I unfollowed 47,000 people on Twitter over the prior 2 weeks. Best move of my Twitter career. I had followed way too many folks because I wanted to be a fan boy during my lower energy blogging days, versus being a blogging leader.
Being a leader and not a following fan feels good, freeing, relaxing and a little uncomfortable for me. I used to be a raving fan of many folks but it turns out, I was not entirely genuine in being a raving fan. Who can genuinely follow 47,000 human beings and claim to be a fan of even 10 of these folks? Impossible. I much rather prefer to follow a few folks, to enjoy their resonant content and to give 99.99% of my attention, energy, love and service to all of my followers on Twitter, Facebook and through my blog.
People often feel uncomfortable being blogging leaders because you face, feel and need to release a litany of uncomfortable fears. I felt fear on unfollowing many folks because I knew some people became angry the moment I unfollowed them; they did and told me so. I knew some folks would try to convince me to follow them again for any number of reasons. I simply choose to give all my energy – virtually – to fans of mine, as a blogging leader, to best serve these human beings. I intend to follow my intuition before all else. From there, I will follow a few human beings whose Twitter stream appeals to me 100%, across the board, as far as content type, energy, all that good stuff.
Do you fear stepping up and being a blogging leader for the extra responsibility you need to take on? Do you fear ending the charade of claiming to be a fan of oodles of folks, when in truth, you have no interest in following so many folks and fawning all over them? I genuinely love my blogging buddies but clearly see I best help my followers by giving 99.99% of my attention and energy:
- @replying followers
- asking followers questions
- providing answers for followers
- tweeting content for followers
and by giving 0.01% of my attention and energy to following perhaps 2, 5 or 10 human beings. I learn all day long from folks I engage but distract the most valued lessons from my intuition and a few clear, distinct, posturing mentors who proved to be follow-worthy over the 12 years I have been online. I gladly give almost all my attention and energy to serving followers versus being a faux-fan of many Tweeters because even if I love these folk’s tweets, I do not have the time, attention and energy in 24 hours daily to actually:
- read their tweets
- process their tweets
- engage them
and being 100% genuine, I will never follow anyone again unless I find their content extremely valuable and highly relevant, and unless I engage them on Twitter here and there.
Let go the need to be a fan to coddle folks. Release the need to follow someone just to get their follow back. Earn followers based on your merit. Follow a select few human beings who uplift, empower and inspire you. Give the remaining energy to serving followers who follow you based on your merit, skills, credibility and value-added tweets. Grow your business from a posturing energy. Give little thought to folks who unfollow you because you no longer follow them; your job as a blogger is not to stroke egos or to make people feel important by adding to their illusory popularity, or to pump them up in non-genuine ways.
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Ryan Biddulph
A Blogging Geek from Paradise.
Ryan Biddulph inspires bloggers with his 100 plus eBooks, courses, audiobooks and blog at Blogging From Paradise.