Twitter is all about engagement. In real life we try to avoid people who are of no interest to us, whether for personal or business reasons. The same applies on Twitter. How do you know whether or not a follower is worth your time? Twitter has a few ways of helping you decide.
What Are They Talking About?
It may seem obvious, but the content of a follower’s tweets can tell you a lot about how useful they could be. I ask myself:
- Do they engage with their followers?
- Do they talk about things that are relevant to me?
- Who else are they talking to? They might be talking to someone I want to connect with, and could provide me with an introduction.
Friends and Followers
Although some people do follow back to be polite, following can be a one way thing. I compare the number of followers a person has to the number of people they are following.
Being followed by more people than they are following suggests that they have something very relevant to say. If they are being followed by a lot less people than they follow, I ask myself why that might be. There’s a chance it’s because they’re not engaging.
See If They’ve Got Klout
Klout is a great Twitter app that scores users out of 100 on their Twitter ‘influence’. It also shows you what topics they regularly talk about, so one way I can quickly decide on a follower is whether or not their Klout is high in the topics that I am interested in, or they’re meant to have expertise in.
A word of caution: Klout can be manipulated, but, it can be useful as a deciding factor if you’ve looked at the other two things and are still unsure of a follower.
The Signs Are There
I find that looking at these three things can give me quite a clear picture of what kind of Twitter user a person is, and whether or not I want to engage with them. The elements are almost like flags on a beach, telling you where (and where not) it is safe to invest your time.
That reminds me, I have Klout to gain and followers to earn!
