Setting unfollow rules
Unfollow non-followers after a grace period of at least seven days, plus accounts dormant for six months. Build the whitelist before the first run, not after.
- 1
Build the whitelist first
Customers, clients, partners, friends, journalists in your field, and anyone whose writing you rely on. None of them owe you a follow back, and removing one to improve a ratio is a bad trade. Treat it as permanent — a whitelist you rebuild each campaign will eventually miss somebody.
- 2
Set a grace period of seven days or more
Fourteen is better. Real people check notifications weekly, not hourly, so a shorter window measures whether somebody happened to be online rather than whether they wanted to follow you back.
- 3
Add a dormant-account rule
Anyone who has not posted in six months is not reading your timeline either. This is usually the second largest group after non-followers.
- 4
Set a conservative daily number
20 to 30 a day under three months old, 50 to 80 up to a year, 100 to 150 once established. Run it at a different time of day from your following.
If you have a backlog
The instinct is to clear three thousand accounts today. That produces a pattern no person produces and is a common cause of restrictions.
At sixty a day the same backlog clears in under two months and never looks unusual at any point. If you need it faster, ramp the daily number up over a fortnight rather than starting high.
Does unfollowing hurt engagement?
No. Engagement rate is measured against your follower count, and unfollowing changes who you follow, not who follows you. Your followers are not notified and the denominator does not move.
Your own timeline usually improves, which is the part people notice first.
More on account
- Billing, plans and cancelling
Paid plans are charged when you check out and monthly after that. Cancelling is self-service from the cancel page, takes effect immediately, and needs no phone call.
Still stuck? Email info@tweeksocial.com.