I follow 30,000 accounts on Twitter. There is no way that anything relevant/interesting shows up on my "feed". I always use the "@Connect" filter so I do not miss any Tweets directed at me. I search on key words or hashtags to follow interesting discussions and get news. I keep a separate tab open to @glenngreenwald since everything he Tweets is interesting.
I use Twitter as a broadcast medium. People follow me for news and very short form analysis. 80% of the hits to my blog and column come from Twitter. Of course I have a lot of followers and it is rude not to follow back.
OK, set aside the judgement on rudeness for now. Twitter limits the number of people you can follow with daily limits and rate limits and a hard stop at 2,000. In order to follow more than 2,000 you need first to be followed by around 1,900 people. There are many people who would like to generate a large following. After all, the most influential/interesting people (and celebrities) are followed by millions. Therefore many people unfollow non-followers so they can move on to follow someone who does follow back.
Think of it as a karma system that has real world relevance because the number of followers you have is public and often your Twitter handle is associated with your real identity.
So, if you do not follow everyone who follows you will lose folowers. Unless you are Justin Bieber of course.
The rude part is that someone took the microsecond required to follow you and now they have to use a tool to find their unfollowers (you), unfollow you, and follow someone else.
Who you follow is a reading list for people who share your interests. Polluting it with people whom you follow just as a hat tip is rude. Also, following uninteresting people makes your stream unusable. In my book, keeping a high signal to noise ratio is the epitome of politeness. I guess that we don't use Twitter for the same reasons...
In a sense. I promote me. I actually maintain two Twitter accounts, one to broadcast industry news and my speaking gigs, the other on the topic of my first book. Both accounts have over 30K followers with a lot of overlap.
