[image credit: Wired]

Kate Carruthers has a pretty solid set of rules that you could use for deciding who to follow on Twitter. I have some similar rules but just for the record they go something like this:

Green Light Questions – i.e. they increase the likelihood to follow

• I know you personally
• You’re a company or a person who I admire/am interesting in learning more about
• Does your blog have interesting stuff
• A friend recommended you as a top Tweet!
• Are you funny

Red Light Questions – i.e. oops, fail.

• Your timeline is private – really, what’s the point?
• A cursory glance at your Twitter feed shows mainly @’s – that’s what DM and IM if for
• You have no bio information on your Twitter page or link to your blog/website for me to learn more
• Your timeline is filled with RT – if I wanted to know everything on PopURL’s I’ll follow them myself
• Your timeline is filled with the banal – okay we all do that sometimes but really, I don’t want to know that you just went to the loo

This may seem a bit harsh given I don’t follow everyone who follows me but the same is also true of everyone I follow – they don’t always follow me back. No problem.

The above rules get applied within about 30 seconds I think and the the ones in italics are the key principles for me with a timeline full of replies (@’s) being a personal bugbear at the moment.

thanks to Mike Butcher for the link to Kate and yes, I just followed her :)