As I write this I have 1501 Twitter followers and 567 people I follow. My account is public and open to anyone who wishes to follow me. Here are some thoughts on my process regarding followers and who I follow:
- I only block followers who are obvious spammers.
- Just because you’re a business doesn’t mean I’ll automatically thing you’re a spammer. Though I do wonder why a Toyota dealership in Des Moines decided to follow me this week.
- If you have no avatar on your account I will not follow you.
- If you have no bio on your account I will not follow you.
- If you’ve not yet tweeted I will not follow you.
- If you’re not a librarian I won’t hold that against you. Conversely, I won’t follow you just because you’re a librarian.
Some of this may seem harsh but I honestly can’t keep up with the 500+ people I follow already so I’ve got to be choosy when adding followers. (Though I am thinking of weeding soon.)
Oh, and one other thing about how I use Twitter. I treat it like a live conversation. If I wasn’t there I didn’t hear what was said. As a result I don’t go back through the Twitterstream and look for what I missed. I figure if it’s important enough someone will mention it to me the next time I’m “in the room”.
