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How do I auto-follow Twitter followers?I have seen a lot of people automatically follow people who follow them on Twitter. That's very cool. How do they do it? First off, a true confession. I not only do not follow everyone who follows me, but I actually have quite a disparity between the two figures. On my @DaveTaylor account, I have about 1700 followers but only actually follow about 125 people. I'm not sure what that means in terms of Twitter etiquette, but my reasoning is that I follow people whose lives are intertwined with my own. In a word, my friends. Now, there are lots of really cool people and far-flung friends who follow me but whose zeal I don't mirror by following them. That's because in my experience the more people you follow, the greater the distraction of Twitter becomes, and I just don't have the mental bandwidth to keep track of 1700 people. I mean, that's a lot of people! However, I also completely understand that you see this differently and are more interested in a reciprocal relationship with colleagues, friends and other followers on Twitter. So let's see how you can do this... To find out, I asked my friend @JoelComm how he has his Twitter account set up and he showed me how he uses the third party service TweetLater.com, coupled with a simple email rule, to follow people who follow him. It's slick, as you'll see. The initial step, of course, is to sign up for an account at TweetLater.com. Once that's done, you'll be asked to enter your Twitter credentials on this screen:
Got that set up properly? Did you make sure to check "Automatically follow new followers" as I've highlighted above? Good. Now, log in to your Twitter account and click on "Settings" then click on the "Notices" tab. You'll see this:
As highlighted, you need to ensure you've selected "Email when someone starts following me". One more step. In your email program you need to set up an autoforward filter rule so that any time you get a notice from Twitter of a new subscriber, it's forwarded to TweetLater. Since I use Gmail, I do that by clicking on "Settings" then "Filters" within Gmail itself. I create a filter that looks for the phrase "is now following you on Twitter" in the subject:
Click on "Next Step" and here's where it gets interesting:
As you can see, you simply autoforward matching messages to the email address twitterfollow@tweetlater.com. Save that new filter (by the way, mine is a bit more complex because I also tag invitations with the label "Twitter" and have it skip my inbox. You might opt not to do that on your own account). Put these three steps together, the configuration on TweetLater, Twitter and your email application, and you're good to go! Congratulations. Now, let me go turn this off because I don't actually want to follow everyone who follows me. :-)
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Twitter, LinkedIn and Social Network Help
(Article 8407,
Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: social media etiquette, tweetlater, twitter Previous: What does an eBay phishing attack look like? Next: What is a "tentpole movie"? Reader Comments To Date: 33Chetan said, on July 27, 2008 7:26 AM:
Exactly as Rich said, i would also not recommend this Dave! You gave a good tutorial for the needful though. Jonathan Coffman said, on August 1, 2008 9:11 AM:
I've got an even better solution. Here's how to auto-follow your followers on Twitter. 1) Visit http://www.help.twitter.com Ken Ramirez said, on December 18, 2008 11:23 AM:
This was exactly what I was looking for to automate my community building abilities for my company. Thanks a bunch for posting this. Am looking forward to following any future posts from you. Paul Kinlan said, on January 1, 2009 5:20 AM:
Hi, Great post. I have created a service that will auto follow twitter users that have similar interests to you. You can view the site at http://www.twollo.com/. I appreciate all comments and feedback. My Twitter account is @PaulKinlan and twollo's is @Twollo. Kind Regards, Tim Bourquin said, on February 7, 2009 12:58 PM:
Actually TweetLater.com has added a checkbox to auto-follow anyone who follows you now. No need to do the whole email account setup thing. Add a Twitter account and you'll see the checkbox. Super easy now. Simon Crabb said, on February 25, 2009 9:19 AM:
I use Social Too http://www.socialtoo.com to auto follow people, it does some other stuff too, and their notification emails of who's followed you can be a fascinating insight into why they may have followed you... mahi said, on April 29, 2009 12:15 AM:
thanx diggalive said, on April 29, 2009 5:28 PM:
You can also auto follow users based on theere niche. Check out www.twittersnipe.com. Thanks! faisal majeed said, on May 3, 2009 12:33 AM:
So Twitter is awesome for Taking traffic to you website . It is very mahi said, on May 14, 2009 2:04 AM:
thanx for this post. nazcar said, on August 10, 2009 10:26 AM:
've been using but seems not working at the moment, probably because of API issues.. Garry said, on August 27, 2009 5:07 PM:
Thank you very much for the information, having read what you have to say confirms my thoughts about auto following, and i will continue to manually manage my Twitter account. Thanks again...Garry. Michelle Porter said, on September 9, 2009 9:12 PM:
Thanks for this great article. Good news! The system has been updated and you no longer need to do anything with email. Even easier! wniizzati said, on September 28, 2009 1:14 PM:
for some reason, it is good to auto follow, n others does.. depends on the person who followed us.. Steven said, on December 31, 2009 9:35 PM:
That Google information is news to me, my last twitter account got banned well here we go again!! Tia said, on February 4, 2010 6:28 AM:
I personally wish there was a way to NOT allow people to auto-follow. I find the concept really obnoxious! I followed this one person, and within 24 hours got about two hundred additional followers, most of whom tweeted only 1 or 2 times (or never) and yet had thousands of followers. And in another 24 hours, half of those followers stopped following me (that's how I know it was some kind of auto-follow; maybe they only continue to follow those who follow them). This guy must be in some kind of Twitter network. I think it degrades the point and fun of Twitter. That's just my two cents worth! :) jerry said, on February 6, 2010 12:38 AM:
It's good twitter auto follow way. The API is useful. Lee said, on March 14, 2010 10:05 PM:
I'm use the http://www.fastautofollow.com/, I belive it's a best auto follow tools jamesh said, on March 24, 2010 11:48 PM:
thanks for information... very useful information... Dave said, on May 12, 2010 11:24 PM:
This information is not longer valid. Social Oomph does not require the forwarded e-mails anymore. Ketan said, on July 15, 2010 11:39 AM:
In TweetTwain I can auto-follow my followers by giving my id in the 'Account Based Follow' option. I does this once in a week so that I will not miss any of my followers. tito said, on July 19, 2010 11:33 AM:
I use a tool called twitter autofollower. It is a small desktop tool. motivatedmom said, on September 7, 2010 10:30 AM:
Tweetlater is now called social oomph David McKinney said, on October 19, 2010 9:36 AM:
I'm not sure its best to 'auto-follow' everyone that follows you. Sure its considered proper etiquette, but I find that we get quite a few of "spam" followers with 'bot' Twitter accounts. I could care less what they these automated accounts are tweeting about. Irvine Triggly said, on October 20, 2010 11:13 PM:
Thanks for such a nice post, I have checked your post and also confirms my thoughts about auto following. zonguo99 said, on June 20, 2011 8:59 PM:
Very useful information.I'm new to twitter and really appreciate people like you. take care! Bobby said, on September 3, 2011 5:53 AM:
Love your site Dave - amazing information!!! Quick note, socialoomph no longer requires the email forwarding - their system automatically processes the forwarding requests. Everything up to that point is right on... thanks again! Mike said, on December 22, 2011 12:38 PM:
Thank you for the post. I've checked out Socialoomph and also find Auto Twitter Bot for free. If you rather run an app for your auto follow instead of providing your information to a web service, you can install Auto Twitter Bot. Thought it might help. Great website, thanks! rajanrufus said, on January 6, 2012 3:08 PM:
Excellent post and informative. Thanks for your sharing. Gintas said, on June 7, 2012 3:07 PM:
Now you have to pay for auto-follow feature on that site. Deon Fialkov said, on August 9, 2012 3:06 AM:
Well regarding twitter etiquette, I thought I should always follow who follows me, but every time I check my timeline I see bot profiles, and other stupid-related kak that irritates me. Sometimes I want to just delete everyone ...they annoy me... but I also want to market my business as well.... Sissi Yang said, on October 31, 2012 1:05 AM:
I have tried your method but I am afraid that TweetLater has changed to be https://www.socialoomph.com and they asked money now,do you have other free way to do this?
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!Check This Out Too... |
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Dave,
Thanks for the info, but I personally wouldn't recommend the auto-follow. I am starting to get too many spammy follows from either over-zealous Web marketers or perhaps bots who follow 2K, but have a pittance of friends.
Auto-following these people would just clog my twitter feed.
As you say, there's only so many people you can follow well. So why let spammers sneak in there and push legitimate tweets out of the way?
Just my .02.