That sentence above was the top search term bringing people to this website a few days ago. Now, apparently it was taking them to this article about Twitter limits, which is fine, but it worries me that people are searching for this exact phrase. So I want to have a little talk with this searcher, if you don’t mind.

Dear anonymous hoards of searchers looking for the phrase “How to force a person to follow you on Twitter”:

I couldn’t help but notice that you were looking for this. There are quite a few of you looking for this, apparently, based on the number of times these words got you here. But since you are here, let me explain something to you.

You don’t want what you think you want.

No matter the reasons why you may think you want to be able to force people to follow you on Twitter, you don’t really want that. No, I’m serious, you don’t.

Because let’s think about it. How could you “force” someone to follow you on Twitter? The very phrase implies you are making them do it against their will. So are you trying to trick them? Fool them? Scam them somehow into following you?

And then what? As soon as they realize they are following someone that they didn’t want to follow, they are going to get annoyed. They are going to, at the least, unfollow you, at the most, block you and report you to Twitter. Why would you possibly want that?

Is it a celebrity? Ex-girlfriend? Someone you are a little obsessed with and you want to follow back for your own reasons?

Instead of working on figuring out how to force them into a follow that will lead nowhere, why not work on how you use Twitter. After all, if you are charming/funny/useful on Twitter, chances are good that most people will want to follow you anyway of their own free will instead of being forced into it. You’re going to get higher quality followers that way who will actually stay around and be engaged and interested in what you have to say.

And if all you are trying to do is build your follow count, you’re missing the whole point of Twitter. Meaningless hordes of followers are nothing compared to a small but useful, targeted number of followers. Follow people that you are interested in and, if they like you, they will follow you back. Those are the followers that matter.

To anyone reading this, what would you say to someone who typed in this search? If you are someone who searched for this sentence, maybe you can explain to us what you are trying to find so we can steer you in the right direction.

In the meantime, you have to follow me on Twitter. I’m FORCING you to. 😉