Yes, you read me right. If you’re going to be following 500, 1000, or more people on Twitter then what’s the point of using it? I’ve really been thinking a lot about social networking, Twitter, and how to use it lately. Especially with a growing following on my Twitter account lately I think it’s fantastic that more people have the potential to get a little deeper into my world. But there’s a downside…

Let’s take for example John Reese. (If you’re gonna pick on someone pick on someone big right?) LOL. Actually, he’s just a good example for the point I am about to make. As of this writing John has about 1000 people following him, and he is following around 1000 people. Well, I think John is probably a VERY busy guy, and I think he has better things to do than spend his days reading 2000 or more tweets every day or even every few days. Is he going to be reading yours? Maybe, perhaps, if you’re lucky and just happen to be tweeting right when he’s looking, but when someone is following even 300 people I would imagine that it’s going to be WAY overwhelming and Twitter will start to lose its intended purpose.

Now to be fair to John, he is hardly the only person following so many people on their Twitter account, in fact a TON of people are, I won’t even get into Jason Calacanis who as of this writing is following over 23,000 people! I know a lot of people are just following people in hopes that the person they choose to follow will also follow them. For what purpose though? To build up a following? Or, perhaps link building?

I suppose you really have to ask yourself if you’re only following people on Twitter in hopes they follow you back are you missing the point of this tool? If so, for what reason are you using Twitter?

I notice several people who are following me, including John Reese which I was honored by the way to see he was interested enough in my tweets to follow me, until it dawned on me that unless he’s reading about 2000 to 3000 or even more tweets a day, he probably isn’t reading most of mine if any at all. Interestingly though he didn’t start following me until I started following him, which makes me think maybe, just maybe he saw my insightful tweets and was persuaded to follow me. You never know. Maybe John, like many, are experimenting and/or he wants to keep a pulse on the people who are following him.

Nonetheless, I think a lot of people aren’t really even sure why they’re using Twitter and they figure that building up an audience of some kind isn’t a bad thing. And it’s really interesting how people are using Twitter in ways other than it’s intended purpose.

For me however, I know why I use Twitter. I use it to interact, share, communicate, and connect with people. If you look at who I’m following it’s a small number, and most of them I know personally, some of them I don’t. However, I do guarantee that for the most part most all of their tweets are being read by me.

So really, the title of this post would be more accurate to include, “Don’t follow me on Twitter… if you’re only reason for doing so is to get me to follow you back because I won’t, and you’re really just wasting your time if you won’t be reading much of anything I may be tweeting about anyway. Otherwise… You can follow me on Twitter here. ”

So how should you use Twitter? Well, however you want I suppose, there’s no rules or limits. This is just my own personal philosophy and rant, and who knows, perhaps building up a large audience may pay for itself down the road and John Reese is on to something, however you can also do that without following everyone as well. There are many people who have large followings and follow very few people.

I think for many people using Twitter, myself included, in order to get the intended benefit you can only follow so many people without losing touch with those you are following, or really ever getting to know them in the first place.

My recommendation is to follow only the people you care about or care to hear about. Sure, go ahead and add some new people, but actually READ what they have to say, if you like them keep them, if you don’t then drop them, but don’t just follow a bunch of people and then never login to read any of their tweets. Which is the dark side I am beginning to see with so many people only following to get followers and their followers doing the same thing. Kind of like the blind leading the blind.

So what do you think? Are you following 500 or more people? Are you actually reading all their Twitters? How are you using or planning on using Twitter? Leave a comment.