If you are on Twitter, it doesn’t take long for the controversy to enter the tweetstream: do you follow everyone who follows you.  There’s logical arguments for both sides.

Too Much Noise
I can see why those who have thousands (even tens of thousands) of followers would have a hard time handling so many tweets.  That would be a fast flowing tweetstream for sure. That may be why I see so many of them only following like five people whose tweets they obviously don’t want to miss.  (Tip: Maybe TweetDeck groups might help you track those five, yet follow more folks.   )

It’s A Social Thing
On the flip side, Twitter is a social media; and thus it’s full potential is best unitized when one is actually social on Twitter.   Following others and interacting with them is without a doubt: social.

The beauty of Twitter is that there aren’t any Twitter police. While the only cardinal rule is don’t spam; some self-promotion is fine and acceptable on Twitter, it is best done only if you also actively engage in conversations and interaction with those you follow and who follow you. Keep in mind: Twitter isn’t all about you!

Who To Follow
Just as above, you get some folks who have a bazillion followers and are following like five people. They only want to interact with those five – that’s really it. Then you have others who follow every single person who follows them. I am somewhere in between these two extremes.

My 3 Following Criteria for Twitter

1. Twitter Bio I will read the Twitter bio of someone to see if we have any common interests. So it’s important that the bio be completed.
2. Recent Tweets I will check to see what they have been tweeting. Are their recent tweets all self-promotion, or are they replying to other people. How much are they interacting with others.
3. Web Site link If they have a web site listed, I’ll go visit that to see what they do or what they have to offer there.  Again to see if there’s another area of common interest.

Why do I have these criteria?
Because I don’t want tweets coming into my tweetstream from someone I have absolutely not a shred of commonality with. Nothing. Nada. Zip. If we are polar opposites and every single thing I tweet and/or they tweet is going to potentially offend the other person – why go there. I am truly looking for that common thread; the positive and common interest; not the negative or one thing or reason to not follow someone.

Same goes for you and who you follow. If you spend a few extra minutes and check out folks before you follow, then you will have an idea of the type of person you’re following and will rarely have to unfollow someone later.

Exception to my 3 Criteria Follow Rule
I do have times when I makes exceptions to my follow criteria rules and that’s when I feel people have basically pre-qualified, for lack of a better term, and that’s if they are part of a group or movement that I’m member of. Then I will follow all within that group without going through my three step process, because I already know we have something in common.

Spam Block
The past few days Twitter did a deletion of all spam accounts. Some Twitter users saw a large drop in the followers due to spammers that had been following them being deleted. I did not notice any drop in my followers, but have been gaining several new followers per day, so could have lost a couple and just didn’t notice. Either way, it wasn’t a large number. Why? I can’t be sure, but perhaps my 3 step criteria above has something to do with it. While I can’t entirely control who follows me, I can have a bit of control using the block feature.

Increasingly over the past weeks, I have gotten several new follows where there is the same identical scantily clad girlie avatar, odd usernames with a long string of numbers at the end, with the same identical single tweet in their account that contained a link (which I did not click), and they are following quite a few folks, but have no one following them, or only maybe one or two. Highly suspicious.  I get this same exact notice of a new follow repeated several times in a row. After the first one, I was suspicious, it didn’t meet my three criteria and I chose not to follow and moved on. A few minutes later, I get another email notice of a new follow, I click the link to check them out, different username, but all else is identical to previous email: mmmm, ok – this is a spammer. I block them. I get three or four more. I block those too. Then they stop.

Then I get a similar scenario, but different avatar, different single tweet in the account (also with a link I didn’t click). First time I ignore. The second and subsequent times I block.

Blocking lets Twitter know the account is suspicious. Now if you auto-follow absolutely everyone, you wouldn’t know an account was suspicious, because you wouldn’t have checked out their bio, recent tweets or web site.

Again, this is just what I do, and I’m not the Twitter police and there aren’t any ‘rules’ to this, just personal preference.

Following Conversations – Not People with #hashtags
If  you want to follow certain conversations, but not necessarily follow everyone within a group or movement, then you use #hashtags in your tweets. You can certainly do both: follow the person and the #hashtags, but if you find that too much or don’t wish to, you can still follow conversations without following all the people on Twitter.

I personally use TweetDeck to make organizing and sorting tweets much easier.  TweetGrid is another way to track those conversations.

I don’t think I can make this clear enough: there isn’t one right or wrong way to use Twitter. Follow everyone. Follow no one. How you use it will effect your results and what you want to get out of Twitter.

So you need to ask yourself: Why do you use Twitter?

The answer to that should then shape how you proceed in actually using it on a day-to-day basis and interact with those you follow and who follow you.

Feel free to post your comments below on why you use Twitter.