Twitter: To FOLLOW or Not to FOLLOW, that is the Q?...

With twitter's insane increase in user base and popularity, it is quite obvious that nowadays an account with 1000+ followers has become the new grounds of showing off your "coolness"...

But instead of hard work and genuine, brilliant ideas users have resorted to spamming and mass-follows to generate more followers. Now some people have embraced this idea as a means of mass socialization and according to them this actually is a much better way of promoting and receiving ideas. Others, consider this a more effective means of online marketing. On the other hand, a massive number of people actually abhors this ideology. They believe that just because someone followed you doesn't necessarily mean that you have to return the favor because if these people have different ideas than you or want different things out of twitter then it is useless to follow them, right.

My ideals were on the first group in the beginning but slowly I shifted towards the second people. Its because I have seen the mass-followers tweet nothing more than just about increasing their follower base. In fact, I have seen a user with 15k+ followers who is still posting "please follow me and I'll follow you back posts"!! That is simply preposterous. Followers are more then just a number on your screen they are (mostly) live human beings and just getting followers to show of a large crowd is just a waste of twitter's potential.

But the truth here is that these twitter users are just human beings and unlike many they lack the long term thoughts required to generate genuine followers. You see, the second group knows that if you have consistent, brilliant ideas then your follower base will increase eventually and these users will actually listen to you rather than just spamming your timeline with advertisement. I believe that when it comes to spreading your ideas, through twitter, blogging or even in "the real world" its a long term process which requires a lot of dedication, hard work and patience and I feel that taking a shortcut to fame always ends in someone falling flat on their face.

To conclude, if you ever face the question of whether to FOLLOW someone back in twitter take a moment and consider your goals. Really, just ask yourself: do you want to be a future success story or a fallen shortcut taker?