Twitter is one of the world’s top 3 social media networks, together with Instagram and Facebook. The problem with Twitter, however, is that growth depends heavily on your following/followers ratio. The more followers you have and the fewer people you’re following, the more appeal your account will have and more legit it will appear to people.
Inactive Twitter accounts that you follow are essentially dead weights around your account’s proverbial feet, and if you used the follow4follow technique, your account is likely riddled with these. Unfollowing them manually is always an option, but if the list is long, you might want to automate the process.
Reasons for Unfollowing Inactive Twitter Accounts
In addition to the main reason stated above, there are others that will hinder your Twitter activity. For one, inactive accounts don’t engage in conversations on Twitter, and discussions are in the very foundation of the platform. Secondly, inactive accounts will not retweet your posts, which is an essential part of your Twitter presence.
Thirdly, as stated above, inactive accounts increase your following count, which leaves a mark on your Twitter ratio. Finally, following a lot of inactive accounts decreases your profile’s authority and influence measure.
Manually Unfollowing Inactive Twitter Accounts
Your first option may be to manually unfollow accounts that aren’t active. This is great if you only have a handful of inactive accounts to remove. One hiccup you’ll run into is knowing which accounts are inactive.
Interestingly, Twitter’s platform allows you to easily see who is following you, but not the other way around. If you click on your profile icon in the top left-hand corner of the application, you will see the number of followers you have and the number of people you are following. By tapping on either one of these options, you’ll only see those who you are following.
This makes it difficult to delete the inactive Twitter accounts you are following because you may not know the usernames.
Here’s how to manually unfollow Twitter accounts:
- Scroll through your timeline and click on a Tweet from the account in question.
- Tap on the account name.
- Tap Following in the upper left-hand side
All done. But if you haven’t noticed, option 1 will present an issue with inactive accounts because there won’t be any recent tweets.
How to unfollow inactive user accounts – if you know the username
Assuming you know the usernames of each inactive accounts, you can do this:
- Tap on the Search Twitter bar located at the top of your screen.
- Type in the name of the person or username of the account.
- Tap on the correct account in the search list that appears.
- Tap on the Following icon on the top right-hand side of the page.
- Confirm when the pop-up asks if you’d like to unfollow this account.
It’s unlikely that you’ll know the usernames of all the inactive accounts that you’re following. This is where third-party tools come in.
Tools for Unfollowing Inactive Twitter Accounts
As you can see above, Twitter does not make it easy to follow inactive Twitter accounts. Hence, users must resort to third-party tools for the task. The overall consensus is that these tools allow you to filter accounts making it easier to unfollow them.
As of April 2020, Circleboom seems to be the most reliable. Although there are several applications in the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, the reviews aren’t very reliable. We’ll review the Circleboom platform for its ability to aid in the management of Twitter accounts.
Circleboom
Circleboom seems to be the most reliable resource for managing Twitter accounts at the moment. From unfollowing inactive Twitter accounts to managing likes and tweets, this is a free service with paid options available for those who’d like to do more.
By visiting the Circleboom webpage, you can log into your Twitter account and begin filtering the accounts that you’re following.
From the webpage, follow these steps:
- Click Get Started in the upper right-hand corner
- Click the Inactive Friends box.
- Scroll down and click Visit, located on the lower left-hand side.
- A pop-up will appear with the Twitter account. Hover your cursor over the Following button; once it turns red and says Unfollow, click the option.
You can do this for each account in the list. You can also blacklist or white list every inactive account by doing this:
- Click the select all box.
- Select the option to blacklist or whitelist the accounts.
Circleboom will show you the analytics of the account as well. From how many followers to days since the last Tweet, you will be informed of the account activity before unfollowing the account.
Unfollowing Multiple Inactive Accounts
Circleboom makes unfollowing inactive Twitter accounts easier (or even possible, depending on the last Tweet or usernames you have available. It does not, however, give you the ability to unfollow multiple inactive accounts all at one time.
To unfollow all Twitter accounts, you can install the Mass Follow Google Chrome Extension.
It’s important to mention that these tools are ever-evolving; some that worked previously might no longer work.
While the free account option allows you to unfollow inactive accounts, Circleboom does have a paid monthly or yearly subscription service for those who need to do more. Ranging from $15.83/month to $79.99/month, this service seems to do exactly what we need it to do right now.
Unchain Your Twitter Account
Twitter has made unfollowing hard for a reason, and many tools are being shut down on the basis of using the Twitter API. Manually unfollowing people will take some time, depending on the number of accounts that you’re following. However, you can rest assured that the people you’re following matter just as much as your own following.
What unfollow tools do you use? Have you tried ManageFlitter and UnTweeps? What are your thoughts on these cool tools? Type in your answers in the list below and, well, follow us on Twitter.
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