Why don't brands follow their customers on Twitter?

I recently realized that I haven't posted since August.  Not that anyone is distraught with the lack of attention to this blog, but I should keep up with it, right?

I do have an excuse of a couple of weeks of personal vacation, some business travel and working on an article on “Using Social Media as Part of an Effective Brand/Marketing Strategy" for the December 2012 issue of the International Franchise Association's "Franchising World" Magazine.

Oh, and I do have my day job which fortunately has been extremely busy.

Anyway, in doing the research for the Franchising World  piece, and as an extension of my August post here, I thought it would be interesting to not only look at the top Franchise Brands' number of Twitter followers:

Concept	Twitter  Followers
Subway	753,749
McDonalds	717,350
Taco Bell	268,049
Chick-fil-A	198,263
Dunkin	177,346
Buffalo Wild Wings	171,343
Dominos	149,033
Pizza Hut	136,513
Wendys	126,148
KFC	108,176
Jimmy Johns	103,530
GNC	94,249
Arbys	70,557
Burger King	68,740
Chilis	66,272

as of October 14, 2012

But, also having just re-read the terrific "The Tasti D-Lite Way", I thought I'd see how many franchised brands reciprocate and follow their followers.   In the book, Jim Amos and BJ Emerson discuss "Social Anxiety", the need to have more fans or followers than the competition.  This "viral envy" puts focus on quantity vs. "quality of engagement, and reach and impact".  

Throughout the book, the authors reference their strategy to follow their followers (and it shows the list below).

Why not follow your followers as well?

There are probably many reasons:  I'd bet Number One is "not enough resources to actively separate the signal from the noise".   That can be a legitimate reason, but there are lots of tools available to help.

So here's the Top 15 franchised brands, now ranked by the ratio between how many accounts follow them and how many they follow:

Concept	Twitter Followers	Twitter    Following	Ratio
Tasti D-Lite	7,903	7,681	97.2%
Perkins	1,363	1,288	94.5%
Interim Health Care	2,370	2,227	94.0%
Arbys*	70,557	61,805	87.6%
Carl's Jr	28,642	20,485	71.5%
Bojangles	4,622	3,200	69.2%
Hertz	18,593	12,831	69.0%
Home Instead Senior Care	1,026	657	64.0%
Great Clips	5,001	3,117	62.3%
Hardees	15,052	8,312	55.2%
Applebees	37,082	19,870	53.6%
TGI Fridays	17,535	9,247	52.7%
Churchs	8,761	3,917	44.7%
KFC*	108,176	48,302	44.7%

as of October 14, 2012
* in top 15 of total Twitter followers


What do these franchised brands know that most other brands don't?