Who Are You Following on Twitter?
I talked a little about my Twitter following strategy back in a previous post but I wanted to expand a bit.
First you should know I am a very active follower. I take recommendations very seriously as well as any incoming replies.
Then there is my ‘social media’ inbox. I’ve basically just set my GMail to move all Twitter follow requests to a separate folder for easy sorting and general management. Then I begin the daunting task of opening each new followers Twitter page to scrutinize their stream.
One time I went a week without checking my ‘social media’ box and then spent the next 2 hours checking 350 Twitter profiles. It’s not so bad once you get in the groove. I try to keep each profile view down to a couple seconds looking for a couple key points:
The user’s bio/website/profile pic
I like to know I am following a real person and this could be the first giveaway. I also personally stay away from people pushing MLMs, porn and press release feeds.
The user’s conversation quotient
Your conversation quotient is simply the ratio of total tweets to total replies. The average is said to be around 25% so that’s more or less my bearing for success. The higher your conversation quotient, the more likely I am going to follow you back.
You can learn more about the conversation quotient as well as view in depth statistics at twitter-friends.com.
Any signs of robots
I don’t get along with robots for some reason so I just avoid them. This includes follow schemes and auto replies.
And that’s about it. It all boils down to following real people talking to other real people. It’s becoming easier and easier to see through the bullshit, so don’t kid yourself.
Also, consider checking out TweetTop:
http://www.tweettop.com
Basically, it shows you who to follow for an ever increasing list of topics.
J
@jordanwillms Im confused as to how this is different than @guykawasaki AllTop
http://twitterati.alltop.com/
Really enjoyed your writing! Hoping to see more from you..
Whoa… this site is pretty awesome :) your layout is really well designed, and your blogs are (judging from what i’ve read) very interesting. heehee… consider yourself favorited. :-P
This is fairly close to how I manage my own follow/follower policy. It can get a bit daunting, but I like to make certain my news stream remains relevant. I am lover of quality over quantity when it comes to following people on Twitter. I’ve recently started using TrueTwit to help me weed out bots and such; I think I like it.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately and wrote “Why Are You Following Me” not too long ago. I’m interested in your thoughts on the post.