How does one decide who to follow on Twitter? The answer is apparently much more complicated than you would expect. None of that “I don’t like this guy’s face” nonsense. It’s a potentially lengthy process involving multiple steps according to various social media expert types.
‘Social media experts’ and flow charts go together like Google and Verizon or Facebook and privacy-invasion. They just get one another. The web hosts numerous attempts to chart the thought process of you, dear Tweep, in deciding who you will follow.
If only we spent as much time thinking through that decision as flow charts like this one on ReadWriteWeb suggests. Personally I believe the process is a little more chaotic and a little more intuitive.
Generally it takes a couple of seconds for me to decide who I’m prepared to follow on Twitter. You’re in if you are a friend or a colleague. Ditto if you tweet regularly about stuff I’m interested in. I’m not going to hold the absence of a URL or a whacky bio against you. For me content outweighs the Bio any day. That said I’m prepared to admit that you would stand a better chance of being followed if you list your profession upfront as it helps contextualise your Tweets. I don’t care how many Tweeps follow you either, but I’ll be cynical if you follow thousands and only a handful follow you in return.
You’re out if you push spam, if you have a bot uploading all your content, are a motivational speaker or list yourself as a social media expert. A lame background would also do you in.
I don’t follow many brands. I’ll only consider doing so if I’m already engaged with you and if I can see real people manage your account (PR departments don’t count as real people).
5 local Tweeps I followed without a second thought
Pierre de Vos @pierredevos
Blogs on Constitutional Law
Mandy de Waal @mandyldewaal
Investigative Journalist, Blogger
Andrew Brauteseth @brauteseth
Photographer with a great sense of humour
Sipho Hlongwane @comradesipho
Columnist, The Daily Maverick
Arthur Goldstuck @art2gee
Author, Journalist
Funny that, I am not that keen on Twitter anymore for various reasons. 90% of twitter has no value. 140 characters to say something of meaning, what’s that all about? I follow people who share, who supply me with interesting shit to read, and defintely unfollow anyone that mentions SEO, getting more followers or spends their day trying to to push product.
90% of Twitter is not about that. People don’t get social media, The networking component of it is about as subtle as the bloke in the corner of the breakfast doing hard sell.