How many people do you follow on Twitter? 50? 100? 1000? More? I currently follow 97 people and let me tell you, it’s quite exhausting. Keeping up with everyone’s latest tweets sometimes feels like trying to treat patients in two hospitals located on opposite sides of a city. No one ever told me how stressful it would be when I signed up for Twitter.
Of these X number of people you follow, how many of them provide valuable content on a consistent basis? Are there people you follow who are so memorable and entertaining that you hit retweet before you even read their newest tweet? I know I have.
The point is, these are the people that can help you discover better people to follow on Twitter. Let’s take for example @JoethePlumber. At first mention, you chuckle to yourself after recalling his hilarious tweet from last night:
“What an awful day. At every house I visited today, I had to constantly remind people that my real name is Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher. #FML”
Twitter is about following people who share the same interests and tastes as you do.
If @JoethePlumber likes to tweet about Nascar, politics, and his name all day, then it’s likely you’ll find that the people he follows also enjoy tweeting about Nascar, politics, and their name.
For example, I have an interest in web design. I start by scanning my list of people whom I currently follow, searching for someone who tweets a lot about web design. Let’s use @smashingmag.
Important note of advice before proceeding! Take a look at the person’s total number of followers. If the ratio between followers and followed persons is close to one, then it’s likely that the person has an automatic follow feature set up. In other words, this person probably is not “keeping up” with the same 20,000 people who follows him/her.
Alright, let’s continue. Taking a look at @smashingmag’s statistics, we see that he follows 378 people and has 110,134 followers. Not too shabby. Best of all, these 378 people he follows are likely people he intends on staying updated on.
So, let’s check out the list of people @smashingmag follows.
Looking at the first results, @usabilityblog catches my eye immediately. First, I own a blog. Second, I care about usability, which is a part of web design. Perfect fit, so far. Let’s see @usabilityblog’s bio:
Huh? Göttingen? Sorry, man. I speak English only. Sometimes Chinese. Spanish if I’m having a really good day.
So @usabilityblog was a swing and a miss. Don’t lose hope yet though. Let’s try it again.
Scrolling further down the list again, I notice @designshack. The username contains the word design. Bingo! Let’s check this one out!
According to @designshack’s bio, he/she/they enjoy providing “Daily news and inspiration for designers.” Another very good signal. Let’s proceed now to the timeline.
Huh? This tweet looks mighty interesting!
Man! I think I just wet my pants cause that’s what you call valuable content! Now, if I correctly follow the tutorials provided, I might just be able to produce a breath-taking Contact page.
Without further hesitation, I click on the follow button. Time will tell, whether this decision proves beneficial or regrettable.
Photo by Geek and Poke