The last few days I’ve done something which might be seen to be a bit mad on social media. On Twitter, I’ve stopped following thousands and thousands of accounts. And I’ve also done that for Sue as well.
Now this might be seen as an absolutely crazy thing to do. Both of us have got accounts which have thousands and thousands of followers so why would we get rid of so many of them?

I just felt that in 2019 our social media activity should be about being ourselves, being authentic, having our own voice. And although on Twitter you can use lists so that you can make sure that what you look at looks sensible. Why should you have to do that?

When I look at my news feed on Twitter it was just crazy, there’s tens of thousands of accounts in there and I have no connection to them apart from the fact that I follow them and they follow me back. I don’t interact with them, I don’t get work from them, so what is the point? And many of those accounts just retweet other people’s tweets with no explanation of why they’re doing it, or any added perspective, they just retweet everything.
So I see multiple things multiple times. So I’ve made the decision to almost start again.

So I’ve unfollowed thousands of accounts, yes, I have had some feedback from people saying, I am a bot, and I’ve just got to a certain point and now I’ve decided just to unfollow everyone. I haven’t, it has taken hours / days to do this, and if people interact with me, then I’ll follow them back. But I think you shouldn’t have a news feed that you’re scared to look at.

I see a lot of successful (or so-called successful Twitter accounts) which have 100,000 followers and they follow 100,000 back and you think, where is the fun in that? What do they get out of that?

So, I’m not going down that route. So, this is an experiment and I shall report back on how things go. But at the moment, it’s early days, but my news feed is great again, I’m seeing people I haven’t seen for years. I’m seeing people I care about and I’m interacting with them and it feels absolutely fantastic so, that’s my thing for 2019 social media it’s having your own voice and not whispering behind someone else’s louder voice.

Phil Aston