{"id":44976,"date":"2018-08-21T13:37:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=44976"},"modified":"2018-08-21T13:38:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T20:38:09","slug":"why-id-unfollow-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-id-unfollow-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I\u2019d unfollow you"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The longer I\u2019ve actively been on social media, the more certain things grate on me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before about\u00a0why I\u2019d follow an account<\/a>\u2014a person or organisation\u2014on Twitter.<\/p>\n

So, you can imagine that if an account started to become the opposite of what it was when I followed it, it would turn me off.<\/p>\n

With longer-term use, other aspects become salient when it comes to unfollowing an account. This article isn\u2019t about whether I\u2019d follow back, or decide to follow (or \u2018like\u2019, depending on the social media platform), rather I\u2019m going to look at why I\u2019d stop following (or liking) an account.<\/p>\n

Most of the reasons are to do with consistently hitting my irritation threshold. There\u2019s a rough formula here, and unfollowing only happens when the account starts irritating me more than I find it useful or fun.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s super-useful and only occasionally irritating, I\u2019ll stay. If the usefulness (or fun in engagement) fades and the irritation becomes constant or increasing, I\u2019ll likely go.<\/p>\n

Here are the top five reasons that would make me unfollow an account.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Changed areas of interest<\/strong><\/h4>\n

It happens. You grow apart.<\/p>\n

You have fewer things to talk about and don\u2019t share as much as you used to. Once upon a time, the live tweets of three-day conferences used to be riveting and I\u2019d be hanging out to hear about our mutual buddies\u2019 presentations. Now, I tend to mute the conference hashtags\u2026more and more often.<\/p>\n

This is where \u2018other stuff\u2019 connections gets you past changes in research interests or complete sector shifts. If your account is very \u2018work-face only\u2019 and your work-face changes to one that I\u2019m not very engaged with, it\u2019s likely I\u2019ll unfollow. If, however, you offer more than work-face (maybe savvy takes on #HigherEd in general, fun\/witty ways of engaging with your community and talking about your work [whatever that work might be], interesting [to me] hobbies or activism), I\u2019ll probably stay.<\/p>\n

2. Changed primary platform, auto-posting to others<\/strong><\/h4>\n

There are a fair number of people and organisations that I follow across platforms. That is, I follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Usually, a bit of repetition across the information or images doesn\u2019t bother me too much. It\u2019s when someone seemingly abandons one platform for others and just maintains an auto-feed that I may walk (from the auto-fed platform).<\/p>\n

For example, if you only post to Facebook and auto-feed to Twitter, all that the people on Twitter see is a link to Facebook. That\u2019s it. No lead-in text, no context. It\u2019s annoying, especially if your main social-media platform is Twitter (and you\u2019re not going to follow up on the link every time at another platform).<\/p>\n

3. TMI (too much information)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This particular element is highly subjective.<\/p>\n

There are some friends and colleagues from whom I\u2019m perfectly happy to hear about their lunches, commutes, dating, holidays, and kiddies\u2019 shenanigans. Sometimes, it\u2019s because I know and like them a lot and the social media engagement we have is just another extension of our friendly relationship. Sometimes, I may not know them that well, or only know them through social media, but they relate these aspects in ways that I find appealing, funny and interesting.<\/p>\n

A good example of this relational consideration is when someone I follow becomes a parent and their stream becomes a steady diet of baby pictures, baby pictures, and more baby pictures. First up, I don\u2019t hate babies, so put down those pitchforks. This kind of big (maybe temporary?) shift in programming can present a dilemma at times, though, because \u2013 I\u2019ll admit this much \u2013 babies aren\u2019t my go-to topic of interest. I\u2019ve had two, and like squeezing them as much as the next person, but they aren\u2019t what I want all over my social media streams. I am not looking for, or finding value in, endless pictures of babies.<\/p>\n

You could substitute \u2018baby\/babies\u2019 here with all manner of other things that don\u2019t automatically interest me as dominant topic streams (for example I find goat yoga a huge turn-off, as are diets and\/or number of steps you\u2019ve taken). Conversely, some things do automatically interest me: research sector stuff, and researcher development and education specifically; examples of fried dough from around the world; research and news on the critical race studies front; cactus, succulents, and fungi\u2026I\u2019ll stop there.<\/p>\n

4. Overload<\/strong><\/h4>\n

There\u2019s just too much in my stream from some accounts. The items posted or things said are things I\u2019m broadly interested in but there\u2019s just too much, all the time, and it takes over my stream. I may not recognise this pattern till after I\u2019ve been following for a bit. If it\u2019s a Twitter account and I like the links\/comments enough, I may put it on a list that I can check every once in a while.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0He\u2019s dead, Jim<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Sometimes, people just stop posting, or take to posting every month, and that monthly post is an auto-fed update about how many followers they\u2019ve gained and lost. This is a perfect example of an account becoming useless. Unfollowing will follow.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

Having said all of this, I hope it\u2019s clear that these are highly subjective preferences and everyone\u2019s tastes and thresholds differ. Just because we may aim for work-face on our accounts doesn\u2019t mean the accounts aren\u2019t also idiosyncratic.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, you\u2019re not on social media for my benefit; you\u2019re on there for yours. It\u2019s okay for our interests to diverge. It happens. So keep true to yourself, and don\u2019t worry about your followers. Like me, you\u2019ll find those who interest you, who amuse you, who inform you. If you have a shared interest in goat yoga, that\u2019s fine too. Just don\u2019t expect me to be part of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The longer I\u2019ve actively been on social media, the more certain things grate on me. I\u2019ve written before about\u00a0why I\u2019d follow an account\u2014a person or organisation\u2014on Twitter. So, you can imagine that if an account started to become the opposite of what it was when I followed it, it would turn me off. With longer-term […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":44977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[1507],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-44976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-social-media"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I\u2019d unfollow you - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-id-unfollow-you\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why I\u2019d unfollow you - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The longer I\u2019ve actively been on social media, the more certain things grate on me. I\u2019ve written before about\u00a0why I\u2019d follow an account\u2014a person or organisation\u2014on Twitter. So, you can imagine that if an account started to become the opposite of what it was when I followed it, it would turn me off. 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