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I think there comes a point when you reach a certain amount of followers that some people start asking you “Well, why do you only follow less than x% of those who follow you?”
I try and explain that if I followed everyone who followed me, I’d never read anyone’s posts, and it would achieve instant pointlessness. So I follow a handful. I add a few more each week. It keeps it manageable. It also keeps me entertained, intrigued, informed, and, when it comes down to it, interesting at parties. A lot of people have asked me how I choose who I follow. So here are my five rules of why I might be following you.
5) You’re interesting to me by being totally different than me, and teaching me interesting things outside of my comfort zone. I don’t know much about child psychology, but I do know that learning about child psychology usually tends to teach us about adult psychology. Dr. Jennifer Hartstein is a child and adolescent psychologist, and a contributor to the Early Show. (Full disclosure, she’s also a friend.) Point being, I read her tweets, and it sparks ideas in me for how to deal with clients, how to teach people to use social media, and generates new ideas.
4)You’re interesting to me because the information you provide helps me in real-time. Time is money, money is power, therefore, time=power. And if time=power, the more you know that helps you manage your time, the more powerful you are. Right? Very few tweets go to my mobile phone – But NotifyNYC does. Provided by NYC’s Office of Emergency Management, they tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it. Trust me – If you live in NYC, nothing sucks more than being on the A train, stuck underground for three hours because of a track fire, EXCEPT knowing that you could have avoided it, but didn’t. There are similar accounts for any major city – Find yours, and save yourself some time.
3) You’re interesting to me because you help me know things I didn’t know before, that I’d have no need to know if not for you. I can’t name more than two of the cast of the Jersey Shore. I also have no idea who the Kardashains are, except that they tend to sound annoying. But, I try and keep up on the most pressing issues in the entertainment world. I do that by reading my stream. I place people into my stream who can offer me that information. The Twitter stream of I Don’t Like You In That Way is one great example. In 15 seconds, I know what happened in the world of entertainment. Plus, they’re great writers. What don’t you know about that can better “round out” your life?
2) You’re interesting to me because you make me laugh. Without humor, I would have been dead countless years ago. If you make me laugh in my otherwise hellish day, I will follow you, and I will thank you.
1) You inspire me. At the end of the day, we all need to be inspired.
