If you do a search engine search for something like “decide who to follow on Twitter” you will find that there are lots of opinions out there. And yes, you guessed it, I have my own. :-) Some people will tell you to follow everyone. And yes you can do that. It’s easy enough. For some goals it is a great way to go. I guess. It just still scares me. I’m having trouble with the whole idea of just view it as a river and dip in randomly and you’ll find good things. True but what will I miss?

For me there are a bunch of people who I follow that I really care about (think my brother and his daughter and the people in the group I work in for example). There are other people whose Tweets are just generally so worth it that I don’t want to miss them either. I want to be a part of their conversations. It gets complicated and I have a lot of other things to do besides follow Twitter. I do use Tweetdeck and I have groups to track all replies to me, a group of in real life friends and people not to miss, a group for Education people and a group for everyone. That’s pretty much the order I scan the Tweets. It works and I guess I could auto follow everyone with that but I don’t. Why? Well because I still want to try to read everyone at times. So I have a plan.

1. Do I know them? If I read their blog or know them personally I follow.
2. Read their bio to see if we have things in common. If they are in education or work for a company I’m interested in then I follow. If they are all about search engine optimization I don’t follow. If they are a social networking person/consultant I probably don’t follow unless I know their reputation already. Sorry but I worry about people looking for an easy way to build a reputation based on Twitter followers. No bio is not an automatic nofollow but in that case I need another good reason to follow them.
3. Check out their avatar and website. Not having a web site or a real avatar is not an automatic nofollow but it is something I like to see. A website lets me learn more about them but a lot of people who interest me do not have blogs or web pages.
4. Look at what they Twitter. Are they engaged in conversation? That would be good. Are they saying things that suggest there is more than just casual conversation going on? I do like some casual conversation and engage in it myself. It lets me know that they are real people and not all about the self-promotion. But I like to see some “meat” in the conversation now and again as well.
5. What is the ratio of followers to following? This one can go either way with me. It’s not the pure ratio but the absolute numbers. If they are following 1,999 people and are being followed by 125 I can pretty much count on them to unfollow me soon if I don’t follow them and shortly there after if I do. They are building a following and not really interested in what I have to say. I want Twitter to be a conversation not a broadcast.
6. Who are they following and who is following them. Someone who is following a lot of people I follow, even if they don’t have a lot of followers themselves, is probably someone I want to follow. When they say something I probably want to know about it. Plus it may let me see both sides of more conversations and that is good for learning.
7. What does my gut say? Yeah sometimes I follow or not based on feelings. Occasionally that bits me and I have started following one or two people later based on replies they sent me or someone else I follow. The thing is to be open about rethinking following as time goes on.

In the end I have not hard and fast rules. Somehow with Twitter I don’t think hard and fast rules are the way to go.

BTW if you want to see other lists and strategies check out:

• FOLLOW FAIL: The 10 Reasons I will Not Follow You On Twitter
• How Do You Decide Who to Follow on Twitter?

And of course you can follow me on Twitter (if I fit what you are looking for) at http://twitter.com/alfredtwo