Twitter followers: quality versus quantity?

[Jeff]

You'e absolutely right about the "scatter gun" approach. I have even read statements from prominent Internet Marketers that say if they don't get followed back they will unfollow you and regularly check their follow lists to regulate this. This is using Twitter purely as a traffic generation tool and is blatant speculative marketing and although social network marketing is a good business tool if used ethically this is not the essence behind the idea of Twitter.

I'm not tarring all Marketers with the same brush as the few that I follow do offer a good mix of personal "chat" and business information which is both interesting and helpful alongside their marketing efforts.

I believe that following and building a following of like minded people both personal and in business has a similar effect to building off-line relationships through gaining trust and confidence. The to-ing and fro-ing of ideas and information of interest between a few people is far more productive than the impossible task of pretending to be interested in what thousands of people are saying multiple times a day.

Thanks for the interesting question.