given my schedule, I don't always get through them all. Nor do I follow everyone. There are some followers that clearly are not interested in me or what I do — and vice versa.

I suppose all the fake accounts with the fake quotes by some famous person (notably deceased so they can't refute the attributions) could be interested in reading historical romance novels set during the American and French Revolutions, but somehow I doubt it. I don't follow them, and within a week or so, they unfollow me.

The ones that really surprise me are the accounts that do almost exactly what I do, e.g. other historical romance authors, who unfollow me within a couple of days if I don't get around to following them back.

To be clear, I'm not offended, just curious. All I can come up with is that they must have their follows and unfollows automated. Maybe even one of those services that advertises 50K followers for $5 - or whatever.

I'd love your thoughts. How long do you wait to unfollow someone? Do you ever turn the task of following and unfollowing over to an algorithm? What other strategies do you use?

Now back to catching up on my follows!

MJ