How I Decide Who to Follow on Twitter

I’m using this rainy Saturday morning as an excuse to catch up on my Twitter follows. Ever find yourself wondering who you should follow? Here’s how I decide which of my followers I’ll follow back:

Interesting. Right off the bat, you’ve gotta be interesting. Do you Tweet about topics I get excited about? There’s gotta be something we have in common. You don’t have to overdo it, but if I don’t find anything interesting in your 20 most recent Tweets, I won’t dig any deeper.

Industry. Are you in my field? Can we learn from each other? Are you offering new ideas?

Follower Count. This one’s tricky because there’s no simple formula. A few thousand followers might indicate you’re bringing the juice. Or, you could just be well-known but over-rated. I’ll follow somebody with 30 followers and a quirky voice before I follow a 5,000-follower bore.

Chattiness. If you have 200 followers and 3,000 updates, you are your own biggest fan. I dig people who converse, but a high ratio of updates updates to followers tells me you’re talking just to hear your own voice.

Quietude. Conversely, if you rarely update, I probably won’t follow you. Why would I tune into a radio station that’s only on air one hour a week?

Replies. Are you a one-way Tweeter? With very rare exception, I only follow people who interact with their followers. This is a conversation, not a broadcast.

Self-Promotion. If your Tweets are predominantly about you or your product/service, forget it. Your product may be awesome. I don’t care. If that’s all you have to say, you’re boring and irritating.

ReTweetiness. Yeah, I made up that word. A Tweet stream peppered with occasional ReTweets shows me you like to share good content with your network. I dig that. It’s good news for me as a blogger (maybe you’ll RT this post), and its good for me as a follower (you’ll open my eyes to great posts).

Peer Recommendations. There are people who are just part of my inner circle. If one of these people recommends you, I’m 10x more likely to consider a follow. A recommendation from people like David Griner, Aaron Strout, Beth Harte, Lisa Hoffmann, David Mullen, Arik Hanson, and Danny Brown (among others) is the fastest way to get my attention.

These are just a few of my “Should I follow him/her back?” factors. There are others, but it’s raining, and I wanna go watch the rain. How do you decide who to follow?

http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

I pretty much follow your guidelines here, Scott. They're fairly spot on and usually sort the wheat from the chaff. Obviously everyone uses Twitter differently (and thank God – imagine how boring we'd be if we were all the same!) so there will always be different follow/following approaches.

I'm swayed toward people that converse – they don't even necessarily need to converse with me, but there might be some great nuggets I can pick up from their conversation.

I also look at the first couple of pages of tweets – if there's a host of “New blog post” stuff I'll probably say “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Humour's also a great one, which is why you sneaked onto my list… ;-)

Cheers bud, enjoy the rain!
http://amy.mengel.com amymengel

Scott, I use many of those same tactics listed above to determine whether or not to follow someone back. I am looking for interesting people who engage, converse, and share relevant information for my industry/profession.

Do you ever use any of the myriad Web tools to evaluate followers, like Twitter-Friends.com? I realize that it would be really time-consuming to run each follower through something like that, but there are some interesting metrics out there. I like their “Conversation Quotient” metric especially – it can show if someone is really engaging with followers.

The potential problem with the “Chattiness” metric that you mention above is that the updates/followers ratio can be influenced by the number of replies. Someone may have 200 followers and 3,000 updates, but many of those updates could be replies to followers, meaning that they are really engaging in conversation.

Often I will give someone the benefit of the doubt, follow them back for a while, and then evaluate a couple of weeks later and determine if they are engaging and bringing value.If not, I unfollow.

@amymengel
http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

I pretty much follow your guidelines here, Scott. They're fairly spot on and usually sort the wheat from the chaff. Obviously everyone uses Twitter differently (and thank God – imagine how boring we'd be if we were all the same!) so there will always be different follow/following approaches.

I'm swayed toward people that converse – they don't even necessarily need to converse with me, but there might be some great nuggets I can pick up from their conversation.

I also look at the first couple of pages of tweets – if there's a host of “New blog post” stuff I'll probably say “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Humour's also a great one, which is why you sneaked onto my list… ;-)

Cheers bud, enjoy the rain!
http://amymengel.com amymengel

Scott, I use many of those same tactics listed above to determine whether or not to follow someone back. I am looking for interesting people who engage, converse, and share relevant information for my industry/profession.

Do you ever use any of the myriad Web tools to evaluate followers, like Twitter-Friends.com? I realize that it would be really time-consuming to run each follower through something like that, but there are some interesting metrics out there. I like their “Conversation Quotient” metric especially – it can show if someone is really engaging with followers.

The potential problem with the “Chattiness” metric that you mention above is that the updates/followers ratio can be influenced by the number of replies. Someone may have 200 followers and 3,000 updates, but many of those updates could be replies to followers, meaning that they are really engaging in conversation.

Often I will give someone the benefit of the doubt, follow them back for a while, and then evaluate a couple of weeks later and determine if they are engaging and bringing value.If not, I unfollow.

@amymengel
http://www.kdpaine.com Katie Paine

Brilliant! great advice for Twitter newbies
http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com Jim @smashadv

Great advice Scott. Especially #1. So many people just rehash the same links over and over that it waters down what's relevant. I used to follow people back if they weren't 'bots' but lately, I seem to lose people I care about in a very busy stream. I'm considering unfollowing a ton of people who are just fodder.
http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

You raise a great point about 3rd party tools like TwitterFriend, Amy. I've experimented with a bunch of them, but I usually find I'm weeding out 90% of the people they recommend. Whether it's Tweepular, MrTweet, Twellow or one of the countless others, subjective evaluation still must come into play.

The one tool I'm really pleased with is Topify. Instead of the usual “So-and-so is following you on Twitter” emails, Topify sends you a more detailed alert. The beefed-up email includes the persons follower/following count, bio, and 5 most recent Tweets.

Of course, who to follow is an always fluid, always changing topic.
http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

Thanks for swinging by, KD. You're another one of those great voices to follow — your insights on how to measure online are always helpful!
http://domeofheaven.wordpress.com Sara

I decide based on the Word of Tweet. ;)
http://amymengel.com amymengel

Great tip, I will check out Topify. I had been using SocialToo but the information they provide is more limited.

I agree on how fluid and subjective choosing who to follow can be and have noticed that my own criteria have changed over the past few months as I try to focus on the people I can really learn from and engage with.
http://www.timjahn.com/blog Tim Jahn

I would add location to the list. Twitter can be very useful for local, real time information. When I find someone in Chicago, assuming they're not a spammer and they fit most of the other guidelines, I'll follow them to increase the volume of the local frequency.
http://www.kdpaine.com Katie Paine

Brilliant! great advice for Twitter newbies
http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com Jim Mitchem

Great advice Scott. Especially #1. So many people just rehash the same links over and over that it waters down what's relevant. I used to follow people back if they weren't 'bots' but lately, I seem to lose people I care about in a very busy stream. I'm considering unfollowing a ton of people who are just fodder.
http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

You raise a great point about 3rd party tools like TwitterFriend, Amy. I've experimented with a bunch of them, but I usually find I'm weeding out 90% of the people they recommend. Whether it's Tweepular, MrTweet, Twellow or one of the countless others, subjective evaluation still must come into play.

The one tool I'm really pleased with is Topify. Instead of the usual “So-and-so is following you on Twitter” emails, Topify sends you a more detailed alert. The beefed-up email includes the persons follower/following count, bio, and 5 most recent Tweets.

Of course, who to follow is an always fluid, always changing topic.
http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

Thanks for swinging by, KD. You're another one of those great voices to follow — your insights on how to measure online are always helpful!
http://domeofheaven.wordpress.com Sara

I decide based on the Word of Tweet. ;)
http://amymengel.com amymengel

Great tip, I will check out Topify. I had been using SocialToo but the information they provide is more limited.

I agree on how fluid and subjective choosing who to follow can be and have noticed that my own criteria have changed over the past few months as I try to focus on the people I can really learn from and engage with.
http://www.timjahn.com/blog Tim Jahn

I would add location to the list. Twitter can be very useful for local, real time information. When I find someone in Chicago, assuming they're not a spammer and they fit most of the other guidelines, I'll follow them to increase the volume of the local frequency.
http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

Powerful point, Tim. I wanted to include “Geography” on the list, but figured I'd let the community expand the list instead. Have any tools, tips or tricks for geographic filtering you'd like to pass along to the readers?
http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

Powerful point, Tim. I wanted to include “Geography” on the list, but figured I'd let the community expand the list instead. Have any tools, tips or tricks for geographic filtering you'd like to pass along to the readers?
Amanda Beals

In the beginning, I followed the people that were the said “influencers.” And, I will admit that their tweets are informative and educational. However, I now seek out the poets, the philosophers and even the charlatans, simply b/c one great sentence a day can carry me. I can't remember the name of the designer (the man who designed the Fed Ex logo)- stopped dead in the middle of a lecture (I attended about design and advertising), and stated “Oh, and do not forget. None of this is real.” Kind of the way I feel with Twitter.
Amanda Beals

In the beginning, I followed the people that were the said “influencers.” And, I will admit that their tweets are informative and educational. However, I now seek out the poets, the philosophers and even the charlatans, simply b/c one great sentence a day can carry me. I can't remember the name of the designer (the man who designed the Fed Ex logo)- stopped dead in the middle of a lecture (I attended about design and advertising), and stated “Oh, and do not forget. None of this is real.” Kind of the way I feel with Twitter.
http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

Tweepular's public version will have the option to follow people based on location, interests, niche, etc.
http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

Tweepular's public version will have the option to follow people based on location, interests, niche, etc.
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Name

Scott, why do you twitter? Thats what you should be asking your self… then go through the criteria you mentioned above and decide if YOU would follow your own self… Are you interesting? is the field your in interesting, hows your follower count? your chattiness/quietude.. do you ooze self promotion… do you share good content with your network? how big is your peer circle anyway?

maybe you yourself dont meet the criteria… i would say work on it.. instead i'll say this

Life is what happens when your busy tweeting…..
Name

Scott, why do you twitter? Thats what you should be asking your self… then go through the criteria you mentioned above and decide if YOU would follow your own self… Are you interesting? is the field your in interesting, hows your follower count? your chattiness/quietude.. do you ooze self promotion… do you share good content with your network? how big is your peer circle anyway?

maybe you yourself dont meet the criteria… i would say work on it.. instead i'll say this

Life is what happens when your busy tweeting…..
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/teaching-english-in-taiwan-experience-life-in-taiwan-as-an-english-teacher-1423243.html Teaching English in Taiwan

Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Others no doubt will like it like I did.
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/teaching-english-in-taiwan-experience-life-in-taiwan-as-an-english-teacher-1423243.html Teaching English in Taiwan

Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Others no doubt will like it like I did.
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