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How to Follow 101
By Mark Evans | November 14, 2008
One of the things that makes Twitter so compelling is the ability to follows the thoughts, ideas and content of a lot of people in a very fluid and dynamic way.
But one of the challenges is figuring out who and how many people to follow. Do you follow anyone who follows you? Or do you be selective about who you follow? Do you follow as many people as possible or just a few?
There are clearly different schools of thought - just as there are/were different ways on how many RSS subscriptions you should/could have. Here’s a few options:
1. The Pragmatist: You want to consume content on Twitter but not to point of being overwhelmed. This means you follow a relatively small number of people - perhaps 10 to 50 - and ensure they fall into a few camps (personal, professional, business sectors). The people you do follow bring value to the table and easily justify having a place within your Twitter ecosystem.
There are two tricks to making this happen. First, you have to spend some time digging around to find the right people. You can do it through personal connections or through tools such as Twellow or Just Tweet It. At the same time, you do your due diligence on people following you by checking their Twitter profiles, scanning through their Tweets, and checking out their Web sites/blogs. If they meet your “standards”, follow them.
Granted, this approaches take time and energy but at the end of the day, you’re create group of followers that make Twitter a valuable tool.
2. Mr./Mrs. Happy Go Lucky: You’ve got lots of energy, passion and interests so having a lot of followers on Twitter is exciting because variety is the spice of life. If you fall into this camp, you may follow 50 to 300 people. Now, that may seem a lot but it’s pretty manageable given not everyone who you follow is using Twitter to the same extent all the time.
For my personal Twitter account, this is the approach I’ve adopted. It provides a healthy mixture of friends, professional colleagues and people who just seem interesting. I’m not following about 100 people, and could see that climbing to perhaps another 25 or so.
Again, this approach takes time because you have to do your homework by sifting through the people following you, and digging out people to follow. To be honest, it’s not uncommon for me to look through five to 10 new followers a day, and perhaps pick one to follow.
3. It’s a Party; You’re All Invited: These are people who follow 500 to 2000 people. They’re digital animals looking to extend their personal or corporate brands as far and wide as possible even if it means following people who may not be all that interesting. For them, it doesn’t matter because if it means attracting attention, that’s a small price to pay.
Some people who follow a huge number of people claim they have the ability to digest a massive amount of information. But the truth is they’re not telling the truth. They may think they can follow lots of people but it doesn’t happen. Meanwhile, other people who follow lots of people don’t even try to keep up because, frankly, it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things.
Deciding what approach to take depends on your goals and objectives, which is something you should something you should keep in mind when jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. Note: Darren Rowse has a good post on making a Twitter plan.
For more thoughts on how to follow people on Twitter, check out Shel Israel who has some personal benchmarks he follows. You can also find out who unfollows you by using Qwitter.com.
So, how do you follow. Any tricks, techniques or secrets?
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Topics: Twitter |