Who Follows You/Who You Follow
Twitter is a community building tool. The point is to engage and to communicate with the community that interests you. People follow you and you choose who to follow.
In that spirit – I try to say hello to people that choose to follow me. I check out their Twitter page to learn what matters to them. I follow people back. I refuse to use the automated tools that automatically send direct messages (DM) when someone follows. As a result, my process burns time. Sometimes I get too busy to meet my followers.
I use a oneforty1-reviewed application called Friend or Follow. Developed by Dusty Reagan, Friend or Follow offers you a “dashboard” of:
- Following: People you follow
- Fans: People who follow you
- Friends: You follow them/they follow you
Click on the “fans” tab and there are small profile photos of all the kind people following your Twitter account (bless them!). Hover over their profile to see a snapshot of their profile. Easily click the Follow button to return the follow:
Conversely – if you choose to Unfollow people you follow that don’t follow you back (this is a conversation, right?), review your “following” tab. Hover over the deadbeats that blew you off and hit the Unfollow button <kidding>.
This is a great app for managing your Twitter account. When I began using it, Twitter spam was deadly. So I appreciated that Dusty developed this app to work with my account name – no password necessary. That plus the oneforty endorsement made me comfortable using and now to recommend Friend or Follow. It may seem like a slow process, since you need to handle each profile individually. But it is free – so why whine?
1 oneforty is a pretty cool site to check out your social media app options. Visit their listing of the 100 Most Popular Twitter Apps. Follow them on Twitter at @oneforty or their founder, Laura Fitton, at @pistachio. I enjoy her tweets – nice blend of business and personal. Good person to follow if you are finding your “voice” on Twitter.