Cleaning up your Twitter stream

I am going to be brief, as I am pretty much over this conversation-- but here is how to figure out if the people you are following on are actually following you back on Twitter.

Go to you twitter homepage and click on the "Following" link. This will bring up a list of all the people you are following on Twitter. (Sidenote: Also click on the "Followers" tab to make sure you are following all the people that are following you, that you also want to follow back, as I found there were a lot of people I had no idea I was not following or were even following me.)

Okay, back on topic, so you can figure out who is following you back because if there is a "message | nudge" option next to their name then they are following you back. 

If that option is not there, then they are not following you back because you cannot contact them directly.

I would give them a chance, de-follow, then re-follow and if they still don't follow you back, say c-yah. Unless of course you want their updates whether or not they actually follow you back.

Comments

[Steve]

Just a word of caution; you probably want to double check your followers before you assume that someone who doesn't have "message|nudge" next to their name isn't following you. Twitter's still buggy, and I've found people on my list of followers who don't have that next to their names. It's accurate about 90% of the time, but you don't want to drop someone because Twitter's having a bad hair day.

[Karlyn]

Good advice, thanks girl!

[yndygo]

The only thing that worries me is something you've already noted... I've gotten numerous 'daily' notices lately that UserX is now following me - but when I go into that part, it shows them as not following.

I'm of the mind that there will always be a few folks I follow that don't follow me... such as WilWheaton and the like... but I do tend to unfriend those who seem to flood my stream with minutia, but don't interact with others...

Still, I think you're on target.
:)

[Doug Haslam]

I agree with your approach on Twitter. I think of Twitter as two way, and people who do not participate, along with spammers and a few other types, I don't follow-- with a few exceptions.

But the other commenters have a very important point-- the bugginess of Twitter. To wit, the sad lonely tale of Mr. Rod Begbie (www.twitter.com/rodbegbie). I followed Mr. Begbie (let's call him "Rod") as he is part of the Boston social media community and that we therefore would have something in common. Alas, I thought that poor Rod was suffering from poor manners by not following me back, but held hope that he was merely being lazy or stupid, both forgivable in my book.

After meeting Rod in person, I thought our personal connection was made, and saw that he did indeed follow me back. Hurrah!

But alas, he still shows up as "not following." Shall I nuke him? Nay, he stays! But I fear he is missing out.

So be careful when dynamiting your following list.

(Rod, thanks for your hoped-for sense of humor)

[Rod Begbie]

I think different folks use Twitter in different ways. For some it's a laggy chat client. My view is that it's more of a short-form blogging tool.

And from that perspective, there is no way for me to know if you subscribe to my blog's RSS feed, and wouldn't take it personally either way.

I have a limited amount of attention to give. Someone who posts a lot and drowns out others who maybe post once a week? Get dropped.

As an example, I think Jesse Baer (@misc) is a top bloke with interesting ideas, and will always happily chat to him. But his Twitter stream? Too much. I would start up my laptop in the morning, and 20 tweets that Twitterific loaded would 80% him.

Personally, I don't see following/not-following as a symbol of "friendness" in the same way I would on, say, Facebook. Twitter is a tool, like email, blogging or IM. I use it in a particular way. And for someone to be upset about the way I use that tool bothers me.

[Doug Haslam]

Rod, It did occur to me you may simply have unfollowed me b/c my Twitter stream is a bit too much...

[Aaron B. Hockley]

Personally I don't care who's following me.

I follow people based on whether or not their updates provide value to me. If they want to follow me, that's cool. If they check out my tweet stream and find me boring/irrelevant/annoying that's cool too.

[Chris]

See, this is how I know I am old. I have no idea what any of that means, what this Twitter business is or why I should use it.

But you crazy kids seem to like it so it must be worth something. ;)

[David Fisher]

Mine still needs a little cleaning, but at least it's within a reasonable tolerance now. I need to put a time on my calendar to do it every now and then, or I'm sure it will get out of hand.

Hopefully Twitter improves the accuracy of the listings, as well as the ability to add people successfully each time.

[Aaron Strout]

There is a cool FF extension that allows you to automatically compare your followers to those that you are following. It helped me clean up my list: http://tinyurl.com/3dzbqd

[David LaMorte]

Thanks for the tip about being able to tell who follows you back. You=awesome.