Twitter Etiquette

A common Twitter etiquette tip that I see that really grinds my gears is the “if someone follows you, follow them back” tip that’s regurgitated over and over. I have a problem with this. If I follow you on Twitter, it’s because I like you or the content you’ve been tweeting about. I don’t expect you to follow me back. I have no problem if you don’t. Likewise, you shouldn’t expect the same from me. If I followed everyone who followed me, Twitter would quickly become meaningless to me. I quite like the theory behind Dunbar’s number, that the maximum number of people you can maintain a relationship with is around 150~ (oversimplifying here).

If you want me to follow you on Twitter, the best way is probably to start engaging in conversation by @replying to me (I like this), or just generally be awesome in the first place.

The same thing also applies to the concept of retweeting (in a way). I don’t get it. It’s stupid. If I wanted to see your link, I’d follow the person who originally posted it. I’m much more in favour of copying the link and adding your own content (and attributing the original poster via the @ symbol).

Enough of that for now, then. Back to doing my quadratics.

Retweet this. I dare you.