A Guide to Following People on Twitter

I know I should be writing my DMC project, but I just couldn’t help myself , I had to share this with you.

In a previous post about Twitter, I laid down the 10 Commandments of Twitter, which serve as a guide to Twitter conduct. Three of these commandments address the subject of following people on twitter:

#3 – Honor thy followers and those that follow thee
#7 – Thou shalt not follow thy neighbor only to profit, but to engage and learn
#8 – Thou shalt not Auto-follow, Auto-reply, Auto-DM, Auto anything.

The eighth commandment clearly states that I’m not a person that Auto-follows anyone. According to TwitterCounter, I average about 3 followers per day and according to FriendorFollow, I have 302 people that are following me but I’m not. So why does this discrepancy exist? Simply because I don’t follow everyone that follow me for valid reasons that I will try to elaborate in this guide on how-to decide who to follow on Twitter.

The diagram below elaborate the 5 different steps I follow when I receive an email notification about a new follower on Twitter.

PS. After I designed this flow chart it looked very similar to a programming language diagram but I believe the logic behind it is clear (if you find a bug, please feel free to fix it, this is an open source J)

Click on the enlarge image

In short, make sure you check:

Their Twitter profile
The URL provided in their Bio
# of Followers / Following
Their Tweet history
Date they joined Twitter

In general, these steps are sufficient to decide whether I follow a person on twitter or not. I joined Twitter on November 14, 2009 and I have met amazing people – the number of people I follow has amassed in less than 9 months to 865 people. The purpose of following people is to learn from them and engage with them – how can you possibly be human and sincerely engage with this many people. I’m not recommending you stop following people, just be selective. Think About It!

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Tags: FriendorFollow, Social Networking, Twitter

Comments (45)

I really like how you went and made a diagram of the process. It makes your methods easy to understand, and replicate. And they’re worth replicating. Pardon me as I share it with all my followers

Now, here’s a question, though: why if a person is very new to Twitter, do you not follow back? I will admit that most newbies take a while to be worth following, but would suggest that if the bio is interesting enough (like a CEO of an interesting start up), then it would be worth a follow. After the “Date they joined Twitter” I would add a step:

New? – Re-evaluate Bio and Link. If superb/very intriguing, follow. If not, don’t.

In general, however, I do agree. I would only follow a newbie back if the newbie engaged with me by replying to my Tweets with interesting content of their own.

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 3:45 am
Kate D.
- I love the add on in fact, when i usually find someone who just signed up for twitter and they have me in the first 20 people to add, i’m usually skeptical – I’m not belittling myself, but i mean there are a lot of people out there that you need to considering following first to learn – i haven’t reached celebrity status yet So unless they know me in real life, and I probably influenced them to get on to Twitter, more often than not, I tend not to follow them. But I do see your point of engaging to reflect credibility! thanks for your great input Kate!
  
  ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 4:05 am
  John Antonios
I love question of the day part, I work everyday to market myself and to market people that I work for and with. I’m all about sharing and giving.
your chart is very good. I like it

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 3:45 am
Luay Rahil
Hi John, your thinking on this is gracious and sound. I’ve been using twitter for a few years now and my use and policies have evolved. In the early days, everyone pretty much followed everyone. It was like a secret underground club with non-stop activity. As it grew in popularity, spammers and porn bots joined and I became more selective. With continued growth, Twitter made improvements and quickly weeded out spammers so I auto-followed to keep up with the huge volume and simply unfollowed if it was not a fit for me. I have found that following most people (there are exceptions) has yielded surprising connections and friendships. Whatever your own commandments, it is my belief that as long as you treat others with respect, as you do, you’ll be fine.

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 4:36 am
Karen Swim
- Hey Karen,
  I loved the whole underground clubbing scene analogy I see your point with simply following people and then unfollowing them later – but here’s where this scenario falls short: given the amount of people you currently have on your list, would you really be able to filter out those that you intend to unfollow, i think it just makes the whole process more difficult. But I agree with you 100%, following people on Twitter does lead to surprising results – and getting to share ideas with you is definitely worth it! thanks for your constructive counterargument – i love it!
  
  ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 1:01 pm
  John Antonios
As someone who just started out on twitter back in February or thereabouts, I think your process is something everyone new to twitter should check out. It is very similar to the way I ‘weed through’ people. I also like Kate’s add-on, because there have been many people who followed me knowing I was new to give me a shot and many that I have followed despite those circumstances. There is nothing wrong with serving as a guide for the newbies… I was participating in twitter chats within a week or so, because I had a few good people showing me the way.

I don’t think I would ever autofollow, though. If I find myself talking about doing anything in the area I live in, I am suddenly followed by 3 companies who are in that field, which I most likely don’t want to read about (just being honest!). Especially since I live in a small city, there isn’t much benefit to me following them (i.e. discounts). In regards to auto-following, a particular issue for me is how there are a lot of great young prof. on twitter but some of them have a habit of talking/complaining a lot about their personal life. I really try to limit any complaining on day to day frustrations and it isn’t something I want to see in my stream.

Overall, another great post

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Kelly
Good post, John. I particularly look at how often the person posts. If they only post once in a blue moon then chances are I won’t follow them.

@Worob
PR at Sunrise – worob.com

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 3:23 pm
worob
- Great point Andrew, I would also add if they tweet every fraction of a second, I would also not follow them! Thanks for sharing!
  
  ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 3:42 pm
  John Antonios
Nice post John, good job on making a sensible diagram as well.

Here’s my take:

No matter who you are, if you follow me, you will get a DM from me that is directed at you and you only. If it’s someone I’m really not interested in (they sell pet rocks), then it will be a very simple thanks and appreciation. If I am interested in connecting with the person, the message will be far more personable, and usually ask them a question regarding something they tweeted, their bio, or their website in order to get a conversation going.

Unfortunately I can be slow with this, I know there’s 50-75 people I have not DM’d yet. I also use TwUnfollow, so if they follow, then unfollow shortly after…oh well.

I’m selective, but not very. I’m still growing my connections and feel that anyone that follows me that’s into ANYTHING marketing, or is a New England Patriots fan, I will follow back. The “anything marketing” excludes the “make me rich in 10 days” type of course.

I guess I;m really not drastically concerned with their Twitter profile, follower ratio, or website, it’s more about what industry they are in and the type of tweets they send out. However, someone who has a more inviting profile/website and I feel I can learn a lot more from…they will get a lot more attention from me.

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Bryan Ricard
- given the flowchart that i have presented you can certainly deduce that i too have a list of people that i have not had the chance to put through that process … hence the 302 people that are following me and i’m not! But then again, a large some of those people don’t qualify according to my chart logic – so let’s just agree that it does take me a while to answer many of my new followers.
  The part where you addressed the subject of common grounds, ie. marketing, is the first step in the my diagram – if the bio does not interest me, it usually ends there!
  thanks for sharing Bryan
  
  ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 11:02 pm
  John Antonios
I may not be a programmer, but I figured out this technique almost as soon as I joined. It seemed common sense to me, but hey, I’m not a programmer (still).

I do have a question, though: why follow anyone you don’t want to follow? Gradually I am dropping more and more–ones who tweet silly, personal messages and those who “clog the pipeline” with multiple and, I suspect, automated tweets. There’s no way I could effectively handle 150 streams in my mainline!

I follow those whose messages I might be interested in or need to contact, putting them in lists that I keep private. Often these are businesses and services that I use. Often I keep individuals in these lists, but not on my main stream.

What am I missing here?

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Georganna Hancock
- To start off thank you for such a wonderful comment Georganna. Neither of us is a programmer so that settles that part – so the chart as you said is just common sense.
  In answer to your question – why follow anyone you don’t want to follow – is simple > you just don’t. However, this is in reply to people who actually follow you and you end up receiving an email notification about it. So I’m always intrigued to see who or what (in case it’s a bot) is following me and I follow these steps to see if I follow them back.
  As you said, it really boils down to what they have to say, will it add value? So i certainly understand the logic behind your point of view, and i totally agree, as your list of people you follow grow, you tend to become less personal.
  one again, thanks for sharing!
  
  ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 10:29 pm
  John Antonios
No, I do not receive a notification. I turned off that feature when the flood of new followers became more than I am willing to research. Too many turned out to be spammers or worse! I suspect those quit following my account if I don’t follow back.

Yes, I too am curious about who follows me. Of those who stay, I can usually tell that they have been lurkers in chats, nonparticipants who want to become writers, better writers or better bloggers. Unless they @me, though, I am not going to be exploring every Tom, Dick and Harriet who comes my way.

Sorry if I misinterpreted what you said about programming language, fixing bugs and open source to indicate you are a programmer. Obviously, you are a SM expert! Now I’ll have to consult your 10 Commandments of Twitter to see how much I sin. Mea culpa!

ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Georganna Hancock
- If you need penance for sinning against the 10 commandments of Twitter, you know who to contact As for my expertise in social media, they are simply out of personal experience and driven by my passion for marketing and social media – so i am forever learning from the people I follow!
  Your strategy for following back is very interesting – it might be more prolonged but it makes sense – i think using a tool like http://www.friendorfollow.com will help you with your strategy:
  - it points out who your are following and not following you (following)
  - it points out who’s following you and you’re not following them back (fans)
  - and the people who follow you and you follow them (friends)
  hope i fit into that last criterion.
  
  ReplyAugust 26, 2010 at 11:38 pm
  John Antonios
I did something very similar a while back. I think mine is perhaps easier to use, although maybe a little out of date now seeing as I produced it back in May 2009.

In case you’re interested:

http://www.sciencetext.com/twitter-decision-flowchart.html

ReplyAugust 27, 2010 at 9:34 am
David Bradley
- I loved your chart – but you certainly have previous knowledge in Business Computing to say the least I particularly liked the inclusion of the final process – BLOCK – this is very true and essential in many scenarios.
  thanks for sharing David
  
  ReplyAugust 27, 2010 at 11:07 am
  John Antonios
… now think of how many malicious shortened links have gotten their way because of this flow

ReplyAugust 27, 2010 at 9:46 am
Mikey Garcia
- Hey Mikey, I’m not sure I understood your comment – mind elaborating. thank you
  
  ReplyAugust 27, 2010 at 11:08 am
  John Antonios
Thanks for pointing me to this post the other day. Reminds me of the LinkedIn quantity vs. quality debate going on for, what, eight years for me.

I’ve always let people do their thing as long as they have purpose and know why the exist in any community – on or offline. I could really care less about numbers except for two: 1) how many people actually changed over time including me and 2) new business in products or sales. Meeting new people is the whole point for me. Some people question the sales goal. On and offline, many are afraid to sell and add significant value. They fail. Back to auto.

I am automated in many ways and not in others. When projects like speaking, traveling, vacations, day long product development, client strategy or generally with our team/any people take lengthy place, I will auto respond emails, I count on voice mail or auto-forward, and I started some time ago to auto follow on twitter and even auto DM for the same reasons. I select all and follow on LinkedIn every week. I am thrilled about how this is working and how often I get to help others. If I had not auto-followed my follow/following ratio would be gross misrepresentation of my open networking philosophy. I love learning from and adding value to new people! Those who don’t add value are dumped and I expect to dump me if I don’t add value to them.

When I am out of pocket for days which is often or have heavy follow flow like some #brandchat or Your Brand Radio shows and popular post on my site, I will not be able to check in on all new follows, I simply can’t. Social media gets last attention w/ voice mails first, then emails…that is almost all that can be done in a day for me. I have to auto-follow to honor real people following me or our companies for good reasons and that I am honored to follow back – that turns out to be most new follows for David Sandusky named accounts, guess I’m lucky.

I am curious about one thing, however. Blog and social media users write and push info out in hopes for viral reach and good SEO. They put social media profile links on the site, but will not automatically follow people who find them as a result??? I would be sad to not quickly follow someone who posted or shared on my site and followed me. I suppose people could take social media links off blog sites and signatures and stop participating in keyword discussion, but that starts to not make sense. That would be a shame. Besides, good people that are new will follow email lists before adding sites, bios or value. I see we can help them, not not follow and judge them.

Anyway, I found it is WAY more time valuable for me to report all spam DM, @me or tweet in my stream which created unfollow automatically with a push of a button. Others seem to do the same because is it not long for bots and spammers to be gone. I don’t look at my #s, so if I got heavy bots today, it will not bother me, they will be gone by Sunday. No biggie. My follow list is always only days away from being pretty clean and relevant. Result: real connections, business and job leads for those who follow me. Another result: we get sales from “left field” before I get a change to look at twitter profiles. Good thing I auto-followed back! This is just for me though, your chart is GREAT for those with different networking philosophy then mine.

ReplyAugust 27, 2010 at 9:01 pm
David Sandusky
You might want to add a step to look at what they have favorited… I generally use that as an additional data point…

ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 7:08 am
Tosk59
Also, when lists came out I created a “Possible follows” list where I add folks that I think I’d like to follow but am not 100% sure. I check on them for a while, then drop off list or follow. This seems “nicer” than following them then unfollowing a week or two later… You could add a ‘provisional’ loop to your process to reflect this.

ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 7:12 am
Tosk59
- i really likes this suggestion of adding a “possible follow” list – never thought about it – I will incorporate it in the chart and credit you for an excellent suggestion. thanks for giving such a valuable comment.
  
  ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 5:12 pm
  John Antonios
  - But i noticed that this list is visible to all – if the purpose is to be “nicer” – i think telling people that you have been under the microscope might be offensive – what do you think?
    I was able to access your list and see that you have 4 people in that list – do you know what i mean?
    
    ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 5:15 pm
    John Antonios
  - It’s just somewhat more “obvious” if you follow rather than if you put on a provisional list e.g. If you follow someone they are likely be set up for an e-mail notification, lists you have to notice that your number has changed and then investigate. Also, after the initial flurry of interest when lists first came out folks seem to have stopped paying as much attention to them. However, clearly it is impossible to do this in total stealth mode… And one could make that list private rather than public if a concern…
    
    And if worried about possibly being perceived as offensive you could give that list an anodyne name e.g. call it “Occasional Looks” rather than “Possible Follows”
    
    ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 6:00 pm
    Tosk59
  - Beyond a provisional “possible follow” listing difference, there are a couple of other things I do in addition to your guide:
    
    1, I look at what they have in their Favorites.
    2. I run them through Followcost.com, and,
    3. Since I do most of my Twitter on a Blackberry, I “follow’ some hi-volume folks via lists and not via following e.g. see first link below re my thinking (in reverse chronological order):
    
    http://www.ph2dot1.com/2009/11/twitter-lists.html
    http://www.ph2dot1.com/2009/03/twitter-followers.html
    http://www.ph2dot1.com/2009/06/twitter-followers-ii.html
    
    ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 6:10 pm
    Tosk59
Inspired by your blog entry I have flow-charted my own process

http://www.ph2dot1.com/2010/08/twitter-thought-process.html

ReplyAugust 28, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Tosk59
Great chart! As someone relatively new to Twitter and trying to be more involved, I found it very helpful. Will look up the 10 commandments, that sounds interesting… as well as friendorfollow.com Thanks! http://screencast.com/t/NmU1NzljYj

ReplyAugust 31, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Tessa (@nowtherearetwo)
I love the diagram – it formalises the process that I (sort of) follow in my head. A couple of additional points. I use Topify to quickly understand a bit about the user when I’m emailed to say that they follow me (recent posts, follower/followed, etc.) and also, if you follow more than 100-150 tweeps, it’s probably worth pruning every few months (or using lists) as it’s difficult to keep up with that many people.

ReplySeptember 15, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Mark Wilson
My partner and i definitely have to think more in that area and find out what i can do over it.

ReplyFebruary 04, 2011 at 8:43 am
Lois Nieto
All right, that is a nice beginning however i’m going to consider that a tad more. Will show you just what more i’ve found.

ReplyFebruary 04, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Ana Stoltenberg

A Guide to Following People on Twitter

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