Twitter: To Follow, or Not to Follow?

Published on January 6, 2010 by in How To, Social Media

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Hamlet 225x300 Twitter: To Follow, or Not to Follow?

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous spam,
Or to take arms against a sea of multi-level marketers
And, by opposing, unfollow them.

How many people should you follow on Twitter?  And should you automatically follow any one who follows you?  If not, how do you decide?  I’ve been asked these questions many times and so it is finally time to write a post about this topic.

How Many Is Enough?

This is not a simple question and there are several schools of thought.  In one corner, we have the “less is more” camp who believe that a smaller group of higher quality connections works better.  Seth Godin recently endorsed this approach in his blog post “Bullhorns are overrated.”  And in the other corner, we have the “strength in numbers” camp who believe that if 100 followers is good, then 100,000 followers is, well, a thousand times better.  Chris Brogan spoke about what he calls his “serendipity engine” in his post, “Depends How You Define Value.”

Personally, I come down more on the serendipity side of the fence.  I will follow back just about anyone who is a real person and seems to be using Twitter in a genuine manner.

Is There Any Risk?

There is no overt risk in following someone.  It’s not the equivalent of granting them access to your computer in any way.  However, it does give them the ability to send you a Direct Message (DM), which could conceivably contain a link to a malicious web site.  I never click on a link in a DM from someone I don’t know.  And in most cases, I will immediately un-follow anyone who sends me an unsolicited DM with a link to a web site.

How Do I Decide?

I have a two-layer system for deciding whether or not I will follow someone back.  In the first test is to analyze a few metrics directly from the email notification.

FollowOrNot 300x179 Twitter: To Follow, or Not to Follow?

Click to view full image

  1. The name is obviously the first thing to look at.  If it is something like “Porn Galore” then it’s a pretty quick decision.  Conversely, it could be a company or brand you don’t necessarily have an issue with, but neither are you particularly interested in what they may have to say.
  2. I look at their follower ratio (number of followers versus number they are following).  In this example, there are no particular warning signs, as people with new accounts will frequently start by following a bunch of people.  If this ratio is more like 4 (followers) to 800 (following), this is a warning flag to me because it suggests this person is trying to quickly accumulate followers (and likely is using a computer program) and not looking to form connections.
  3. The second metric is the number of tweets compared to the number of followers.  The idea here is that I am looking for people who have built a following over time, not over night.  In this case, there’s no particular warning flag either.

If none of these three metrics presents any show-stoppers, then I will click on the person’s profile and take a look a little more deeply.  Keep in mind that between the time when you received the follow message and then visit the profile, those metrics in the email could have changed dramatically so I will take a second look at those first.

FollowOrNot2 300x230 Twitter: To Follow, or Not to Follow?

Click to view full image

  1. Case in point – notice that now the follower ratio has changed to 12/625.  This is now screaming, “Spammer!”
  2. The next thing I look for is real profile information, like a bio and web page.  Taking the time to fill out this information is an indication that the person is genuine.  If a web page is there, it can be another warning flag if it looks suspicious.
  3. Last, but not least, I will examine their Twitter updates to see what they are saying.  In this example, we have an obvious spammer who is trying to con people into signing up for programs that may or may not be legitimate.  Many of these scams will hijack your Twitter account and send out spam messages.

If you have any other tips or tricks, please leave them in the comments for everyone’s benefit!

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  • Missy Knight

    Great Post Jon. I share the same philosophy as you and Chris Brogan. I have found tremendous value in letting the “serendipity engine” run its course. I use tweetdeck to auto-follow those who follow me (another point of contention with some folks). I auto-follow as a time saver. I have read comments that some people – prominent bloggers – immediately unfollow people who send auto-follow DMs. For me the benefits outweigh the risks by far. I also use twitter lists pretty extensively. Refining my twitter lists is an ongoing project that is tedious in the beginning, but extremely valuable once they are set up. Lately I have found twitter to be fairly efficient in purging spammers. If I see anything that looks like spam (porn, teeth whitening, acai berry, make money fast) I will immediately unfollow and block.

    One Tip I would like to share is what to do if your twitter account is hijacked. I found out my twitter account was hijacked via loyal twitter friends (relationships ARE important). They were receiving “get rich quick” DMs from me, and I could not see the DMs in my “sent” tweets. The fix is easy. First you must change your twitter password. (Login to twitter – click settings in the top right corner – click password.) Next you must delete aps you have connected to (Click Connections – If you are connected to outside aps, revoke access to all of them)

    Beware of third-party aps. (I have connected to Buzzom, foursquare, linkedin and a few others without problem)

    If you have questions about my comments I’m always glad to help and can be found on twitter @Missy5ft2

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  • Missy Knight

    1 ammendment: I use tweetlater (now socialoomph.com) to autofollow. I use hootsuite to manage my twitter account, and am currently looking at the latest version of tweetdeck.

  • Shawn Rogers

    Jon, Great guidelines. To get value from platforms like Twitter some type of methodology needs to be employed. The ratio idea is a great practice that I also follow. This type of decision or practice is becoming a challenge on platforms like LinkedIn also where I have used the following.
    1. I need to have met you in person. If not I send a very nice note explaining my guideline and willingness to meetup at the next event we are both at.
    2. I look for the “connection” in their profile that makes sense for us to connect.

    I’m more liberal with Twitter than I am with LinkedIn but the bottom line is that you should have a strategy that fits your use of the platform and your goals for using it.

  • Jon DiPietro

    Thanks, Shawn. Those are good points and a post about different guidelines for different networks is in the queue as well. My guidelines for LinkedIn are a little more liberal than yours; as long as I have had a work-related discussion with the person I will connect. The reason for this is that I am active in several national and international organizations in which I regularly interact and work with people whom I rarely meet.

    The other day, I was just discussing this topic with someone and described it like a sales funnel. The widest area of the funnel is Twitter, then LinkedIn, and finally Facebook at the narrowest point. Where it gets tricky is adding another dimension to these channels when you have accounts for both a branded blog (or company, radio show, etc…) and yourself (e.g. DomesticatingIT and JonDiPietro).

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