New to nostr. I'm not a social media veteran. Can someone explain this to me: Someone follows me on nostr and maybe likes a note. Then, I check out their page, and usually follow them back. I then immediately get a notification that they unfollowed my account. What was the purpose of following me to begin with? At first I thought it was just a weird quirk, but it's been happening constantly. Is there a purpose to this behavior?
Discussion
Can't say for sure why that happens, but there is usually a lot of "follow hopping" (for the lack of a better term).
On Nostr, follows are not as important as they would be on Twitter, for instance. People come and go as they see fit and you notice it. Since you see the unfollows, I assume you are using Primal - to my knowledge the only client that even shows that.
Don't be discouraged by this - just keep trucking along. Whilst following itself is not a big part of Nostr, it is one nevertheless. Follow the ones you truely want to follow and interact with them if you feel like it. A form of consistency matters much more.
An example is how I have a few people that follow me that very actively talk to me (or scold me xD) like nostr:npub1wprtv89px7z2ut04vvquscpmyfuzvcxttwy2csvla5lvwyj807qqz5aqle and I make sure to talk back as well.
A very oversimplified and over-the-top metaphor could be: On Twitter, everyone just stares at you waiting to do something spectacular and praise you from time to time. On Nostr, they don't stick and wait - rather, it is much more common for you to go to them and talk to them. Again; probably not the most accurate way of describing it but... i hope you get the gist. ^^;
I unfollowed some accounts after days & weeks, when they posted way too much boring stuff. Some people post something every couple of minutes...
When they however immediately unfollow, right when you follow back, then this sounds like this scumbag tactic, mostly used by malicious bots, which farm follows for weeks or months & then post ads/scams/propaganda & justify their account's existinece through the amount of followers.
I would recommend to only follow if you have a legitimate interest in that account's content.