TechRepublican talked to Robert Scoble about his new (and improved?) approach to following people in the wake of Scoble’s decision to unfollow 106,000 people. In the spirit of things, here’s my “friend” checklist:
1. Your updates are interesting and/or informative, providing links to content or online services worth checking out.
2. You update regularly but you don’t over-do it. Anyone, for example, who updates more than 15 to 20 times/day is just going to jam my Twitter stream. If you haven’t updated for days, that’s a not good either.
3. There’s a complete bio that provides some personal information about who you are and/or what you do.
4. There’s a Web link – be it to a company or blog.
5. A photo or avatar – not that it’s a big deal but it’s better than nothing at all.
6. A username without numbers – e.g robertsmith103. Numbers suggest you’re a spammer.
7. People I know and like in the real world. In most cases, they’re interesting on Twitter too.
What’s your friend criteria?
5 Comments
My criteria in order of importance:
1) You're in Toronto. 2) You post things worth reading 3) You're either in advertising or emerging tech
Thanks for the comment. I'm not particular about location as long as the posts are good, and they're focused on an area of interest.
All the above plus:
The Following – Followed ratio is reasonably close. e.g. I will not follow back if Following is more 100 times more than Followed (2000:5)
I normally check the biography and the link they provide before checking whether to follow or not. Sometimes I do check follower:following ratio.
Mark, I agree with you, except for #2:
If someone is using Twitter a communication channel, too, it is basically impossible to match this figure. Which isn't a big thing in my eyes, as my timeline is not inbox, every item of which requires my personal attention.