Thoughts on Following, Unfollowing and Numbers
‘Unfollow’ has become a bit of a dirty word among blogging circles. I don’t think it’s necessarily always a bad thing though – hear me out.
I think it’s totally okay to unfollow people, should their feeds not inspire or appeal to you anymore. Our tastes change over time and we have the right to hone our feeds how we want them to be; places that inspire and capture our interest. So often we hold on to people for fear of being seen as rude or being publicly called out for it; but we need to stop fearing the ‘unfollow’ button. It’s rarely, if ever, personal.
The only time I disagree with it is when people unfollow in a strategic manner. You know the ones; following and unfollowing, often repeatedly, solely for their own numbers. It’s shady and it’s sneaky; not cool. They could have the prettiest feed ever, but that behaviour would completely switch me off from following them. I absolutely hate it.
As we do our best to fight the unfair algorithms, it’s disheartening when our numbers waver so often. It’s frustrating, especially when you’re doing your damnedest to grow your following or are close to a milestone. But think about it – wouldn’t you rather have loyal, engaged followers than fickle ones? This is something I remind myself of everytime my numbers drop a little.
Potentially controversial view: I also personally don’t think it’s feasible to follow thousands upon thousands of people. I just don’t see how it would be possible to keep up with such a high number, especially on the likes of Instagram, whose naughty algorithm only shows me a fraction of those I currently follow anyway! (grrr.) Twitter is also a very busy place at the best of times, and unless I’m on there 24/7/365, I don’t think the feed would cater to such large numbers very well and I’d end up missing a lot. And that defeats the purpose – when I follow someone, I want to be kept up to date.
What are your views on this? x
Julia says
I’m the same, if I follow someone I want to be kept up to date with them a well which is why I try not to follow too many people on Instagram especially. It really bothers me when people follow a whole bunch of people, they follow back and then the initial person goes and unfollows- I just think it’s such a redundant practice!
Julia // The Sunday Mode
Sarah says
Me too, I totally agree! It is a redundant practice and it also strikes me as very sad!
Rosa says
I totally agree about the it’s okay to unfollow thing, if you aren’t feeling inspired by the feed anymore. I am following a lot of people though, like 7,000. I just find it works better for me personally. I like to be constantly seeing new inspiration from different people.
http://ohduckydarling.com
Sarah says
It’s definitely all about whatever works best for you – seeing a bigger variety of inspirations is a fair point too. :)
Katie says
I agree! I try to follow back people who follow me and whose accounts look interesting, but it really annoys me when they unfollow immediately. I usually unfollow them right after too lol so maybe I’m just as petty.
Sarah says
It really bugs me too, and would put me off following them.
Gabija says
I couldn’t have said this better! Sometimes, it’s good to have a declutter of the accounts you’re no longer interested in so you can see the ones that do interest you- especially those that follow just to unfollow, so annoying!
Gabija | everylittlethingblog.weebly.com
Sarah says
I completely agree! :)
Victoria (@treelinedavenue) says
You took all the words right out of my mouth. I *STILL* sometimes feel a tiny bit of guilt whenever I unfollow someone. I feel like it’s going to automatically alert them and they’ll look down on me forever. For this reason, it takes me forever to decide whether or not I should follow someone in the first place. And I definitely agree with you about following a trillion people (or you know, thousands). I just can’t. I don’t think I’ve ever even followed 300 people. I wouldn’t be able to give people the quality attention they deserve. And if you notice, MOST of the “famous” bloggers never follow more than a couple hundred either because they mainly follow people they know IRL. That’s not to say I don’t want to be open to making new friends, so I don’t know, it’s kind of a fine line between following for the right reasons and successfully making genuine friends. It’s all a learning game, I guess. But in the end, I just want to make lasting friends.
Sarah says
Well said Vic! We’re definitely on the same page :)
Jess says
It’s a tricky business! I don’t agree with the follow for follows practice either. I like to support fellow bloggers and follow people with inspiring content. :)
Sarah says
Well said Jess! :)
Angela Davis says
I totally agree!! I would much rather have a handful of loyal followers than have a bunch of people who add me just to get me to add them and then they drop me…