Ever since Twitter first opened its doors to the public over five years ago, finding out whether somebody is following you has always been an oddly laborious process.

Various websites and apps have tackled this problem, and one surefire method is to simply try and send somebody a direct message – if they’re not following you this will generate an error. But it’s all just so crude and barbaric.

Well, not no more. With their recent design revamp, Twitter has made it very easy to find out if another user is following you. And all you have to do is visit their profile on Twitter.com.

Read more

If you lose something in the future, it might be a good idea to crowdsource its recovery via Twitter – it worked for a Canadian web consultant who lost his laptop in the US. He tweeted about his lost laptop, and through a series of pretty unbelievable events, one of his Twitter followers was able to get it back safe and sound.
Read more

No. And yes.

No, it doesn’t matter because following a person on Twitter gives you exactly the same amount of privilege as not following a person. The only difference is seeing those tweets in your stream. You don’t gain any kind of insider’s pass – anyone can send a reply to anyone else whether they’re following each other or not. It’s just a plus one.

And no, it doesn’t matter if even the worst kind of people follow you – spammers, bots, mass marketers and Jonas Brothers’ fans – because you can block them with the simple click of a button.

But: if enough of these people are following you and you don’t do anything about it, then yes, it matters. Because anytime anybody checks out your network all they’re going to see is a mounting pile of crud. And that can be a very influential part in their decision process about whether you’re somebody they want to connect with. Or not.

Less importantly, you’ll also risk being marked down by the various online influence raters and verifiers. This doesn’t matter as much, but it can affect your exposure.

Keep it clean, and guess what? You’ll start to see more of the right kind of people tagging along on your journey.

(As always, right is a relative term; right is what’s right for you.)

Keeping your Twitter network optimised works both ways, so pay attention to who you follow and who is following you. Your overall network tells us a lot about who you are as a person – don’t just bring anyone along for the ride.