Should There Be A Rule About Following People On Twitter?

Twitter is a great platform to share and learn. The basics are that Twitter allows one to share links, quotations, thoughts, feelings and what they are doing, 140 characters at a time. One shares all of the above to his or her followers and to those they follow. I have encountered a  lot of opinions with regards to who and how many a person should follow on Twitter. Some people say that there should only be certain numbers of people you follow, while others follow back people everyone that follows them. That sparked question in me… Should there be a rule about following people on this social networking platform?

Everyone has his and her own reasons for being on Twitter. For me, I feel that there should be no rules, but probably a guideline for following people. So let us get back to basics:

1.  Follow because you want to – No one should be pressured to follow anyone if they don’t want to. Everyone is unique. Your needs may differ from the next person. People must not bully you into following anyone.

2.  Follow only the number of people that is manageable for you – Some people follow a lot, others follow only a handful, it really depends on how many you can manage. For those who choose to follow a lot, maybe it is also a good idea to use tools that can help you manage those followers and be able to read the tweets and engage your followers, no matter how small or how large the number is. You have HooteSuite, Seesmic and TweetDeck.

3.  Follow people that you feel are relevant to you – Some people follow only their friends and family, others follow only people in the same niche and  others follow a variety of people. I follow a variety of people, why? Because one way or another I learn different things everyday from designers, artists, moms, single ladies and gentlemen, funny people, pet lovers, poets, etc…  I do it because it is fun knowing views of people from all walks of life and people from all cultures, but that is me, do what you feel is best for you.

I feel that there should be no rules, to each his own, what do you think?