Who Should You Follow on Twitter?

After you’ve set up an account on Twitter, the next step is deciding who you want to follow on Twitter. This article will cover five ideas for choosing which Twitter users you should follow. Specifically:

1. Follow Who You Know And Admire
2. Follow Who Others Follow
3. Follow Who Bloggers Recommend
4. Follow Industry Experts
5. Follow Companies You Want To Work For

An easy way to get started with Twitter is to follow people that you know. You may be surprised to see that many of your friends, family members, business contacts and colleagues have Twitter profiles.

You may also want to follow people that you admire. I follow some of my favorite authors, companies that I like (ex. Panera Bread) and a wide range of industry experts.

To find people or companies on Twitter, go to the “Find People” page on Twitter and type in the information you’re looking for. The search results display below- and you simply choose the name you're interested in.

Here's a screen shot of the results when you search for me- "Marci Reynolds":

If you're not sure who to follow, you may want check out the power users on Twitter. These are users with a positive Twitter reputation and/or thousands of followers.

WeFollow.com is a website that continually updates the most popular celebrity, television, music, media and news Twitter Users.

WeFollow also keeps a rank list of the Top 10 Twitter users with the most followers. At the time I published this article the top 10 were:

1. aplusk (Ashton Kutcher)1,962,289 followers

2. TheEllenShow1,685,521 followers

3. cnnbrk1,608,204 followers

4. britneyspears1,607,664 followers

5. BarackObama 1,262,132 followers

6. Oprah 1,225,129 followers

7. johncmayer 1,184,375 followers

8. RyanSeacrest 1,123,597 followers

9. THE_REAL_SHAQ 1,100,772 followers

10. jimmyfallon 1,087,374 followers

Another great resource for "who to follow" are blog posts. A number of top Bloggers and popular news magazines have published their Top Tweets lists such as:

100 Geeks You Should Be Following On Twitter: A list compiled by GeekDad on Wired.com.

10 Journalists You Should Follow On Twitter: A list compiled on the 10,000 Words website, "Where Journalism and Technology Meet".

40 Sales Experts You Should Follow On Twitter, From The Sales Operations Blog

10 Bloggers You Should Follow on Twitter: From Jack Humphrey's Friday Traffic Report blog.

25 Media People You Should Follow On Twitter: From Advertising Age

The Most Interesting People to Follow On Twitter: From Think Vitamin, Nourishment to Help The Web Grow

Nonfiction Tweets- Top 70 Authors To Follow On Twitter: From Mashable

Twitter can be a great learning tool, by following industry experts in your professional field.

For example, if you are a Sales Rep, follow Sales Coaches and Sales Trainers who often tweet great selling tips and best practices. If you are running a PR start-up, follow some of the larger PR companies to see what they’re doing to grow their business. If you manage IT, follow some of the technology companies like Microsoft or Apple to stay current with trends and product releases.

To find Twitter users that Tweet about topics of interest, try the Twitter search function located in  the right column on the Twitter home page.

Here is a screen shot of a search for “sales training tips”. Anyone who recently tweeted about that topic is shown. To learn more about that user, click on the blue link to the right of their photo- with their Twitter user name.

If you are job searching, I recommend following companies that you may want to work for. This gives you a chance to learn more about them, their brand and how they interact with customers.

If the company does not have a presence, some of their top execs may instead. It could require searching a few different ways to uncover the Twitter user account.

Want more help with Twitter? Try these additional articles on Hub Pages:

"18 Tips For New Twitter Users", By Sande Saimond.

"30 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Effectiveness On Twitter", by Julie-Ann Amos.

"20 Ways To Get Followers on Twitter", By Kathryn Vercillo.

"How To Use Twitter For Business", By Andrea Kalli.

Author Marci Reynolds, May 2009, All Rights Reserved