by Edie Melson @EdieMelson

Twitter is great social media tool for growing an online presence. But like any good tool, you have to take care of it, to keep it preforming in tip-top shape.

Today I’m going to share how you can clean up your twitter ratios and get rid of excess weight to keep your account working efficiently.

The first thing you want to do is look at your ratio of the accounts you follow and the accounts that follow you. Below is a screen shot of my ratio:

You want this number to stay pretty close, especially as you reach the 2000 follower ceiling. This is important because Twitter has certain hard and fast rules about how many people you can follow. This makes following more than 2000 accounts tricky. Here is how Twitter explains it:

…every user can follow 2000 people total. Once you’ve followed 2000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow: this limit is different for every user and is based on your ratio of followers to following.

The best way to avoid hitting this ceiling is by keeping your ratio close. But if you hit this limit, you can use a free program I recommend to unfollow people who are not following you back. I’ve looked into a lot of programs and www.Manageflitter.com is by far my favorite. It allows me to unfollow a large number of accounts in one sitting.

SPECIAL NOTE: Twitter has strict guidelines about aggressive following and churn. BEFORE you work with ManageFlitter, know the rules so you won’t be penalized.

Definitions:

Aggressive following: Twitter defines aggressive following as:

indiscriminately following hundreds of accounts just to garner attention. However, following a few users if their accounts seem interesting is normal and is not considered aggressive. 

Aggressive Follow Churn: Twitter defines aggressive follow churn this way:

when an account repeatedly follows and then un-follows a large number of users. This may be done to get lots of people to notice them, to circumvent a Twitter limit, or to change their follower-to-following ratio. 

I am giving you an option to explore if you hit the 2000 Twitter limit, but it’s important to be very careful how you do it. It’s better if you keep your ratio close enough that you don’t have problem when you hit the 2000 ceiling.

I try to clean up my ratio about twice a month with ManageFlitter. But I check for new Twitter followers on my Twitter account almost daily. I want to make sure that if someone has found my account valuable enough to follow, I return the favor and follow them back. But that’s another lesson—on Twitter Etiquette.

Any questions? Be sure to leave them in the comments section below.

Edie Melson—author, blogger, speaker—has written numerous books, including While My Soldier Serves, Prayers for Those with Loved Ones in the Military. She’s also the military family blogger at Guideposts.org. Her popular blog for writers, The Write Conversation, reaches thousands each month, and she’s the Director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. Connections: Social Media & Networking Techniques for Writers is a print expansion of her bestselling ebook on social media. She’s an active member of the Advanced Speakers & Writers Association, the Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy, the Social Media Director for Southern Writers Magazine, and the Senior Editor for NovelRocket.com. Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.