Something has recently changed in my Twitter account. I used to get a few new followers a week, now I can get a dozen in a day. (The growth in twitter, and my own expanding -- though still relatively puny -- Twitter footprint may be at play.)
So, confronted with more choice, who do I follow back? I think I am not that different from most twitterers (except those who auto-follow everyone, and those who follow almost no one). There is no hard-and-fast rule, but there are contributing factors.
Why I follow back:
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The first thing I do, when alerted to a new follower, is visit his or her profile. At the profile page, I can see recent tweets, a bio, a weblink, and even the following to follower ratio. If this seems like a real person, and there are obvious shared interests, I follow back. (I also follow anyone I know personally, offline, too. In fact, I track them, using TweetDeck, in my friends and family group because I don't want to miss what they tweet.)
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Even when it is not clear to me that I have something in common with a new follower, based on his bio or weblink, the tweet stream may tell me all I need to know. I appreciate when people are active in replying and retweeting, a sign they are using twitter to engage in conversations instead of one-way broadcasting.
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The exceptions to the above are some news or announcement feeds (like @skydiver, @profnet, @GlobeTechnology) and entertaining feeds (like the micro-fiction from @arjunbasu).
Who I don't follow:
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If the profile is empty and there is no tweet history, I have no indication as to why this person followed me, and I am unlikely to follow back. (I may do so later, see below.)
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The kiss of death is if this person is clearly just using twitter to market some get-rich-quick scheme, or to post links to their own products and services. Unless I am a huge fan of the product in question, I won't follow this person back.
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I also won't follow people posting comments I find offensive. I am not easy to offend, but it's been known to happen.
Why I change my mind:
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Sometimes, I have (rashly?) decided that it was not obvious why I should follow a new follower. The next thing I know, they are replying to my tweets, retweeting, and engaging me in conversation. A new friendship is born! This was the case for me with @askaroundottawa and @FoodlandOnt.
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Finally - I have been less selective as I get use twitter more. I still don't auto-follow, but I am less concerned with seeing everything that all the people I follow are posting. (For those I feel I want to track more closely, I use TweetDeck to organize into groups, so that I am less likely to miss their important posts.) In general, I am increasingly comfortable wading into a faster flowing the twitter stream from time to time to see what is going on.
So, who will you follow and why?
(Image from www.twitter.com.)
