If you use a service that tells you when people follow or leave you, you may notice some followers leaving you right after they start following you. Twitter calls this
Follow Churn. I see it happening more and more these days.
Twitter’s explanation of this is as follows:
What is aggressive follow churn?
If you decide to follow someone and then change your mind later, that’s fine! You can just visit the person’s profile page and then un-follow them. Aggressive follow churn is when an account repeatedly follows and un-follows large numbers of users. This may be done to get lots of people to notice them, to circumvent a Twitter limit, or to change their follower-to-following ratio.
These behaviors negatively impact the Twitter experience for other users, are common spam tactics, and may lead to account suspension.
There are a couple ways to deal with this although there really isn’t an iron-clad solution… yet. One way is to block the person and the other is to report them to Twitter as spam. Also, follow Twitter’s @spam account.
Caution!
Not every user who follows you and leaves soon after wards is a bad guy (or girl!). For instance, if I follow someone and then they tweet about something vulgar or hateful, etc., I unfollow them as quick as you can say “goodbye!” That doesn’t make me guilty of follow churn. So use caution in using the “block” and “report” links!
Recommended Twitter Follower Management Tools
I use these sites although there are several others too. Yes, they are used by twitter spammers but also used by every day people like you and I!
What Twitter management tools work for you? Add your recommendations in the comments area below.
- TwUnfollow is a free service that notifies you about Twitter followers that are not following you any longer. (Follow them on Twitter).
- Refollow is not a free service anymore. It helps you discover, manage, and protect your Twitter social circle. (Follow them on Twitter).
Follow me on Twitter @Kokabella and mention following me from this post! Say hello!
