You might have noticed that many Twitter users follow a lot more people than follow them back. An immediate thought that comes to mind is: “What are these people doing?” The answear is simple – they are exploiting Twitter user sentiment to follow people who follow them. Their thinking might be: “If I were to follow 1000 then 100 are bound to follow me back“. That might be the case, but having people follow you that are not at all interested in your subject matter will not lead to any profits and might even hinder others’ perception of your online profile.
To help you better identify and distinguish between your associations, we have assigned a Follow Rate to each Twitter user. A Follow Rate is a ratio between people that follow a person divided by the number of people this person follows. The chart below shows a few examples and their meaning of the different Follow Rates that might be assigned to a Twitter user:
| Followers | Friends | Follow Rate | Conclusion |
| 1000 | 100 | 0.1 | Really good |
| 100 | 1000 | 10 | Very suspcious |
| 1000 | 1000 | 1 | OK, person probably follows every back |
Follow Rate of 1+ signals that this user might be involved in spamming or crowd chasing.
We have created 2 charts (one for followers and one for friends) that will allow you to keep an eye on Follow Rate. You find them on your Twitter dashboard, in “Followers” section.
Here is an example:
