I just don't see the point in getting sucked into the numbers game. If you're a celebrity, then it stands to reason that you're going to attract tens of thousands of followers. I understand that. If you're selling a service or product, then I can also understand why you're playing the numbers game. You follow people because you're counting on the chances that they'll auto-follow, thus putting your tweets (and therefore your product) on their Google-indexable Twitter page and you on top of their follower/following list for a short while.

If you're neither a celebrity nor a salesman, playing the auto-follow numbers game is essentially worthless. You're much better off using one of the hundreds of tools available to search the Twitterverse for specific users/tweets if you want to mine for information, rather than building up a huge follow/follower count and hope you strike lucky there.

Here's my strategy for deciding who to follow:

When someone follows me, I'll check out their profile. If they regularly post witty, informative tweets about things that interest me and regularly engage with their followers, I'll follow them. If they hardly ever post tweets, post about subjects that don't interest me, or just use Twitter to link-dump, I won't follow them. If it also appears they're just following me to draw attention to a product or service they're selling, I'll take the additional step of BLOCKING them. Yes, block. I'm not going to contribute to their inflated follower count, nor do I want them to use me for top-listing and Google indexing purposes.

In order to discover new people to follow, I use TweetDeck and Twhirl's search capabilities to set up numerous keyword searches for things that interest me. I also explore #followfriday hashtags from people I follow to discover more users.

I don't really care if peoaple I follow choose not to follow me in return. I don't take it personally, harbor a grudge and then unfollow them, just as I don't expect the owner of every web site I visit to visit mine in return. The exchange of information between the follower and the followee will rarely be equally balanced. Someone's always going to gain a little bit more from the relationship than the other. It's just important to remember that there's nothing wrong with that.

In short, playing the numbers game is pointless. Only follow those who genuinely interest you. Don't ever feel obligated to follow people in kind just for the sheer hell of it, regardless of what the Twitter elite tell you. Post interesting tweets, interact with your followers and everyone's happy.

I agree that it depends on how you want to use twitter, but if it has anything to do with networking to build business you should be really selective about who you won't follow back. Not following back is akin to saying, "I'm sorry, you're just not interesting."

I agree that it depends on how you want to use twitter, but if it has anything to do with networking to build business you should be really selective about who you won't follow back. Not following back is akin to saying, "I'm sorry, you're just not interesting."