I have an idea. Let's see what we can do to suck the value out of Twitter. C'mon... I have some great ideas and you know you want to help out, right?

Ideas that Suck for Twitter

• Let's create an auto-follow service so that you can immediately follow anyone that follows you first.
  
  This way your twitterstream is full of dialogue from anyone that simply decides to follow you - regardless of what you decide that you're using Twitter for. Messages about stuff that has absolutely no relevance to anything you could care about in the least will chirp through your tweet deck columns like tiny birds stricken with mad cow disease. Information from people that are of no interest to you at all (or that have no real interest in you!) will hit your desktop or mobile device with every server ping.
  Imagine how great it will be to fire up your twitter tool of choice and see tons of messages about hosting services, dating hotties in your area, and real estate deals across the country. Once we get your (auto)followings into the thousands maybe we could actually make a game of digging through the messages to find something from the people you were actually interested in when you started.
• Or maybe we can start a service that will guarantee you 50,000 followers if you'll just follow 5 people.
  If we do this right we might gain the popularity that Bill Gates gets every year when he passes around that email. You know the one... where he generously offers up $5 to you every time you forward it. You did forward it, right? C'mon... that's easy money!
• Oh!!! What if we engineer a service where you can earn money for people clicking your shortened links.
  Work with me on this one... you could actually just push through as many links as possible - regardless of what they're about - and rake in the cash.

After all, if you're using the auto-follow (autofollitter) service and our chain-twitter (chitter) service then just imagine the possibilities.

After all - isn't this what Twitter's all about?
Let me help you with this one... The answer should be, "NO!"

Why don't we step back for a moment and talk about some of the things that you might be trying to get out of twitter, shall we? Let's talk about the value that you hope to realize in using this popular little project. Of course, if you're going to measure your successful use of twitter based on how many followers you can get (regardless of topic) or how many sales messages or promotional links you can send out in an hour - then you really don't need to read any further. Anyone else looking for dialogue about the value of their followers and whom they choose to follow should stick around for just a few more minutes... and then chime in when they hit the comments box.

Many people have different reasons for using Twitter - In my humble opinion the real value of Twitter comes from the dialogue. The information stream that you create by managing your own Twittersphere and contribute to by communicating is what brings the real "win" to this microblogging service.

Let's keep it simple for starters...

Who should you follow?
There are several tools out there to help you find people with similar profiles or that are in your area or that are tweeting about items that might be of interest to you. You can additionally search for topics using hashtags or the advanced search features of Twitter. As a side note, Fridays have become #FollowFriday where Tweeters recommend people to follow based on who they enjoy reading - keep an eye out for recommendations from others you respect or enjoy and try a few out.
Do a quick search - I won't make this into another long posting with a list of places to go look - you're big boys and girls and can figure it out.
Once you've decided who to follow - watch your twitter stream... and contribute. Contribution is really the key. Chime in with opinion on existing dialogue, post updates from your blog, share something that you just saw. The key is to be 'real' and sincere in your engagement.
While I won't immediately follow someone that follows me I will check followers accounts from time to time for items of interest or that I think are really worth staying on top of in my industry. (unfortunately there are just too many really funny and interesting people for me to be able to follow everyone!) Which leads us to a bit of a hot topic...
Should you follow back everyone that follows you?
Nope. I mean ultimately it's your choice, but why would you? I would encourage you to follow anyone that interests you but not to follow anyone you feel obligated to as a way to say thank you. If you're the average person that can't spend 168 hours a week on Twitter then you can't possibly expect to be able to keep up with thousands of people's side conversations, can you?
As an aside, you may have someone follow you that loves what you do or simply thinks that you're funny - but that has a constant twitterstream of dirty limericks or knock-knock jokes. While it's great that they are interested in what you're throwing out there - the way they're using their twitter account might not lend itself to the best use of your time in Twitter if you're following them. (yes, there are a million other similar examples.)
How do you get more followers?
First ask yourself why you care about how many people are following you. Seriously - are you pitching a product or is it simply vanity? Are you measuring your success in Twitter by how many followers you have or by how engaged they actually are in the conversations you take part in?
Ignore the number of people that follow you and simply contribute to the conversation. What I think you'll avoid is bloating up your list of people that aren't really interested in what you're saying... Even better is that you'll probably find that you have a more focused following of people engaged in your conversations - and ultimately connecting.

Any of this jive with how you use Twitter? Are you engaged or simply spewing out links? Are you adding value to Twitter or simply list stacking and link sharing?

Check out what people are saying over here...