Twitter is a runaway success, and as such it is subject to abuse. To prevent or throttle this abuse, Twitter limits the number of people you can follow to 2,000 or 110% of the number of people who follow you. This creates a problem for marketers because following others is the number one way to get new followers of your own. So business users have to figure out how to increase their followers without bumping against this limit on the number of users they can follow. One way to do this is to maintain a ratio of followers to followees of around 1:1.
I have started using a fantastic free online solution called Refollow to dismiss users from my Twitter account. The tool lets you view all of the Twitter users who you are following, those who are following you, as well as groups of users who match various other criteria. They are presented in a grid of user icons. Hovering over a user displays a hover box with much more information about that user.
Unless you are of a status where people are naturally following you without requiring a return follow, you are going to have to manage your following list. The first thing you are going to have to do is eliminate those users you follow who do not follow you back. This is probably the single most valuable function of Refollow.com because it makes that process so easy. Here is how it works:
1. After logging in, click the checkbox next to “Not Following Me” at the top of the screen. This will change the user grid to display only the users who are not following you back. On the right-hand side of the screen, in a box labeled “Show me,” you may have to click the radio button next to “My followers and following” and then the “more” link directly beneath that.
2. Click the “Select Page” button to select those users.
3. Click “Unfollow.”
That’s all there is to it! If you repeat this process regularly, it will help you maintain close to a 1:1 ratio of followers to people you follow, which will help you avoid being locked from following any more users.