One of the popular trends on Twitter is to gather more number of followers. This has many outcomes – the best being, more people can consume my published information so I can be better heard. Whilst I would like to be heard, I would also like to listen. In fact, I would like to listen at almost all the times I use Twitter and be heard much less often because I have so little to speak.

However, I do not follow everyone who follows me. That said, I follow almost anyone who follows me. (Try me)

So here goes my policy (which, of course, will change time to time without me updating it):

• Follow people who are original authors of creative work (not just status updates).
• Follow people who are fast! Newspapers are stale, the next day; News on Internet become stale in a few hours; News on Twitter become stale in less than an hour. (That’s just symbolic!)
• Follow people who use Twitter as their Knowledgebase and dump interesting links, videos, images, etc. in their accounts so that people like me can go and check them out.
• Follow thought leaders.
• Don’t follow people who make fickle friends. I see many people who just don’t follow back. A few hundreds of Followers and less than a hundred Following. I somehow get the feeling that these people are just too fickle to mix with.
• Don’t follow people who are too desperate. These are people who have a handful of posts but a long list of Followers and Following.
• That said, Follow people who have just a handful of posts and a long list of Followers and Following – provided, the few posts they have are just great!
• Follow people with whom I can have an interesting conversation.
• Follow people who are just likeable – no reasons given.