Author: Chris Herbert, B2B Specialist & Founder of mi6
Audience: Social Media users, Social Network and Application providers
The Test
Ever been curious to know if someone you are following on twitter is also following you? Sure, you get notices sent to you from Twitter and services like Twitdiff when you are first followed, but there is no easy way to check if someone is following you at any given moment in time.
When you are reading a tweet or viewing someones profile wouldn’t it be nice to know right away if they are following you or not? There is no easy way for you to find this out however. Let me show you. I work with Donna Papacosta (an awesome podcaster and communications professional) producing The B2B Specialists Podcast Series and developing workbooks for my Social Media Marketing Workshops. I’m going to use Donna’s profile to show you what I’m talking about.
Exhibit “A”
To the right is a collage of screenshots of Donna’s profile from Twitter and some of the most popular Twitter desktop clients including Seesmic, Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.
Twitter indicates I’m following Donna while Tweetdeck confirms that I’m a “friend”. This is a little misleading because the word “friend” implies reciprocity. If I’m following someone but they aren’t follow me back Tweetdeck still calls them a friend. Seesmic and Hootsuite don’t tell me anything.
As you can see there is no way for me to tell whether Donna is a follower or not.
Exhibit “B”
Tweetie, one of the apps I use on my iPhone, does indicate on a Tweeters profile if they are following me and vica versa. The profile clearly tells me that Donna is following me and that I’m following her back. And, it allows me to follow/unfollow on the fly.
Now, it would be cool if there was an indicator in my tweetstream as to whether they follow me or not though. This applies to the desktop versions mentioned above as well.
Knowing whether someone is following you is important because it tells you if some form of connection already exists or not. For me this is important because I don’t follow everyone back and neither should you (bold words maybe, but I explain why here).
The Solution
I sent a tweet out asking if anyone had an answer to this problem and so far I’ve received feedback from Scott Thornton and Ann-Christin. Thanks for the instant input!
I think a simple solution is for Twitter and third party app providers to standardize on follower types naming convention. I like how Friend or Follow classifies your “Followership” into three types:
- Following: People/Brands you are following who are not following you back
- Fans: People/Brands that are following you that you are not following back
- Friends: People/Brands that are following you and you are following back
Next, with a standardized naming convention like this in place, icons can be designed that designate the type of tweeter and display the icon beside the tweeters avatar picture and on their profile.
I think this would make sense and help us learn more about the level of connections we have with people and brands on Twitter.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. Great post. Thanks for using me as the example!
On a Twitter.com profile page, you can tell if someone is following you if you’re able to send him or her a Direct Message (a link to do this will be available under “Actions” in the right column). If the option is not available, then that person is not following you.
I’ve never understood why Twitter doesn’t make that status more clear. Many, many people are not aware that that’s how to tell (on Twitter.com) if someone is following you.
CoTweet provides full follower/following status when you click on someone’s profile in its interface.
HootSuite does not provide this info in its web interface (a significant failing, in my opinion). Interestingly, Hootsuite’s Android app does provide that info.
I agree with you that the complete picture of follower/following status is important, and I don’t know why so many of these tools fall short in this area.