Superb blog post. Shows the power of Twitter. Not even arrogant millionaires can be excused for having no manners and poor netiquette.

Let's hope he starts to engage in a more two way process and takes up the offer of some help with his tweeting!!

Duncan Bannatyne's anti-bullying stance expressed on Twitter doesn't really square with his in-person treatment of Bannatyne's gym staff.

The manager of my local Bannatyne's left without a job to go to she was that upset after Duncan Bannatyne shouted her out in front of gym staff.

Its a shame that it has come to this, however I feel that no matter who you are in the world, constructive criticism should be taken on board and not thrown back in the face of those who gave you it.

My only 'offence' in this whole charade, was that I stated I felt some of Duncan's tweets were inappropriate to his followers and I felt I had to unfollow him for this.

Then a barage of tweets came back at me, twisting round what had been said. For the record, I never once used offensive language in an attack towards him, did not criticise his committments to charity or demand that he followed me. All of which I was accused of.

I had been a loyal follower of Duncan's for some time, however now my estimations of him have really gone down. I apologise to anyone who may have taken offence to anything which I said.

I enjoyed using Twitter until now - from now on, I will use more cautiously.

Excellent article, as ever, Nigel. I agree that taking a rather arrogant position is doing Duncan Bannatyne no good.

However, I am not so sure that just because people follow you that out of courtesy you have to follow them. For instance, when you meet someone for the first time, down the pub, say, you might have a nice chat with them, but once they've left you are not really that bothered whether or not you meet with them again.

Equally, when you are at a business networking event there will inevitably be people you meet who you are polite to, but frankly cannot see any future relationship developing.

In both these situations you are deciding not to "follow" such people. The same is true on Twitter, just because someone connects with you, does not mean you have to return the compliment.

Also, as someone who spent some time working directly with pop stars and celebrities when I was in the record industry I know that they are in a very different world to the one we inhabit. The same, I am sure, is true for Duncan. Everyone wants to be his friend because they have already "connected" with him via the TV; we feel we "know" him already, when in fact we only know an image.

Celebrities and personalities are really quite "plagued" by people who want to "connect" with them. If they actually did connect with all the people who really wanted to be in "their gang" life would be intolerable for them. It is difficult to understand this if you have never seen the kind of clamour for connections these people have to endure. So I do have considerable sympathy for Duncan.

There is also one other element we need to consider. Some people like to get the "follow compliment" returned because they want to be able to tell their friends things like "Duncan Bannatyne follows me". In other words it is not necessarily about courtesy, but about having an ego snubbed.

Of course, it would be nice if Duncan had a better proportion of followers to followed. But there again, I am sympathetic to his position.

What's more, even though Twitter is a "social" network, there are no "rules" as far as I know in any social situation that says if someone connects with you then you must connect with them. You can always politely say "no thank you", which I think is what Duncan is actually doing. Looking through the list of people he follows I detect a significantly personal approach - family members, business associates and people he really knows. The 12,000 or so people following him are different - they don't know him, but think they do because of his celebrity status.

Having said all this, being a celebrity or a multimillionaire philanthropist does not give you the right to be rude or to bully people. Everyone, whether penniless or hugely rich, ill or well, educated or illiterate can easily be polite. It's not a lot to ask really, is it?

Today's whole debate with GillyMo was as bizarre as it was inexplicable.

Firstly though I must say that I don't share the view expressed (very eloquently albeit) in this blog that one should follow those who follow you out of courtesy and I think it was this opinion that partly got GillyMo into hot water today.

Personally I feel that is a custom that is anachronistic in the Twittershpere and anyone should feel free to follow or unfollow whomever they wish without risk of causing offence.

However, whether he agreed with this or not, Bannatyne should surely have been smart enough to know that the best response to a comment about him he didn't like was not to comment at all. In replying he only served to make everyone aware of the initial comment - surely he is smart enough to realise this?? As well as the fact that clearly @GillyMo hit some kind of nerve by unfollowing and making that fact public, even more bizarre was how the conversation moved (by Bannatyne) to how much money he gives to charity, even though GillyMo had never said anything about that.

In short I think it was a PR disaster for Bannatyne who, with no disrespect to GillyMo, has more to lose. Like it or not the fact is that in the eyes of many people he came across as egotistical, self-obsessed and a bully (as evidenced by many public tweets and @ replies to GillyMo).

In addition, this whole dispute only caused others who didn't like him to raise his constant habit of greeting celebrities and trying to curry their favour was also highlighted doing further damage to Bannatyne's reputation with many (though admittedly not all as loyal few stood by him).

Duncan Bannatyne goes to bed tonight a less popular man that he was before - no doubt about that - and it seems to me it was of his own making. His PR people will be wringing their hands.

I totally disagree with this notion (whose, exactly?) that it is 'good (n)etiquette to re-follow your followers'; to re-follow everyone who follows you is a very poor use of Twitter. Twitter is about following people YOU find interesting - not anyone who finds your posts interesting. The two won't always corrolate. It is also about engaging in conversation when the two do overlap.

To follow everyone who follows you makes your stream noisy, obscures the genuine items of interest and denigrates your online conversations/relationships with those you genuinely have a shared interest with, through noise and time poverty. And therefore misses the point entirely.

And this post from a PR company that gives talks on Twitter..?

Thank you everyone who has commented - some excellent points made here, not least those who disagree about it being good manners to 'follow back' those who follow you.

Graham Jones makes some excellent points about the pressure that celebrities are under because of the 'recognition' factor. Indeed at Tweet Ups it can be difficult when one of many followers comes up thinking that you follow what they say because you actually follow them!

Thanks too Steve, who certainly gets the PR dilemma here for Duncan Bannatyne's team and correctly identifies that not responding would be the best response.

Imagine for a moment that notional real world networking environment where you are unlikely to ignore someone who says hello. We see the 'follow back' as simply being polite and acknowledging that greeting and unless you have a handful of followers many of those you follow will disappear into the noise. This is the reality of big numbers in social media.

However, use a tool like Tweetdeck and you can group interesting tweets and searches for relevant information - and still politely follow people, even if you are not hanging on their every word.

Also, let's just consider where we come from on Twitter... we are a public relations consultancy who, like it or not, are helping businesses utilise social media to meet their objectives.

For many, significant numbers of followers helps achieve that and being reciprocal helps ensure those followers, however superficial, will still engage.

Tools created to better manage Twitter when you have high volumes reflect that this is the way the tool has evolved.

We are not saying you have to play the game this way, but if you are running a business then there is a good chance numbers will work here, much as fans do on facebook and contrary to LinkedIn where personal relationships count for much more.

Twitter can still be about friends chatting - we use it for that. However, for many it is about achieving wider aims than simply chatting.

Finally, let us just think how @gillymo feels today after being battered and bruised on Twitter because she did what she felt was right. Now that is wrong.

Duncan Bannatyne to me was someone that I admired mainly because he had worked hard for what he had achieved and was a very down to earth person. I contacted him awhile ago asking if he would let me publish a section about him on my website (under Spotlight)which he agreed to, furnishing me with the means to contact him.

The page was created and I put on it as much interesting information that I could glean from the internet. I contacted Duncan asking if he would answer a few questions that firstly would give more insight into his life, and secondly would make his page more personal and not just something copied from elsewhere.

I received no reply.

The only way I managed to contact him about this was via Twitter which, as anyone who Twitters will know, is very impersonal. Eventually he said he would get his secretary to reply which she did after some prompting only to tell me that Duncan would not answer my questions.

Fair comment and I accepted this.

The next thing that happened is that someone posted a question on Twitter asking why Bannatyne had stopped following her and curious about this I checked myself and surprise, surprise, he had stopped following me as well. The poster implied that Bannatyne had used people just to get his followers count up. Maybe he did, I don’t know, but I was a bit surprised when he knew that I was trying to support him, allbeit in a small way, with my site, but I had been cut off without any notice.

I checked and was told Bannatyne had pruned his followers because he could not respond to everyone. Again fair comment but where did this leave me?

This is my opinion and how I see what happened but if this is the way he treats people who have supported him but are not of the ’status’ he requires then I wish him well. He does not need money but perhaps he needs and desires recognition and acceptance amongst the ‘luvvies’.

I cannot support him anymore.

Duncan Bannatyne always comes across like this so one could argue that if you follow are prepared for such tweets. Also, I think it’s important to remember that tone and context doesn’t always translate very well in to tweets or indeed on the Internet in general.

Re the following all your followers, I don’t see the point. I like to read tweets from those I’m genuinely interested in as I like to engage on twitter not just post one sided tweets. Like a pervious comment said, if celebs were to follow all their followers they’d not get the same pleasure out of twitter that we all do, and why shouldn’t they?

Also, I suggest that @gillymo doesn’t take it too seriously. It’s a website at the end of the day and unless its going to do some form of damage to her brand just brush it off and move on. Duncan Bannatyne has built his whole career on having the attitude he has, he won’t change it because a few people on twitter are having a pop.

In my opinion there are few celebs worth following in the first place, they rarely interact and the majority post very boring “watch my show”, “buy my single” tweets, stick to the real people, just follow who you find interesting and enjoy twitter for what it is!

Rachael

I really don't have a problem with people on twitter following as many or as few people as they like. Just because I am interested in their tweets about one thing, doesn't mean they will be interested in mine.

While I feel Duncan could have handled this better, I can't really bring myself to feel too annoyed. After all, we are just as capable of ignoring him on twitter as he is of ignoring us. The Unfollow button is your friend. And we can always go one step further and block him if he really gets on our nerves.

I did however take a look at who Duncan WAS following and discovered @BannatyneGroup. I do get irritated when companies and brands don't follow back. It puts out a message that what Bannetyne Group's customers have to say is not valued. I think this is very short sighted. Those followers have expressed an interest in your brand. That probably makes them a customer or likely to become a customer in the future. That's one conversation I wouldn't want to be missing out on.

I'm a big fan of DD and Duncan was one of my favourites until i started following him on Twitter. Its a shame how someone you look up to and admire can end up being such a jerk!

What I have noticed as well is that he tries to get famous people to talk to him or follow him, but it doesn't always work.

He says that people who kick up about him not following them back only want attention, I found that to be a contradiction in itself.

I stopped following him last night after he bullied that poor girl...

This is not the first time Duncan has incited his followers to hurl abuse at someone who makes a comment he disagrees with.

I have also been on the receiving end of Duncans wrath! He is very good at twisting things in his tweets to make you look bad.

He is more interested in getting celebs to follow him and is forever tweeting them and asking if they are following him.

He does of course have the right to follow or unfollow who ever he likes, However, yesterdays rantings from him at @gillymo were totally unfounded and over the top.

He seems to need to have his ego boosted on a regular basis, and I fear this will not be the last attack on someone who was a genuine fan/follower.

He should stop acting like some kind of twitter god and come back down to earth!

I completely agree with Graham that there is no need to follow your followers - but there is never an excuse to be rude.

People have different attitudes to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and it can be useful to use their numbers of followers/friends to gauge how they are using it.

I have heard people defend an 'open networking' approach to LinkedIn. Personally, I find it irritating when people I know connect with others that they don't know - but that certainly does not give me an excuse to be rude to them. One thing I do know is this: I would never do business with someone with a reputation for bullying or rudeness on social media or anywhere else.

Great post. This is an excellent illustration of one of the things I love about Twitter: it's very difficult to be anything other than yourself because of its immediacy.

I've stopped following all celebs except for Stephen Fry, who is marvellously funny and comes across as a thoroughly nice chap. I've also stopped following multiple journalists, PRs and others who like the sound of their own voices too much or are arrogant, rude and lazy - traits that I deplore in others.

I run a small business and i dont know half as much about business as Duncan,but i thought he would be savvy enough to know that as far as The Bannatyne Group are concerned it would be good business sense to follow people back.

I came across @gillymo yesterday whilst on twitter as a fellow mum of twins. I was horrified to pick up the thread of the @duncanBannatyne saga and so read back through the tweets.

The man is a bully and totally unjustified in his continued comments even after @gillymo left a tweet apologising for her comments. @gillymo was clearly distraught last night and still very much upset this morning, so much so that she closed her account.

Looking back over his tweets "the man doth protest to much methinks !" (please excuse the misquote) I have stopped following @duncanBannatyne.

Couldn't disagree more on the autofollow. It just means that you get spammed relentlessly by those looking for people who use autofollow.

On the subject of the article it would seem that somebody believes his own publicity. I like Bannatyne on DD but that doesn't mean he is above reproach. Manners on social networks are important but so too is the ability to filter out real information from the dross and choosing your twitterers who you follow is an important part of that process.

I am afraid I disagree wholly with pretty much everything that has thus far been written here.

What we have is a 60 year old self proclaimed technophobe attempting to engage in social media without any real knowledge of it.

It is incorrect to portray @gillmo as some poor little victim of an attack by a celebrity. Whilst Mr B was apparently brusque in his manner (as is his way), she was trying to push a point somewhat tediously, and given that he can be baited several times in one day, one can (and in my opinion should) look with more forgiving eyes at his response.

As for his alleged refusal to engage, again I have to disagree. From what I have seen, he responds to most people who message him, and indeed, via contacting him on twitter I arranged an interview with him for our very fledgling Ezine (November will be our third edition and will publish that interview) and had a very enjoyable telephone chat with him.

Yes, he does appear to be and come across as brusque - but he is very aware that his very brusqueness is part of his "brand", and in most instances he is having something of a giggle with his followers and it is done tongue in cheek.

As for his stated response to not following his followers, I say kudos to him for his honesty. Yes, he can simply follow everyone back, and then use a tool such as tweetdeck to filter his stream. However, doing that means he is not really following you anyway - and what would you rather? An apparent follow from someone who isn't actually reading your tweets in any event, or some honesty, a justifiable reason why, and a promise to respond to as many messages addressed to him @?

I'm with Amanda on this one.

Afraid I'm with Amanda (Quinn) too. Although I do think the whole thing has been blown a little out of proportion. It's making National News for goodness sake.

I have to wonder if the same comments would have been made had the person in question not been a celebrity. If so, is this simply about Bannatyne's celebrity status? The comment about his 'newbie' status in twitter is wholly relevant. I, too, am relatively new to twitter and occasionally get it wrong. I would be horrified to think that I would be hung, drawn and quartered for engaging in a style not in accordance with someone else's standard!

Surely a quiet nudge in the right direction would be a more becoming attitude than slating someone's efforts?? Many celebrities using twitter clearly allow their PRs to tweet their comments... at the very least Bannatyne writes his own. Why not simply take him at face value?

Btw... you mis-spelled Bannatyne's mis-spelling ;o)

(Note from Ed. Thanks Linda, good to have a colleague of Amanada Quinn's making their case too and I look forward to reading the interview with Duncan in your e-zine! I assure you it does happen to Newbies of all kinds, but anyone with a profile runs a higher risk as the media follow them on Twitter by default.

Social media can be an unforgiving mistress for certain, but being gracious and admitting0 when you are wrong normally leads to a swift recovery.)

Amanda, I think you've missed the point. Being 60 and a technophobe doesn't excuse how rude Duncan Bannatyne was to @gillymo. He actively tweeted to cause her distress and used his position to bring pressure to bear on her (subsequently leading to her having to delete her account and change her Twitter ID - such a shame).

That has nothing to do with his unfamiliarity with the platform; it's plain old-fashioned bullying.

That said, I don't expect either you or Phil Hopkins to see this perspective given that a quick scan of your Tweet stream shows multiple friendly message exchanges with Duncan.

Mr Bannatyne is a man with a serious chip on his shoulder. I was recently subjected to a brutal attack by him on Twitter – calling me a liar, low, dishonest and having no values – because I told him that his staff were signing under 18′s up for gym memberships. He then cancelled my own membership and banned me from attending the gym. I was also banned from following him on Twitter. I truly feel sorry for a man with so much anger.