I disagree with following more people. And Doubly disagree with number 7 - unfollow people who don't follow you back. Because it Proves you are NOT interested in what they write but only want followers for your stuff.

BUT

In all likelihood, you'll only end up with people who also think like you and just want Followers and have no interest in reading what you twit.

You do NOT need to keep your followers within 5% of your following count. Ashton Kutsher is following 40 and has 30,700 followers. His misus - Demi - is following 31 and has 20,700 followers. And actor Stephen Fry has 146,600 followers.

Can you imagine trying to work your numbers into this? It'd mean Fry should follow 139,270 people. And there ain't no way a person can Physically read all the Tweets from so many people - not to mention the Direct Messages as well.

My take is... follow people you want to read things from. This way you keep your Received Twits within your areas of interest. And your Twits go into other people's areas of interest.

Your way sees a bunch of people all tweeting and no-one reading. Just like placing ads in a FFA ezine. People subscribe not to read ads but to Place ads. Ads which are seen by people who don't read them and only subscribed so they could place ads. And it ends up Negating the usefullness of Twitter.

When everyone is talking, no-one is listening.

Michael Ross