It seems these days tweeters are going out of their way to keep their number of followers down. Here are some of the secrets they use to stop people from following them.
Protect your tweets
If you are serious about keeping your number of followers to a minimum, be sure to protect your tweets. Make it as difficult as possible for others to follow you. It is a surefire way to stop people from adding you when they see the little lock icon next to your name. Some may attempt to get past your firewall, but many others will turn and walk away in defeat when they see Twitter's version of "No Trespassing" posted next to your name.
To protect your tweets, go to your avatar in the upper right-hand corner of your Twitter screen, select "Settings" from the drop down box and then "Security and Privacy" from the menu on the left. Be sure to select “Protect my Tweets.” While you are there, also deselect “Let others find me by my email address” and select “Do not allow anyone to tag me in photos.” Staying incognito is the key to keeping followers away.
Keep the egghead avatar
Nothing says "spammer” like an egghead avatar, and it too will stop people from following you. Many Twitter tracker programs, such as unfollowers.com, will help you keep away the masses by highlighting to their users those tweeters who use this avator and make it very easy for them to unfollow you.
Link from Facebook
One of the best ways to keep away followers is also the easiest. Link from Facebook! Now you do not even need to sign on to Twitter and interact with others to get unfollowed! It is all automatic. Just post to Facebook and have that post automatically appear on your Twitter feed. Soon the followers you do have will run from you in droves when they see a post like “I posted a new photo to Facebook fb.me/2zzzXX53zq” or simply “fb.me/2zzzXX53zq” with no explanation whatsoever to the link. Nothing says indifference more to your followers than running your account from another website.
Never post pictures
Since studies show that adding a picture to a post will generate a 35% bump to that post compared to other posts by the same user, do not ever post pictures. Retweets only spread your post to others throughout Twitter, which will only bring you more followers and heartache.
Never retweet
Do not waste your time promoting others’ tweets. Retweeting others posts will only show that you are interacting with others and being an active member in the Twitter community, a community to which you obviously do not want to belong if you are reading this article. Show other tweeters you only care about yourself and only post your information. This is definitely a way to keep you standing alone. People with millions of followers retweet often. For example, @JustinBieber (with 57 million followers) retweets about twenty to thirty percent of the time on his feed. Obviously, this practice goes against your goal of keeping your followers away, so do not retweet, even in an emergency. You will only get goodwill and more followers in return.
Create a disproportionate following/follower ratio
If you have sixty followers, follow thousands of people. Yes, this may seem to go against logical thinking that people who follow a lot of people are looking for followers. In fact, this is a great secret for those who want to keep their numbers low. It sends out a red flag telling everyone that out of thousands of people, only sixty people wanted to follow you. They, in turn, will not want to waste their time adding you to their news feed. Success for you! Also, do not fall for the trick of following around the same number of followers as you have, as this will slowly increase your numbers over time and you'll be horrified at the number of followers you will accumulate gradually. The Twitter trackers are helpful here once again. They let their users know if people they follow are “uninfluential,” meaning they follow far more people than those who follow them, and quickly allows their users to unfollow them. Staying as uninfluential as possible will help you keep your numbers down.
Also, if you have had the unfortunate luck to have a lot of followers and do not want any more of those pesky peasants, follow less people. A lot less. If you have 2,000 followers and follow twenty, people will surely notice. Let your followers know you have no intention of ever following them back or retweeting them. Be very clear it is all about you. In time, they will leave.
Tweet hundreds, maybe thousands, of tweets when you have a small amount of followers
If you have sixty followers and have more than 500 tweets, a prospective follower will look at your account and assume your posts are garbage as the ratio of tweets to followers is high. If you are in this situation, make sure you do not go through and cut out old tweets that were not retweeted to bring that number down.
Overload your posts with hashtags and @ signs
#It’s #difficult @to #try to #read a @post #overfilled with @punctuation #marks!!!!! @People @will #eventually #unfollow #you when @you #give @them a #migraine!!!!
Don’t ever use hashtags
This may sound contrary to the above statement. However, using hashtags will increase your retweets, and draw attention to yourself, if you limit them to one or two at the end of your tweet for better readability, so don’t do that. #stopthefollowers
Ignore the fact you are not getting retweeted
If no one is retweeting you, congratulations! Your tweets stink and do not engage your followers. They serve only you and do not bring others value. You are now on the way to no followers!
Drop the F bomb repeatedly
Weaken your message as much as possible by resorting to swearing to make your point. Just like in real life your ineffective communication skills will push away others. Unfortunately, you will attract other poor communicators using this technique, but as long as you are keeping away the influential tweeters who may retweet your post to tens of thousands of followers, you will not be risking yourself to a sudden surge in followers. In addition, there are many tweeters who will unfollow you immediately when they see swearing, so use it constantly.
Have a really funky user name like "* ! )) # >>?@"
Less people will follow you when they see your name in a list because they will assume you are an idiot.
Don’t follow trends
Whenever possible, stay away from using the key words or hash tags trending on the left-hand portion of your screen, and definitely do not join in on the discussion that everyone else on Twitter has joined in on at the moment. Imagine the amount of people you could reach with one witty tweet. The amount of followers you could get should give you the heebie-jeebies.
Never tweet
Never tweet. Each time you tweet, you draw attention to yourself. Someone may retweet you, and that would be awful. So do not tweet. Stay hidden.
Churn
Finally, if all else fails, churn. Churning is following a large amount of followers so they follow you. Once they do, unfollow most of them and then follow another large group of people. Now this may seem like you are going against your goal – you will have a large following at once. Be patient! The payoff is at the end when Twitter suspends your account and you are unable to access your account at all. You have now achieved your goal of zero followers.
Link from Facebook
One of the best ways to keep away followers is also the easiest. Link from Facebook! Now you do not even need to sign on to Twitter and interact with others to get unfollowed! It is all automatic. Just post to Facebook and have that post automatically appear on your Twitter feed. Soon the followers you do have will run from you in droves when they see a post like “I posted a new photo to Facebook fb.me/2zzzXX53zq” or simply “fb.me/2zzzXX53zq” with no explanation whatsoever to the link. Nothing says indifference more to your followers than running your account from another website.
Never post pictures
Since studies show that adding a picture to a post will generate a 35% bump to that post compared to other posts by the same user, do not ever post pictures. Retweets only spread your post to others throughout Twitter, which will only bring you more followers and heartache.
Never retweet
Do not waste your time promoting others’ tweets. Retweeting others posts will only show that you are interacting with others and being an active member in the Twitter community, a community to which you obviously do not want to belong if you are reading this article. Show other tweeters you only care about yourself and only post your information. This is definitely a way to keep you standing alone. People with millions of followers retweet often. For example, @JustinBieber (with 57 million followers) retweets about twenty to thirty percent of the time on his feed. Obviously, this practice goes against your goal of keeping your followers away, so do not retweet, even in an emergency. You will only get goodwill and more followers in return.
Create a disproportionate following/follower ratio
If you have sixty followers, follow thousands of people. Yes, this may seem to go against logical thinking that people who follow a lot of people are looking for followers. In fact, this is a great secret for those who want to keep their numbers low. It sends out a red flag telling everyone that out of thousands of people, only sixty people wanted to follow you. They, in turn, will not want to waste their time adding you to their news feed. Success for you! Also, do not fall for the trick of following around the same number of followers as you have, as this will slowly increase your numbers over time and you'll be horrified at the number of followers you will accumulate gradually. The Twitter trackers are helpful here once again. They let their users know if people they follow are “uninfluential,” meaning they follow far more people than those who follow them, and quickly allows their users to unfollow them. Staying as uninfluential as possible will help you keep your numbers down.
Also, if you have had the unfortunate luck to have a lot of followers and do not want any more of those pesky peasants, follow less people. A lot less. If you have 2,000 followers and follow twenty, people will surely notice. Let your followers know you have no intention of ever following them back or retweeting them. Be very clear it is all about you. In time, they will leave.
Tweet hundreds, maybe thousands, of tweets when you have a small amount of followers
If you have sixty followers and have more than 500 tweets, a prospective follower will look at your account and assume your posts are garbage as the ratio of tweets to followers is high. If you are in this situation, make sure you do not go through and cut out old tweets that were not retweeted to bring that number down.
Overload your posts with hashtags and @ signs
#It’s #difficult @to #try to #read a @post #overfilled with @punctuation #marks!!!!! @People @will #eventually #unfollow #you when @you #give @them a #migraine!!!!
Don’t ever use hashtags
This may sound contrary to the above statement. However, using hashtags will increase your retweets, and draw attention to yourself, if you limit them to one or two at the end of your tweet for better readability, so don’t do that. #stopthefollowers
Ignore the fact you are not getting retweeted
If no one is retweeting you, congratulations! Your tweets stink and do not engage your followers. They serve only you and do not bring others value. You are now on the way to no followers!
Drop the F bomb repeatedly
Weaken your message as much as possible by resorting to swearing to make your point. Just like in real life your ineffective communication skills will push away others. Unfortunately, you will attract other poor communicators using this technique, but as long as you are keeping away the influential tweeters who may retweet your post to tens of thousands of followers, you will not be risking yourself to a sudden surge in followers. In addition, there are many tweeters who will unfollow you immediately when they see swearing, so use it constantly.
Have a really funky user name like "* ! )) # >>?@"
Less people will follow you when they see your name in a list because they will assume you are an idiot.
Don’t follow trends
Whenever possible, stay away from using the key words or hash tags trending on the left-hand portion of your screen, and definitely do not join in on the discussion that everyone else on Twitter has joined in on at the moment. Imagine the amount of people you could reach with one witty tweet. The amount of followers you could get should give you the heebie-jeebies.
Never tweet
Never tweet. Each time you tweet, you draw attention to yourself. Someone may retweet you, and that would be awful. So do not tweet. Stay hidden.
Churn
Finally, if all else fails, churn. Churning is following a large amount of followers so they follow you. Once they do, unfollow most of them and then follow another large group of people. Now this may seem like you are going against your goal – you will have a large following at once. Be patient! The payoff is at the end when Twitter suspends your account and you are unable to access your account at all. You have now achieved your goal of zero followers.
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