In line with my recent announcement I have decided to purge my social networks and start again. And today I’m going to tell you why I did it, how I did it, and why you should do it too.

My relationship with Twitter has historically been very bumpy. Using my own home brew of methods and tricks I managed to build my Twitter following to over 20,000 followers in a few months. However, since I was pretty aggressive in my pursuance of a high follower count my Twitter account was suspended after a number of people complained that I was gaming the system and encouraging others to do the same.

A few weeks later I sent Twitter a copy of my methods, explaining that I believed that were unfair to suspend me. They agreed and reactivated my account.

And then suspended it again.

And then reactivated it again.

And then suspended the account of a band I play.

And then reactivate it again.

And then suspended both accounts again.

I think it’s time we started to speak openly about just what is going on at Twitter and their changing stance towards those who want, for any reason, a high follower count.

Twitter doesn’t like people chasing numbers. And that is a position that is becoming increasingly aggressive as time goes on. If you are in the follower business, whether you are selling accounts with followers already intact, selling methods that concentrate on followers as a metric, or selling software that automatically builds a following for you, then Twitter don’t like you. In fact, they hate you.

This left me with a choice. I could either stay angry at Twitter forever or just accept the fact that Twitter is a company that can make it’s own rules and I have to accept those rules if I want to use their system. I decided to take the latter of those 2 options.

At this point I need to put something to the side, something that I will talk about in another post, something that I need to get off my chest lest I be accused of being too pro Twitter. I am fully aware that Twitter bends the rules for many of its users. Twitter makes bold claims that it will suspend the accounts of anyone who is obviously using automated reciprocal methods to boost an artificial follower count or posting pornography or any other kind of spam. They also, publicly, take a very dim view of the sponsored Tweet market. However, Twitter is very happy to turn a blind eye to anyone with a verified account, or anyone who they feel will benefit them on Twitter, who engages in that kind of activity.

Many of the so called social media gurus auto follow, many porn stars have accounts, some that are verified by Twitter, and many celebrities have sponsorship deals that control their Tweets.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Moving on with the original point of this post…

A few weeks ago I opened a fresh Twitter account @447records. The choice of username will, hopefully, bring a smile of recognition to the faces of anyone who knows me, whilst bringing a wrinkled brow of confusion to anyone who doesn’t. That is a deliberate move. My new brand, a personal brand, is 447records. A series of letters and numbers that will only mean something to people that really know me.

Why have I chosen such an obscure brand name? Because branding is about closeness and connection. Social networking even more so. Therefore, it makes sense that I will only network socially with people who I know.

Within a few weeks my Twitter following was hovering around the 5,000 follower mark. I didn’t use any tricks to get it there other than some free directory listings and some tools available at socialtoo.com.

I did, however, reciprocate my following. Anyone who followed me, I followed back.

And that resulted in me following some people who I really shouldn’t have followed. Spam accounts soon targeted me as an account that would follow back and within a few weeks it became apparent that my follow count was riding high on a wave of automated drones.

In order for me to start with a fresh perspective I needed to purge my account, unfollow everyone, and then start adding people that I know, people that I really want to listen to, by hand, 1 at a time.

There are many options available to anyone who wants to unfollow everyone on Twitter but the only reliable method that won’t raise any flags with Twitter, and call me paranoid if you wish, is to unfollow by hand.

The whole process of unfollowing around 5,000 people took around 2 hours. Mind numbingly boring but worth it.

And then the fun really started.

My follower count dropped almost immediately to 4,000 followers, and then to 3,000 followers, and then as low as 1,500 followers. Clearly, many of my followers had systems in place to automatically unfollow me if I unfollowed them. Something that Twitter is currently attempting to outlaw. Perhaps they need to try a little harder. This didn’t worry me since I knew the people that were automating their account following and unfollowing were probably not listening to me anyway.

Even though my follower count is a lot lower than the figured that I achieved over the last 6 months using my own tricks and methods, I feel that my new Twitter account is more useable and, though it remains to be seen, much more effective at connecting with like minded individuals. Which is surely the whole point of social networking, isn’t it?

And that’s why I think you should consider doing the same thing. If you are following more people than you can keep track of purge your account and start again from scratch, only adding people who you really want to listen to. It might hurt your follower count in the short term but it will increase your credibility, and you sense of social networking self worth, more than you can imagine.

Leave the number chasing to the self appointed social media gurus and fake celebrities.

If you would like to follow me, either now or after you’ve purged your account, then please do so @447records.