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How to Lose All Your Followers on Social Media

May 12, 2016 By 12 Comments
How to Lose All Your Followers on Social Media

How to Lose All Your Followers on Social Media

I almost called this “The Wonderful Art of Subtraction on Social Media,” because sometimes the best thing to do is to subtract. That is: unfollow, unfriend, and mute. After all, everyone wants more, more, more followers on social media. Isn’t that the whole point? Not always! Sometimes less is more.

jon stewart comedy photo

Photo by cliff1066™

Same Old, Same Old

Lately I’ve grown tired of seeing the same stuff day after day, month after month. On Twitter, the accounts that spew quotes are the worst. My friends Mitch Mitchell and Terri Nakamura have been tweeting about it. How do those accounts get so many followers when all they do is broadcast quotes all day long?

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Spew quotes all day long.

Unfriending on Facebook

On Facebook, if I don’t remember where the heck we met, or if we haven’t had a conversation for a couple of years, off you go! I’ll bet they don’t remember me, either (even if to me, I’m the queen of the universe!). Wiki has a great list of reasons you might have been unfriended on Facebook and how to get over it.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Being offensive and way too personal is a good way to be unfriended. Right now, the political rant is also a great way to lose friends.

mall crowd photo

Photo by abodftyh

Unfollowing on Twitter

On Twitter, if there’s too much salesy stuff, and too many boring tweets, same thing: they get muted or unfollowed. Muted if the volume is too high and unfollowed if the tweets are tasteless. Partly the fault is mine. I may not have taken a good, hard look at the account when I first followed or followed back. But sometimes accounts change, too. Here are some Twitter Best Practices, by the way.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Drunk tweeting off topic is a fast way to lose followers. Also, sending direct messages asking for money is a fast path to being unfollowed.

mall crowd photo

Photo by davebloggs007

Disconnecting on Pinterest

Sometimes people post about too much of one thing, and it gets boring. Or, as in the case of someone I unfollowed this week–too many “sexy ladies dressed as animals.” Yeah, I know. Weird. I kept unfollowing one board after another, until finally–no boards at all! What a great day that was. If you want a primer on Pinterest, you might like this one: Pinterest: Top Ten Tasks and Power Tips.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Pin only photos of sunglasses. Or stuffed animals. And you’ll lose followers. Try it!

photo

Photo by janoma.cl

Getting Unlinked on LinkedIn

Like Direct Messages on Twitter, sending salesy messages before getting to know someone is a no-no on LinkedIn, and a great way to lose followers. Today I got an email from someone I’d never had contact with asking me to buy their IT services. See ya! If you want to know how to prune the rose buds on LinkedIn, here you go.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Send a lot of salesy stuff, before getting to know someone.

drain sink photo

Photo by eelke dekker

Insta-Unfollowed on Instagram

On Instagram, a really great way to be blocked is to leave a comment on someone else’s post saying “follow me.” Don’t you hate that?

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Say you sell followers in a message on someone else’s post.

 freeway photo

Who Have You Unfollowed Today?

If you’ve unfriended, unfollowed, or blocked someone today, why? I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

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How to Choose a Social Media Manager: Ten Worst Ways

April 21, 2016 By 6 Comments
How to Choose a Social Media Manager: Ten Worst Ways

How to Choose a Social Media Manager: Ten Worst Ways

People choose social media manager for all the wrong reasons. Now bear in mind this doesn’t mean you. But many, many other people do just that: they pick based on some emotional reason, then are very upset when their social media manager (“SMM”) doesn’t work out. If you want to hear the positive side of how to choose a SMM, here’s my previous article: Top Ten Questions to Ask Your Social Media Manager. But stick around if you want some of the worst ways to choose an SMM!

Someone Who Doesn’t Engage

Your new SMM should be someone who hates to chat with people. Having short–or long–conversations of people is a hallmark of social media. They should hate dealing with people at all, whether that’s talking on the phone, in person, or on social media.

GRIME NIGHT photo

Photo by Nirazilla

Someone Who Buys Followers

On the day they start work, your new SMM should plunk down $20, and buy a bunch of followers. After all, you need the “social proof,” right? And if you want to know whether someone has a bunch of fake followers, take a look at this: Who Has the Most Fake Twitter Followers?

Fake Followers

Fake Followers

Someone Who Follows, Then Quickly Unfollows

Maybe this has happened to you. Someone follows you, you follow back, then they quickly dump you. Now that’s a great thing to do! In a bad way, of course.

Someone Who Says They Do it All

Someone Who Says They Do it All

Someone Who Says They Do it All

Most SMMs do not do it all, but you should pick someone who says they do! They will say they know about graphic design and Google adwords and also create and edit video for you. However, they might have someone in their agency who can help with some of those things.

Someone Who Doesn’t Care About Driving Traffic

None of your Facebook posts need to drive traffic to you, right? So having a SMM who doesn’t understand that’s important would be a great (aka bad) choice.

Someone Who's Rude and Entitled

Someone Who’s Rude and Entitled

Someone Who’s Rude and Entitled

You really ought to pick someone who’s rude and feels entitled as your SMM. Because then there’s a lot less work for them to do. When they start work late, they can leave early to make up for it!

Someone Who Steals Images

Someone Who Steals Images

Someone Who Steals Images

Someone who “borrows” images and posts from others without giving any attribution would probably make a fantastic SMM! Always get the consent of the person before using an image, as Sarah Snow Explains in this article.

Someone Who Unknowingly Posts Porn

Someone Who Unknowingly Posts Porn

Someone Who Unknowingly Posts Porn

Someone who doesn’t check what’s behind a pin on Pinterest would make a great manager for your social media! It will certainly be more exciting when you discover what’s really behind that pin! Here’s a swell guide to using Pinterest for Business, by the way.

Choose Your Niece or Nephew!

Choose Your Niece or Nephew!

Choose Your Niece or Nephew!

Surely they’d know something about how to post, just because they’re super young. After all, they can use Snapchat!

Choose Your Admin for the SMM

Choose Your Admin for the SMM

Choose Your Admin for the SMM

Sometimes this can work out, but what about when it doesn’t? What if they don’t have the aptitude for it? As always, leave me a comment! I do appreciate it.

 

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Unfollow on Pinterest: 3 Best Ways

September 26, 2013 By 3 Comments
Unfollow on Pinterest: 3 Best Ways

Unfollow on Pinterest: 3 Best Ways

My previous post on how to unfollow on Pinterest continues to get comments about how complicated this process is, so I am writing this to outline the best solutions to unfollow on Pinterest, thanks to the super-helpful Austin Geraci, and blog reader “Dani,” both of whom I’ve paraphrased.

Note: None of these procedures is very simple, and I’m still open to hearing about any alternatives.

For Mac or Windows: Excel

This idea comes from Blog reader Dani. Dani explains that you can copy the entire page (either your followers or who you’re following) and past either into notepad.

Then you copy from notepad, paste into Excel and organize the data alphabetically and you can delete all the “following” notes.

For Windows: Notepad++

As explained by Austin G, Notepad++ is an easy-to-use tool that lets you compare data (among a lot of other tasks). You can open multiple text docs in it, just like you can in modern browsers using tabs.

Open up the two docs, go to plugins –> Compare –> Pick your options (align, ignore spacing, detect moves, or navigation bar) –>Click compare and Poof! both docs show up side by side and the differences will be highlighted.

For Mac or Windows: Word

Unfollowing on Pinterest can be complicated

Unfollowing on Pinterest can be complicated

Open a blank Word file. From Pinterest, copy your Pinterest followers. Then go to Edit–>Paste Special–>Unformatted Text. Then Find and Replace “Unfollow” with an empty space. (Find and replace “Unfollow” first or this process won’t work.)

Why Isn’t This Easier?

Everybody wants to know how to do this. When I talk about it anywhere on social media, people go a little bit crazy. Twitter makes it pretty simple. By the way, if you want to know why I’m not following you on Pinterest, here are some possible reasons.

What’s Your Favorite?

If you have figured out a good way to unfollow on Pinterest, I’d love to talk to you! Really. I will buy you coffee. Or even a really good beer. Or you can leave a comment here.

 

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Pinterest: 6 Reasons I’m Not Following You

July 16, 2013 By 15 Comments
Why I'm Not Following You on Pinterest

Why I’m Not Following You on Pinterest

You’re following a million people a day on Pinterest in the hopes that a few of them will follow you back. However, some of your practices make me instantly not want to follow you. Here are a few!

You Don’t Consider Your Audience

If you have women as part of your audience, consider not pinning images that are demeaning to women. And if you are trying to gain business from Pinterest, that goes triple for you. You might not get reported for porn, but you certainly won’t get followed, even if 99% of your pins are of good quality. Considering your niche and what they want to see should be part of your pinning strategy.

You Pin Too Much

Even if I like your pins, if my entire stream is filled with stuff from you, I might decide not to follow. While one or two Hello Kitty products are ok, seeing 100 of them all at once will probably make me want to unfollow. However, a thousand of them would be the best thing ever! (Joking!)

Subject Matter Doesn’t Interest Me

If you only pin ballet shoes, snow removal equipment, or feather dusters, I probably won’t follow you. But if you make those subjects interesting, I might follow you after all. Having a sense of humor about a subject matter that’s dry would probably make me admire you for the creative effort.

Too Many Boards with One Pin Each

Two Cats

If you have 150 boards with only one pin on each, that looks like you’re a newbie, or worse, a spammer. Fewer boards with more content on each board looks better. For one thing, your followers won’t have to scroll as much.

You Steal Content

If you steal content and claim it as your own, I’ll definitely unfollow you. Right after asking you to remove those pins, that is. Nobody likes a thief.

No Pins, No Followers, and No Boards

If there is nothing on your account, I won’t follow you. How will anyone know what to expect if there’s nothing there? There has to be some “there there!” Here are some ideas on how to unfollow on Pinterest.

What Makes You Unfollow?

Did I leave anything out? Please let me know in the comments! Thanks!

 

 

 

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Follow Friday: 8 Best Practices

July 2, 2013 By 9 Comments
Friday Follow: Best Practices

Friday Follow: Best Practices

What is Friday Follow?

Every Friday, people on Twitter recommend their friends to their other friends, using the #Friday Follow or #FF hashtag. If you have someone you like, you can tell your other friends about that person, and connect good friends. This practice has been going on for years. However, some #FFs have become more spammy recently, as described in this fabu-tastic article from The Onion.

Some Avoid Friday Follow

Your #FFs Are Boring!

Your #FFs Are Boring!

Many people now pull the covers over their heads and go back to sleep just to avoid Friday mornings. Why? Millions of tweets go out with that all-too-familiar #FF hashtag and the much-maligned list of @ThisPerson @ThatPerson that fills tweet after tweet. To make matters worse, people retweet those #FFs! If you’d like to optimize your time on #FollowFriday, here are some ideas for you.

Don’t Tweet Big Lists of #FFs

People like to have a reason to follow other people. So if you stuff as many of your followers into a tweet as possible, that can be very off putting. And people may decide to unfollow you, if they categorize you as a spammer.

Don’t Retweet #FFs

If you happen to be recommended, do not retweet the entire list and add to the spam. Just thank the person who recommended you (and delete everyone else on the list, please!).

Choose Your Top Engagers

Give People a Reason to Follow!

Give People a Reason to Follow!

There may be only a few people who really engage with you every week. Pick four or five of them. Now tell us why you follow them. Be as specific as possible. I like recommending one person per tweet. Then, next Friday, pick different people to recommend.

Follow Other People’s Suggestions

If someone recommends you in a list of people to follow, check out some of their friends. Following friends of friends is a good way to extend your reach on Twitter. Notice who has good recommendations and whose recommendations are, well, bogus.

Tell People When You Follow

I like to thank the person who is the connection, like so: “Thank you, @PersonA, for the #FF! Also followed your friend @PersonB.” This often results in @PersonB thanking and following back. And @PersonA will notice that you read their tweet, too.

Recommend On Other Days

Why not do a #FollowMonday or #FollowRightNow hashtag? It’s unexpected, won’t add to the spam, and is much more likely to be well-received by your followers. You could slip one of these in between your other tweets (maybe do one per day), instead of #FollowFriday.

Go the Extra Mile

Go the Extra Mile

Go the Extra Mile

If you want extra bonus points and gold stars, you could tell everyone to follow, “like” on Facebook, and also follow on Pinterest, along with shortened URLs. This gives the person getting the recommendation a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Create a Friday Follow List

Put the people you really like onto a list, and then recommend that people check out or subscribe to the list. This requires a little more work from you, but will pay off in the long run.

What Are Your Friday Follow Recommendations?

Did I forget anything? Please leave a comment! Thanks!

 

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Pinterest: 5 Annoying Things

June 27, 2013 By 16 Comments
What Would Help Improve Pinterest?

What Would Help Improve Pinterest?

Many of you love Pinterest as much as I do. You spend hours and hours there, so you may have discovered some things that really bother you about Pinterest. If you’re a newbie on Pinterest, maybe these things don’t bother you. But for those of you who are past being beginners, here are a few changes that I’d love to see in their next release.

Messaging

Wouldn’t it be great to have a messaging system? I’d love to be able to say to someone “I love everything about this board!” Or “Your entire Pinterest account really inspires me!” But there is no way to do that. Leaving a comment on a particular pin, even with a tag for the owner of the account, seems  inadequate. Right now, you get an email if someone has @ messaged you, but it’s easy to miss , given the volume of mail most people get.

Deleting Multiple Pins

Deleting pins is a headache. I like to go through and delete pins that no one has liked or repinned and it takes FOREVER! You have to go to the board, scroll, scroll, scroll, then click three times in order to delete one pin. Why? I’d love to be able to  select a bunch of pins and then delete them all at once. Could we have a way to do this, please?

Unfollowing

I’d  like to know easily who’s not following me so I can decide if I want to continue following them. There are some workarounds, and there’s an app that lets you unfollow, but in general unfollowing on Pinterest is not easy.

Pinning a Board Cover

Pinning a Board Cover Takes Forever

Pinning a Board Cover Takes Forever

Right now, you have to click through many pins to get to the one pin you want to choose as a cover for a board. There has to be an easier way! Doesn’t there?

Seeing Boards I Follow Versus Pinners

I’d love to be able to see whose boards I follow (versus entire accounts). Sometimes I only follow one or two boards, and not everything by a pinner. There are ways to unfollow boards, but it’s clunky.

What’s On Your Wishlist?

Are there things you’d like to see in the next version of Pinterest? Would you like to see any of the changes above? Please let me know in the comments!

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