For the last few weeks I've be keeping a list of twitter tools that are helpful for finding people to follow. And today I've seen several references to finding people on twitter from Mari Smith and Rich Brooks.
Often when starting on twitter, it can seem confusing to try and figure who you should be or would like to be following. Why do you want to follow people? It's the best way to meet cool, smart, influential people AND sometimes they follow you back! :-)
My first suggestion is to follow influential people in your industry, your clients and customers, vendors, competitors, colleagues and friends. You can use the search feature on your twitter profile (upper right, click on Find People).
Then there are the tools that help you hone in on more people to add to your list...
Nearbytweets.com (see Rich Brooks' post) helps you find people near you, or any location and you can filter by keyword along with the location. So I may look for people in Los Angeles who are tweeting about "business blogging." Then, I study their profile and decide whether or not 1) I want to follow and 2) if I have anything I can add to the conversation.
Twellow.com is like the yellow pages for Twitter. First, make sure you add your own profile to the site. Then you can search by profession to find people who may match your ideal client criteria or who are experts in your niche you whom you want to watch and get to know.
Tweepi.com I learned about yesterday via Twitip.com. This site makes it super easy for you to find and follow people who follow OTHER popular people. You can input someone's twitter ID and use a variety of filters to find all the people following that person. Then you can evaluate who you want to follow in turn. You can organize the displayed info by number of followers and how much they retweet, for example. One click and you can follow 20 people at a time from the list.
TweepML.org is a site where people make lists or groups of twitter users. This is a fast way to follow people with similar interests. Recently I did search on restaurants in Los Angeles. I was really surprised at how many restaurants are using twitter and again, with one click, I could immediately start following all the local eateries. Search on a keyword, find a list, check out the peeps and follow.
MrTweet.com is one of my favorite sites because you can recommend your favorite tweeple for others to follow AND based on who you're following, the site provides recommendation of people for you to follow. I've learned about a lot of interesting, smart people from the recommendations feature.
Once you've got a good list of people you're following, then it's time to participate: converse, connect and add value.
Related Posts:
Twitter Tips for Business Continued...
Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Productivity - Part 1
Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Productivity - Part 2
Video on Twitter is Getting Easier
Finally, let's connect on twitter!
