What makes me unfollow on Twitter

Recently I freshened up my Twitter timeline.

I followed some new people.

And unfollowed some of them again very rapidly.

Seeing new faces and different tweets made me realise what I like and dislike.

These are the things that make me unfollow on Twitter:

• Swamping my Twitterstream – I may be interested in what you have to say but I don’t want to see you all the time, thanks.
• Multiple tweeting in blocks – just makes me glaze over.
• Only ever tweeting links to your own site – let me know about other experts in your field and I’ll love you more than ever!
• Continuing to send out the same business tweets over weekends and holidays – lighten up, I’m not in the mood. (It may not be noticeable to anyone but me but I do try to make my tweets more lighthearted at these times – unusual home working jobs, looking at the contents of a mobile worker’s bag etc.)
• Repeating the same tweets or links over and over again.
• Regularly telling us how excited you are about your new book/event/contract/client/award/testimonial. Yes, we get it – you’re good at what you do. That’s why we follow you. Don’t be obnoxious about it.
• Tweeting during TV programmes – if I don’t want to watch it I’m not interested. If I do want to watch it later, I don’t want spoilers so… I’m not interested.
• Interacting and getting no response. I don’t expect you to answer every tweet, but being ignored quickly gets boring.
  And that goes for you Twitter ‘big names’ as well – why bother being here if you’re not going to interact with the people who buy your books, watch you on TV and rave to their friends about you?
• Which leads me to people who ‘broadcast’ constantly with no interaction. If I see no @’s in your Twitterstream, I’m off.
• Seeing that you follow huge numbers of people, usually the same number as follow you – you’re obviously using some kind of automation to follow people in the hope they’ll follow back. I’m more interested in engaging, thanks.

I’ve often heard a party analogy used in discussions about how to behave on Twitter. I think it’s a good one. A lot of the things that turn me off equate to talking about yourself very loudly and never showing any interest in anyone else. It’s rude and boring face-to-face, and it gets that way on Twitter too.

What makes you follow or unfollow on Twitter? Who are your favourite tweeters? Have you connected with one of your heroes on Twitter?

PS For some great tweeps who won’t make you lunge to unfollow on Twitter, check out my list of 17 top people for home workers to follow.