I'm Unfollowing You. or Where's WAlly?

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60
674 followers

I know many of us believe that to reciprocate following is a polite gesture, right? Well, I've been thinking it over...

I remember a time when the gurus recommended following as many people as possible, then unfollow those who don't follow you back, and why not? unfollow the ones who follow you (some of them will never notice).

The whole idea was to be able to get as much free traffic as possible from any post you make. But without becoming a real influencer first you become a smart spammer...

Lazy people want to get things for free and they look for any loophole (or backdoor or black hat trick) that might give them an unfair advantage.

A picture is worth a thousand words. This represents my actual network following, approximately 500 members.

I'm obsessive about communication. I don't want to follow people whom I don't know by name or that I haven't read at least their profile or one of their blogs.

So a massive unfollow will take place tomorrow. I'll keep only a few but this list will be dynamic and I'll be updating it day by day. I'll keep track of the last time I had any interaction with each one of them to keep following based on this factor.

Quality is better than quantity in content marketing and in interpersonal communication.

To our mutual success in 2019,

Richard

PS: image zoom available here

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Recent Comments

164

I have 779 followers but I'm following 2,223.

That's a discrepancy of 1,444. Are they even active in the WA community? Are they free members who never upgraded and are doing nothing?

If there were a facility in WA for me to identify them and unfollow them with 1 click, I'd do it like a shot.

How do you propose to go about your massive unfollow?

I don't know how to perform a massive unfollow. I do occasionally copy all my followers and those I follow to a spreadsheet and then sort alphabetically and look for differences.

I then make adjustments accordingly.

I will unfollow manually, one by one. I'm sure that if someone asks me why I unfollow him and gives me a good reason to follow him back there will be no problem. But 99% will not even care.

My idea is to keep track of my last contact with each person. We could suggest Carson to add this functionality

I'd also love a way to organize them, much like tags when you favorite a post here. That way I can group them accordingly.

Actually I am the other way around. I am pretty busy so have more followers than I follow because I keep running out of time.

What I would really like to know is how to get those, who are apparently no longer functional, off my followed by list so I don't waste time by trying to follow non-existent members.

#metoo

… or notice.

Thanks. It still sounds like a lot more work than doing nothing :-)

I might put in a formal request for a bulk unfollow facility to Kyle and Carson.

I'm using this on Facebook, and I guess I could create a Chrome extension to keep my private notes on each member, logging interactions in a database, so detecting inactive members should be easy...

Thx for using me as an example. I'm flattered! ;)

that's what friends are for... ;-)

More than a friend, I'm your #1 fan! :D

That is a heck of a post and I can totally relate to it. Hope I am not in the trash can.

Michael, you made me laugh! You're safe ;-)

great point.. keeping my network very small was a conscious decision from the start... I also turned off all email notifications and spend very little time in chat.

chatting live, earning badges are all fluffy achievements that make me no money. The only rank I care about, is my sites ranking.

One thing, have you actually tried anything Blackhat? It is anything but lazy lol, and typically, blackhat work is done OVER and ABOVE the normal input to rank a site.

Black hat is not lazy for who performs it, but usually, black hat techniques are bought, which means that the person buying is definitely being lazy and trying to be clever.

Hi, Beau! I have a clear goal in mind. WA is the best network I've joined and I want to promote it. It's a work in progress, I'm learning and meeting like-minded people to JV.
The ranking is something I consider important if you want to sell a concept because you don't have a second chance to make a good first impression... Ranking gives you credibility when you invite people. They don't know you, but if you are among the top 200...
About blackhat, I'm bald and I don't wear hats ;-)

Im not sure what you mean about selling a concept, and that relation to your WA rank. But I'm not here selling anything to WA peeps but maybe I have your point confused (or perhaps you misunderstood me).

Ranking by Google / Bing / Serps, is the only ranking that matters to me because that directly correlates to income.

I totally agree on the impressions made.. you only get 1 chance!

Hahaha im bald too, sun burns me quickly, so im always wearing a hat lol...

hmmm I'd disagree again. If one is willing to pay for something, like Blackhat services, then they have generated that money from somewhere, and its fair to assume some sort of work was involved in order to get that money...

Then you can also look at paying for services is a smart move and is the key to scaling ones income.. outsourcing! And to me, leveraging other peoples skills is very clever :)

I want to promote WA inviting my prospects to follow me. They don't know me, but if they see me at the top ranking (a community put me there for a reason) at least they might give me a chance to share my strategy. Ranking in a search engine is not something I care too much. What I want to sell is not something people are googling for.
I apologize if sometimes my English is not clear enough. It's good to get feedback like yours, Beau.
Cheers

It's definitely clever and necessary to outsource at some point, but outsourcing blackhat techniques is not. You can spend a little more and pay for good content marketing.

Blackhat becomes expensive when a new Google animal comes out to play.

I thought you had already unfollowed me... after all, I've been waiting for you for a few days already ;)

Btw, well played once again.

I'm not unfollowing you, my friend! I owe you an apology, my last website took me much longer than what I had planned.
I'll update my 6-points list asap ;-)

I'm just teasing you Ricardo! You owe me no appology!

Let's just keep working on our lists.

And once again, great job with this post. Provoking and fun!

Re: Well played 🤣
He's the Wizard... he's everywhere!!

Thanks, Fran. But you know me by now. I can't help it. I'm a scorpion, it's my nature ;-)

I know Shaunna, but I pride myself in not being easily surprised and the Master Wizard manages to come in after a few days in the dark, and in peek my interest with a subject line in the middle of 20 WA emails and then makes me smile with the post.

I can't stop myself from complimenting.

But I bet you didn't find Waldo! Words, words... LOL

I'm not a newbie but I'm new to this site and it was recommended to me that I don't get too caught up with everyone cause you'll never get any work done. I'm being cautious with my time right now. I also (against recommendations), am working on two sites right now and working a regular job. I'm in the process of hiring a writer so when I'm done with that perhaps I'll have more time to pal around on here. I will jump in if I see someone needs something that I have the answer to, though usually someone else has jumped in already. It is an awesome community though!

Hi, Paul! Thanks for your comment. Yes, the community is awesome. But we're humans after all and we keep on making the same mistakes over and over again. In my case, I decided to simplify things as much as possible...

Hey Richard - if I knew how to find people I'm following who aren't following me, I might do the same! :-) I don't know an easy way of doing in in WA, Twitter or Pinterest. Do you?

I only use FB for social stuff and the Friend thing there has to be mutual, doesn't it? I only'Freind' people I've met or have had some sort of meaningful/useful exchange with. Not sure about Following on FB. It's far too complicated :-(

On the subject of WA followers, we are encouraged to help each other but if you're following 3 x more people than are follolwing you (I think that;s the average ratio) then it's hardly an equitable situation).

Ah well...
Ian

I think there's an easy way. Post a blog like this one. Then unfollow all, but follow back only those who post a meaningful comment... my 2 cents (and I'll keep following you, Ian!)
Cheers

Ha! Ha! Thanks, Richard! :-)

You are following 477. I'm gonna count the replies :-)

Ian

Be my guest, Ian

I was speaking metaphorically, of course :-)
Ian

Hi Ian - Manage Flitter is excellent for Twitter. The free version has everything you need.

Cool, I'll check it out, thanks, Diane. Although Twitter is at the bottom of my list :-) Nothing for Pinterest, I guess?
Ian

Well said, I agree quality is better than quantity.

I have done similar on twitter and facebook

Facebook comes next, 5000 friends? Come on...
Thanks for commenting, Darren

I problem, I’ve got down to 800 Facebook friends now

I'm getting 150 friendship requests per month only because we have 10 to 100 friends in common (btw this is how I made 5000 friends, as taught by a guru)

I decided to take people of fb as I never interacted with them or they just filled my newsfeed with negativity of somekind so I decided to get rid of them.

I have family and friends mainly and like minded people who I have things in common with.

I’m happy for people to connect on my fb pages connected with my niches but my account has photos of my kids etc so I’d prefer to keep it to family, friends and people I talk to.

I like what your doing.

I was blocked by FB during one of my travels, all because I could not receive an SMS to verify my account. I created a new account, but without my family or friends, just to learn and practice advertising techniques.
Some of my real friends and relatives requested friendship, but they are only 10/5000

Hey Richard,

I like your attitude! You do what is best for you 😊 ps. I found Wally!

Mira

I will be following you, Mira
Did you notice Wally's face? ;-)

Hahah! It was quite blurry looking but I took a second look and I noticed why 😂 clever one!

I'm obsessive

I'm so glad I found this Sir Richard!!
I was going to send you a message earlier, but now I know all is well with the internet again!
The Wizard is back!!
Hope your having an awesome day!!
Oh... I should comment on post... I cheated to find Waldo
😎😁 Shaunna

Shaunna, my dear, you have nothing to fear!
My poetic vein strikes again
We'll keep in touch as long as WA allows
Cheers

Do what you need to do and what is right for you Richard.

Also lazy people will always blame others and other issues to always find an excuse except for the one that is before them when they look into the mirror.

You are correct it has also been said to do the same on other social media sites as well like Twitter, and Facebook is also a good example.

I once cleaned out my facebook even gave a month notice, in the end, I deleted just over 400 so-called followers including a few family members as well.

Time to flush out the negative and reinstall the positive.

Andre

I agree 100% with you, Andre. But I don't think I'm following negative people. The problem is I can't follow them properly, reading and commenting the way they deserve. I'm missing valuable content, I know, but I count on the members I will keep following to assist me to deal with information overload, filtering and eventually sharing with me what will help me achieve my goals.
Cheers

True Richard,

My part of the negative I was more thinking on my own side so I should have clarified that.

Yes, there are amazing members here some don't get involved mostly because they don't come here as much as they used to but you will also get some followers here that are gone but still in your network as well.

You mention about can't follow them properly you can also go to your setting and select what or who you would like to hear from as well.

Just go to your account setting then at the bottom click notification and you can edit what you want to receive that is if you have email notification on as well.

Just in case you are not aware of it but I am sure you are aware of much.


Have a great weekend.

Andre

I'm new here. I have a lot to learn, for example, those settings that you mention.
Have a great weekend, my friend!

You too it won't unfollow anyone just reduce added notification you don't need as much

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