I also do not auto follow and do not normally recommend it for my clients – although there are times when I can see it being advantageous for an organization to use autofollow. There are quite a few people I do not follow, but I do not believe I’m a twitter snob by any stretch of the imagination. (I’m following about 50 more people than are following me.) I check profiles before deciding whether or not to follow someone…and if I’m “on the fence” I will generally go ahead and follow. I’ve found some very interesting “nuggets” from some off the wall followings!

You see, I think you and I use Twitter in the same way. I *want* to pay it forward. I very much want dialogue and engagement. It’s boring if there’s no interaction. I reply to everyone who sends me an actual, personal direct message and @reply/mention-whatever-it’s-called-now thingie. It’s exactly the people who follow, send the “hi, buy my stuff” message then quickly unfollow so they can grab more followers that make Twitter an occasionally noisy, irritating place to be. Nobody wants to be using social media just to be used, or sold to.

Do you ever check people’s following/followers ratio before adding them? If they have far more followers than people they follow, you might not get a whole lot of dialogue with them.

Hopefully I’m in no danger of becoming a Twitter snob. If you are following me, give me a shout-out or direct message occasionally. And I may even recommend you on #followfriday just for being a giver!

See, I have never used autofollows, have always manual followed and follow people I think are interesting and those that have the same interests as me. Many of those never follow back. Why? Maybe because I’m in a Direct Sales party plan business or a work at home mom. Nobody bothers to find out about me at all, what I sell or WHY or anything about me personally or my business at all. And it doesn’t matter that I mainly dialog, pay it forward to OTHER moms in business, promote OTHERS way more than myself. Many times I get to feeling so used and walked on and ESPECIALLY snubbed by twitter snobs or elite that I get to the point of being furious and that’s where I’m at now.

I’m amazed at how many snobby people are on twitter. Be careful – you may be on the road to becoming one. Judging or categorizing people can close the door to potential friends. Not sure there’s an easy answer to twitter following, but I am personally tired of being snubbed and labeled as unworthy to follow back when people don’t even bother to learn even one thing about me.