I love Twitter and although I have an account for this site I usually use my Jetlbomb account. I follow just over 500 people and have 550 followers. I don’t follow everyone back and here is why.

How can I tell you aren’t a spammer?

– If you want me to follow you then engage me in some conversation. Chances are that as soon as we’ve chatted about something I’ll follow you back. It’s nice to see there’s a real person behind that account.

I don’t like your picture

– If you look boring, too sexy or over-businessy then you won’t get an automatic follow from me. See above, this can be changed.

You DM or @ me with ‘Thanks for the follow, please visit…’

– God, engage me in some conversation before spamming me with your shit please.

All your tweets contain links

– I tend to skim over tweets that contain links to find genuine, personal tweets about that cup of tea you made. Once again, I want to talk to real people. Make it known that you are human and that you aren’t just on Twitter to promote. Once I get to know you I might realise that your links are funny/informative but don’t bombard me with them.

You go over 140 characters

– The whole point of Twitter is that you need to be intelligent enough to say things concisely and with minimal chatspeak (in my eyes anyway.) No twitlongers and keep continuations to 2/3 messages. Got more to say? Then ask me for my email.

You don’t engage your following

– I want to see lots of @ replies in your feed. I want to know I’m following someone who will be willing to have a chat with me.

You’re a pervert

– I’m not on Twitter to find a shag.

You never reply to mentions

– Annoying, I want to talk to you. Celebrities, most of you are forgiven, you can’t reply to every mention from your 500,000 strong following. Although it would be nice. My favourite celebs on Twitter are Noel Clarke and Jason Manford because they were nice enough to chat to me a few times.