Fun and Games in Start-Up Land: Growth-Hacking & Silly Rules

Follow-back anyone who follows you

Again, why, and, for the same reason. Anyone can follow anyone. Yes, there are people who follow you that you should follow back. There are many you shouldn't. 

The fact that they follow you is not enough!

Following back just because they follow you doesn't even enter into the equation as far as I'm concerned. Thanks go to Robert Bacal, for convincing me of that.

Unfollow after a reasonable time

Okay, but what does "reasonable" mean? Is a day reasonable? Two? A week maybe?

Some pundits say to unfollow after a day. They claim that if a user is not active daily, they don't "deserve" to be followed.

What about weekends?

I have a very busy, very active Twitter account. I support my followers with retweets and mentions. 

I don't go on every day, seven days a week. Do you want to unfollow me because of that? 

Go ahead. It's your loss. 

I'd say every 3 days is plenty. Call it twice a week if you like.

The problem with this method

In a nutshell, it doesn't do what we need it to do. 

We don't just want to build a bigger following. We want to build a bigger, more targeted, more active, more engaged following.

I have about 15,000 followers. They tweet, retweet and mention about as much as many 30,000 person followings.

Following/Unfollowing blindly just doesn't do that. The "normal" method's big advantage (only advantage?) is that it's easier to program. 

Ease of programming should not be the deciding factor for any method of doing anything.

A better way and why we need several influential accounts

I promised to explain why I need more than one influential account. I need more because I don't just follow their followers. In fact, I don't do anything at all with their followers, at least not directly.

I monitor the influential accounts.

• Who do they mention?
• Who do they retweet?
• Who mentions them?
• Who retweets them?

Those are the active, engaged accounts I want. The more often an account appears, the more I want them in my following.

It would also be great to add others to the mix. I don't know if it will be possible to do this en masse. It would require a ton of processing power.

It would also be great to monitor individual users' accounts.

Who retweeted you? Who mentioned you?

Those are people who engaged with you. Are you following them? 

If not, you probably should.

We could just do all that stuff automatically, right?

Not so fast. 

Yes, we could do it all automatically if we were only talking about the tech/coding side of the coin. 

There's another side.

Twitter's side.

Twitter takes a hissy fit when someone automates the follow/unfollow process. There are limits built right into the API (application program interface). 

You would think that would be enough to protect against abuse.

Twitter doesn't think so.

There are rules about how many people you can follow. There are daily limits and total limits. You would think that would be enough, too. 

Twitter doesn't think so.

It's their bat, their ball, and their playground. 

They make the rules. We have no choice but to follow them.

It takes a direct user command to follow or unfollow. That means that even though everything exists to fully automate the process, we can't. 

To add insult to injury, it's actually easier to make it full-auto than the required semi-automatic. 

This is an envelope that one shouldn't push. It's Twitter's platform. It's their rules.

It's a question of what we are able to do versus what we are allowed to do.

Fun.

Still, the same-old-same-old can, and will, be improved.

Lots of fun!