To follow or not to follow

I've been on Twitter for about a year and a half now. I didn't want to join at first because I thought it was just some big chat room. Well, it kind of is. A free chat room and free text messaging site, if that's what you use it for. But it's so much more than that. I won't go into why I love Twitter but when used properly, it can vastly improve your networking circle and open so many doors career-wise.

Side note: if you were wondering why Twitter is great, here are Five Reasons Twitter is an Essential Social Media Tool.

This is why I believe it is important to follow the right people. When determining who to follow, I look at these five things before I hit the follow button:

1. Your Twitter handle (aka Twitter name). Lets do away with handles with your nickname and a series of numbers (e.g. princessballin1234@money.com). It reminds me too much of hotmail spam. I don't want to have to ask you what it means (unless you're part of a Greek fraternity or sorority). And if I follow you and you have this, please know that it's because you're my friend or I met you in real life. Just know, as my friend says, I bite my thumb at you -__-
2. Your Twitter bio. I'd be sitting poolside at a condo on South Beach with Diddy for all of the Barbies and Socialites descriptions I've seen. I know I stopped playing pretend in elementary school. Who are you really? You give me pause.
3. Your amount of tweets. I know I have about 27K tweets. Excessive probably to someone who only follows 26 people. Which means their entire timeline is just me. No bueno. And if your tweet number is over 50K but you only have a little amount of followers, you might need to seek professional help. Who are you talking to?! Again, if you're my friend and this applies to you, I'm giving you the side eye O_o
4. Your timeline. Is what you're tweeting interesting, relevant and true to who you are? Do you have an opinion (meaning tweet to others) or are you just journaling? Your opinions make you interesting. We don't have to agree with what you have to say but please have a voice on something. And hopefully it's not all about the money, money and the cars, cars and the clothes, the hoes. Drizzy!
5. Who you follow and how many people follow you. This is the least likely determining factor for me only because some people who have a huge following do not interact with their "followers". The most interesting people I've met on Twitter don't follow or are not followed by a copious amount of people but yet they are very interesting. But I will tell you this, who you follow is a reflection of you. Don't make those crazies bring your sanity count down! And yes, I believe in unfollowing friends.

P.S., if your page is locked, I'm not following you (unless I already know you). And if you follow me, thanks. But if you tweet me, I can't read it...because your page is locked. I'm sure I've gotten many unfollows from locked pages. Closed mouths don't get fed boo boo. Wait, does that phrase apply here? Anyway. Basically, I can't read what you tweet to me. If you're a lurker, disregard all of this.P.P.S, disregard this if you only use Twitter to talk to your personal friends and not as a social media networking tool. I bite my thumb at you.A tip: if you are using Twitter for networking purposes, watch what you tweet, be mindful of your audience, respect yourself and stay relevant.Tweet me, if you dare. Mwahahaha. Ha.