Blogging Notes

I often see people with pretty much the same number of Twitter followers as they follow themselves. I draw the conclusion that that automatically follow almost everyone who follows them. But is that a good practice?

Whenever someone follows me, I first check their Twitter home for the following:

• Are they engaged in conversations? Do you see them @replying to others?
• Do they have more tweets about their own blogs, products or services? If they do, it means that they primarily use Twitter to promote themselves.
• Do they regularly retweet? Do they regularly link to stuff they might think would interest their followers?
• Who are their friends? Are their friends people I would like as friends?

I do this to avoid being overwhelmed by a lot of advertisement. If I only get self-promotion in my friends time line, I might miss the serious tweets that could be of interest.

Those who “pass the test” will be followed by me in return. Those who don’t will only get a @reply from me, thanking them for following me.

Is it wrong of me to use this strategy? What’s your strategy? Why would you follow someone on Twitter?