Follower Fail

I have a confession to make...I'm a failing follower.  I'm one of those people who think that I'm following you, but I'm really not.  How does something like that happen?  

Well, to begin with a lot of people that I follow RT similar people.  I may think that I'm following you because your tweets are continuously in my Twitter feed.  But upon visiting my followers list I discover that, um...I'm not.   Thank goodness that I have a great PLN who finds tweet gems and RTs them.  If it weren't for them I'd be missing out on some top notch edu-stuff.  They are truly taking care of me.

Can I just blame it on my Twitter client?  I love my Hootesuite.  I use it on my PC, iPad, and Droid.  It lets me create a variety of lists so that I can keep track of tweets of my favorite #hashtags and Twitter lists.  One, that @mbfxc & I co-moderate, is #digcit.  There are some frequent tweeters on #digcit and their contributions add a lot to the conversation about digital citizenship.  However...because they're often tweeting links and posts to #digcit I mistakenly think that I'm following them.  

I have two examples that my friends raz me about.  For the longest time I thought that I was following @K_Rose2011 only to discover when attempting to DM her that I hadn't been. I treasure her kind - hearted and thought provoking tweets.  Once I discovered that I was not following her I quickly remedied that and privately explained my mistake.  If you follow me or @mbfxc you probably know that we often tweet back and forth to each other.  I can't tell you how many times she has said to me, "Hey, thanks for following me today!"  I somehow accidentally unfollow and follow her often when I'm in Hootesuite; pretty simple for someone who has such limited coordination. 

In the age of social media with a lot of folks working to brand themselves and amass as large of an online entourage as possible...don't get too upset if you notice someone is not following you.  It could be an accident.  They could be following other people who follow and RT you.  It could also be that they think you are such a rock star tweeter that they added you to a list and see all of your slamming tweets when checking their lists' feed.  And then again, it could be that you often include one of their favorite #hashtags in your tweets and so they often see your tweets that way.  Here's the good news: your tweets are still finding a way to that tweeter and are impacting their educational practice.