So, now you’re successful. You have added lots of new friends on twitter, some of which you know are actually interested in what you have to say, because your follower list is growing as well. Some others are marketers, and just want to sell you something. Still others on your friend list may or may not be interested in what you have to say. So, how can you tell? And if you find that some of the people you follow are dead weight, what do you do then?
How you can tell if your twitter friends are interested
There are several ways to see if the tweeple you’re following are truly interested in what you have to say. Here are a couple of ways to tell if they are worth hanging on to.
How active are they? If you have followers that have had the same handful of tweets in the past couple weeks, they may be dead weight.
Do they retweet or mention you? Active followers will reply to you and retweet your best tweets. Twitter is first and foremost a social tool that fosters conversations. If you’re the only one tweeting among your followers, then you need new followers.
Do your followers have the courtesy to follow you back? They should, since it’s polite and say something along the lines of, “Hi! I’m happy you think I might have something relevant to say. I’ll assume the same of you and I’ll listen to you too.”
What to do if you need to manage your follower list
Let’s face it, “Managing” your twitter follow list is really pruning the dead wood. If you have followers that aren’t active, aren’t engaging you in conversation, or aren’t following you back, you have some work to do.
First of all, if you don’t have a lot of followers, you can use the twitter interface itself. Simply click unfollow on the appropriate user. This always works, but is best for small follow lists (say around a hundred or less).
One really nice tool we’ve found is Refollow. This is a slick web app that has plenty of options related to twitter follower management. Probably the single most useful feature is the ability to bulk unfollow people on your friend list who don’t follow you back. There are plenty of other features, including the ability to list followers of others, and to look at who other people follow. Refollow is also priced right at free 
For inactive tweeple on your follow list, you can use MyCleenr. This is a simple service that will help you unfollow tweeple that haven’t posted in a while. It’s a pretty nice tool, but there’s currently a limit of 700 on your follow list, so your mileage will vary.
So, for now, there is limited help for effectively and freely managing your follow list. If anyone knows of a tool or service for this, please comment below.
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