Well the question comes up time and time again on various sites around the web, about blocking or not blocking people who follow you are on twitter. Since there is no hard or fast rule when it comes to this side of things, the following is just my personal point of view and what I do when it comes to blocking, unfollowing, etc on twitter.
Follow/Unfollow
As many I am sure have experienced over your time on twitter, however short or long it might well be. You might well have noticed that some people or groups will follow you then unfollow you only to refollow you then unfollow once again. It seems like a strange thing to watch people do this not to mention annoying to various degrees. But to me the worse offenders are those who follow you and when you look over their information you find that they look interesting enough to follow back, so you do so only to have them unfollow you in short order.
Then the questions comes to why did they unfollow you? should you also unfollow them? My rule of thumb is if they are truly interested in what I have to say they wouldn’t have unfollowed me after I followed them, thus if they have chosen to unfollow me I will also unfollow them.
Some times twitter does glitch and someone who is following you will end up unfollowing you, in this case I will do a reply tweet to them asking if they unfollowed me on purpose if they do not respond by refollowing me or though a reply in return I will more times then naught unfollow them as well. Regardless of their reasons for unfollowing me I will not follow someone who I though was interested in following me who has now unfollowed me. Might sound sad or wrong depending on how you view things but its how it is to me, if you are not willing to follow what I am posting then why should I follow what you have to say, simple as that.
Block/Unblock
When it comes to Blocking someone on twitter that choice might well be much easer for some people then others, depending on how you view things. I auto block anyone who spams me content who after viewing their account info proves that they have also spammed others with the same info – those type of people I spam block (which means I report them for spamming then block them).
There are on occasions that I have blocked someone for what ever reason, in the early days it was because I didn’t understand much about twitter or why people would follow me who I didn’t have anything in apparent common with (though a year or so later I’d find out other wise) so I’d block them from following me. Later I might well find out that we did have something in common, and I’d unblock them.
My main deal now for blocking people is pure spam, is someone is spamming me that is now the only time I will block anyone, though there are some exceptions to that rule like all things. Some people i just have no interest in letting them follow me (mostly because they have either dun the yo-yoing of follow unfollow follow one to many times that I’ve put them into the category of not worth my time for what ever reason).
Thus there are many reasons to block someone as their are to unblock someone who is following you or might not be follow you just plain out spamming you.
Someone Who’s Blocked You
Well the simple truth is you can’t follow someone who has blocked you, its how the block works. Most people don’t know that someone has blocked them till they try to follow the person for what ever reason and get the message that they have been blocked from following that person. This can cause some frustrations on many levels – more so if you have no idea why the person has blocked you and you know they are following other people that you are also following who are following you.
People will block other people for various reason, some its because you tweet more then they like, others its because you have a different religious point of view then they do, or what ever reason that is only known to them that they have taken a dislike to you for what ever reason. You cant ask them why they blocked you because you can’t contact them not less they are willing to talk to a mutual person they are following who you follow and that said person is willing to ask about the matter.
Its best to just move on and just shake your head and say not worth it, because in basic form its not worth being upset over or worrying about, if they wish to block you that is their issues not yours (even if it still irks you the they did that).
The Unfollow
Many times you will come acorss those who once followed you but who no longer are following you. Its not as uncommon as some might think but it does happen, you will be following the person for a time, a couple of months, to a year or more and then you notice they are no longer following you.
What changed why did they unfollow you? Many reasons might be there that they no longer follow you, I know for myself several people have stopped following me because I’m not twittering about certain topics like I use to, thus I’m no longer of interest to them to follow. For other’s its because I might well tweet to much (yes some days I can put out over 100 tweets over the course of a day, and for some this is to much and they just unfollow because they don’t wont to read that many tweets from me) for their liking, regardless of the reason that they unfollow its their issues. I might not like it myself that someone I was tweeting with now has stopped tweeting with me but once again its their call to say they no longer wish to tweet with me.
Another reason to unfollow someone is because they haven’t tweeted in over a month, some people have their own rules about how long they will follow someone who hasn’t tweeted for – my personal rule is 6 months of no tweeting and I unfollow, a year of no tweeting and I take them off my tweet list. I’ve tweeted with others on this topic and its a general deal that no tweets equals not following – big time since Twitter has set limits on how many people you can follow and who can follow you, so some times taking those who no longer tweet off your follow list is the only way to be able to follow new people who catch your interest.
Well like always, if you have comments or wish to talk with me send me a tweet or comment on my blog.
Take care everyone
Nyx