I totally agree. My preference would be:
1) Manually check each follower; follow-back any that seem to be 'real
people' (not bots, spam, etc). This is what I do with my personal account
(@zambonini). This does have some overhead though, so if you're running
multiple accounts (which many organisations might be doing, or will be doing
in the future), it can all add-up.
2) Auto follow-back (but of course with no auto-DM!)
3) Don't follow back (or very selectively).
Having said all of that (and having started off with a 'You should
definitely follow back!' speech), it's not THE most important thing in the
world...
As you say, it's more about how you tweet than who you follow (though who
you follow can influence the quality of information you can pass-on to your
followers).
If anyone wants a good example of how it should be done, the first person
that comes to mind is http://twitter.com/garyvee - (who doesn't auto follow
back!) though he does spend a lot more time on Twitter than many of us can
afford. His obsessive attention to replying to every message he gets is
fairly awe-inspiring. And if you read his book, it pays off: he can now get
more business from a single tweet than from a billboard or online
advertising campaign.
Dan
On 04/12/2009 11:53, "Birchall, Danny" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I understand what you mean, but (without getting too metaphysical) once
> you've set up autofollows, isn't the authenticity of such reciprocation
> undermined? (as, generally, all social networks' usefulness declines
> over time...) There might not be that much practical difference between
> a bored intern pushing buttons and a bot operating through an API, but
> there's something a little cold about those 'thanks for the follow' DMs
> that go out that makes my heart sink when I get them....
>
> <GBP0.02>Personally, I think that the most successful organisational
> twitter presences are ones that an individual operates more or less as a
> personal account (see @bigideas, @AnimateProjects, @saltpublishing --
> necessarily, this only really woks for small organisations that can't
> afford the corporate overhead of thinking about reputation
> management</GBP0.02>
>
>
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Dan Zambonini
Box UK
Internet Development and Consultancy
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