For many people, especially those new to Twitter, one of the big questions about this popular application is, "who should I follow?" Well, there are many good answers to this, all depending on your purpose for using Twitter. But there are a few shortcuts you can use that will make life simpler and get your Twitter neighborhood growing quickly.

First, find someone else on Twitter who has your same position or interests and follow the people who follow them. Since you are in a similar line of business or have similar interests to the person those followers are following, there is a good chance they will follow you back if you have clearly stated these interests or position in your Twitter Bio. A good way to find this initial same-brainer is Twitter Search. Just type in the keyword that tickles your fancy and you'll find lots of tweeps who are talking about it. I, being a recruiter, might type in terms like "hiring" or "jobs" or "recruiting" to find similar users.

The next quick and easy method is to register with Twellow. Twellow is like a yellow pages for Twitter users. Once you register and include the proper identifying info (so other users can find you too), you can search for users by location or category. If you dare to check the enhanced features box just below the login area (this temporarily stores your Twitter password) you can follow users right from the search results page. This is very quick and very easy.

Quick and easy jumps to a new level when you use the "Find People" link at the top of your Twitter home page. Once there, click the "Find on other networks" tab and locate users from your Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, AOL, or Gmail accounts. Don't have one of these free email services? No problem Just export your Outlook contacts to a .csv file and upload them to the free email service of your choice and you're in business.

Another great trick is to export your LinkedIn contacts to a free email service to achieve the same result with your current LinkedIn Network. On your LinkedIn home page, click "Contacts" in the box on the left of the screen. Once on the "Contacts" page, look at the bottom of the list and you will see an "export contacts" link. This will create a .csv (comma separated values) file suitable for upload to any of the above free email services. If you upload them to Gmail you can categorize them all at once as "LinkedIn contacts". Then go back to Twitter and find all your LinkedIn contacts who are currently on Twitter, through the same import process mentioned above, and follow away. You might also update your LinkedIn status that you are now following all those in your network who are on Twitter and list your follow-back Twitter id.

See? Quick and easy. Happy Tweeting.

View original article at http://www.fishdogs.com/2009/02/who-should-i-follow-on-twitter.html

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Connect with me on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/wcraigfisher

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