First, you don’t have to follow anyone at all. There are legitimate reasons why certain people or organizations choose to severely limit the number that they follow. But for most of users, Twitter works best when there is some balance between the “listening” and the “talking” that takes place.

Most Twitter users will find that the best way to gain a following is by “following” others, and by making regular updates that are interesting or useful to others. Some Twitter users will follow anyone who follows them first, so you will attract a certain number of followers by simply following every account you see. Of much greater use to you, however, are those who follow because of who you are, or what you posted.

If you’re an author, for example, you would probably love to have followers who were interested in the books you authored. You would most likely also like to have followers who were fellow authors, publishers, bookstore operators, and so on. You could move toward those goals by making updates about your work, and engaging in a dialog with others who have similar interests. Then, you could leverage the content you’ve posted by following others who appear likely to be interested in your field. A high percentage of these accounts will most likely follow you back.

As you develop your Twitter strategy, you should think about how you can best use the content generated by those you follow. It’s reasonably easy to read the updates of each of your followers when you follow a couple dozen accounts, but as your list grows past the century mark, you may find that a tool such as TweetDeck becomes extremely useful. Tweetdeck allows you to break your list into manageble groups, and can help you insure that you never miss a post from certain key accounts.

As you get more familiar with Twitter, you’ll develop your own techniques for dealing with the people you follow. One tool built in to the Twitter service is the “favorite” button located on every update. When one of the accounts you follow makes a particularly useful post, hit the button to save the post and remember who made it.

From time to time, you may want to review your list and decide if you are following any dead wood. Someone who burdens you with dozens of useless self-promoting posts should be dumped like a hot potato, particularly if they’re not even following you. Use Friend or Follow to see if you are following people who are not following you back. You can also tell if there are people who are are following you that you are not following.

Remember, Twitter is a tool that is supposed to help you. Assess frequently. Save the parts that are working for you. Discard the parts that aren’t. Ask others for feedback. Keep at it.

Twitter Professor is not affiliated with Twitter. Chris S. Cornell is not actually a professor, but he is interested in helping build local Twitter communities. Feel free to add constructive comments, questions or criticisms in the comments section. If you are building your own local Twitter community, or know of a particularly good one, include the Twitter address in your post.