Two of the most common questions asked when some begins using Twitter are, "Who should I follow? and "What should I look for when doing so?"
There are a couple of schools of thought on the answer and it ties directly to what your goals are with your account. Some focus on growing the follower number as high as possible as quickly as possible. Others focus on building a targeted community of like minded people, associations, and brands - with the goal being more focused on the quality of the list versus the quantity of followers.
For me, I take a combined approach - find and follow as many people, brands, associations etc. as possible that share common interests, feelings, situations and experiences with me and that align with the buyer personas I have for Make Good Media and B2Bbloggers.com. It is a very systematic and careful approach to who I follow with both of my Twitter accounts. Why? Because I have a specific purpose defined for each account. So in this article, as my aim has been with all of our Twitter for Business related posts thus far, I am sharing a how-to.
The 7 factors to consider before you follow someone on Twitter.
1. Tweets
The tweets of the Twitter account are going to reveal the most important information about the account (person or brand) and will likely have the highest impact on your decision. I suggest at the very least you should review the first page of tweets that are displayed. Here are some things to look for when making your decision to follow:
- Are the tweets topical, interesting, and relevant to your interests and your Twitter account?
- The amount of tweets that are "noise" or random, non-specific thoughts. Now, realize every account on Twitter is going to have its share of "noise." It's inherent in the nature of the medium, you'll need to determine your tolerance level for it.
- The number of tweets that are broadcasts versus conversational.
- The number of tweets that are promotional.
2. Background, Profile And Link
Most users of Twitter take advantage of the 160 character BIO to describe themselves and the nature of their tweets. Twitter also allows users to provide one link to anywhere on the web. This could be to a blog, a LinkedIn profile, a corporate website, a book for sale ... you name it. If need be, take a minute and check it out, you're bound to learn more to help you with your decision. And finally, many accounts utilize the background image to share even more information. Be sure to check there too
3. Followers
First thing to look at is the number of followers. Don't let it be the sole discretionary factor in your decision.
While it does give you a sense of the accounts influence within the network, it tells you nothing about the type or topic of the account.
Next take a quick look at a couple pages of the account's followers, do you have common interests? With the new @anywhere platform, you can hover over Twitter names to reveal the account's bio for quick look. This can give you a sense of the types of people that are following the account you are assessing.
Do you share common interests with them? Also when you first get to the page, if your accounts have followers in common, you will see "following" next to the name.
4. Lists
Twitter lists provide uses the ability to organize and categorize groups of Twitter accounts any way that they would like. Every user's Twitter page displays the number of lists an account is a member of. By clicking the number, you can see the lists the account is on, but more importantly you can see the "names" of the lists. This is yet another quick way to see how other members of Twitter are describing and categorizing the account.
5. Favorites
Did you know that Twitter allows you to favorite tweets? Yep,that's right, in the case of my favorite tweets, I use them as bookmarks so I can go back later to read the content. So what does that tell you about me? Exactly, things I like, and things I am likely to tweet about. Simply more information to help the decision making process.
6. Follower To Following Ratio
When an account is following thousands of people and is in the teens for followers, that's a BIG warning sign and I don't recommend following these accounts.
But what do you do in the case when, the ratio is not so drastic - say following 1,400 and is in the 300s for followers. Make recommendation is to take pause, and further assess the content of the tweets, tweet volume, etc. Many people (in their thirst for knowledge) may spend a lot of time early on following lots of people ... and suddenly realize whoa, no one is following me back. Just in these cases when the tweet volume is low (i.e. a newer account), don't be too quick to not follow. Look at the other information a bit closer and decide from there.
- [Sidenote: Do I sound like I speak from experience? Yep, that was me, in my thirst for knowledge, when I first joined Twitter I think I was following 500 people in a few days - lesson learned and now shared with you.]
7. Tweet To Follower Ratio
You are bound to get followed by an account who has sent 4 Tweets and has 14,321 followers. Honestly, I don't know how or why or what these accounts are, but I don't follow them and usually I block them from following me.Phew -
That is a lot of information to review, digest, and assimilate just to decide whether or not to hit the Follow button.
But the fact of the matter is you are inviting someone into your stream? And your intention is to have them return the follow. Why not be prudent? Right?
You tell me though, did I go too far? Are you thinking, uh, all it takes is a second to unfollow someone, why bother with all this? It is certainly a reasonable thought - let me know what you think below. I'd be interested in the dialogue. Oh and tell me too - what am I missing?
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