Who to Follow on Twitter

February 6th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Social Media, Twitter

Over the past few days, I’ve written about how to get followers on Twitter, the confusing world of Twitter rankings, and how to manage your personal brand on Twitter. So, that’s great if all you’re about is getting people to listen to you. But what I find most valuable about Twitter is listening to and interacting with other people. So, how do you find people that are worth following? Well, there are a few tools out there that may help you in your quest.

Twellow: Allows searches by category. The category search is based on what people have in their Twitter profile.

TwitSeeker: From the same folks who brought you twInfluence, TwitSeeker helps you find others by allowing you to enter search terms and searching through actual Tweets for keywords.

Mr.Tweet: A lot of buzz around this one lately. Looks through your network and tweets and regularly suggests good people and followers you are missing out on.

Just Tweet It: Users enter their Twitter name and place themselves into categories within a directory. You can search the directory by category and find users that match your interests.

Find and Follow: This is a brand new one with a lot promise from my buddy Dave Bouwman. Users enter their Twitter name and tag their Tweets with categories. You can find people to follow based on these tags. Still in Beta so give Dave your feedback, he’s a great guy (and now he owes me $20).

Twubble: It searches your “friend graph” and picks out people who you may like to follow. Not exactly sure what that means, but it finds people for you?!?!

So that should at least get you started in the right direction. I thought it would be good to provide you with some other interesting starting points as well. I could just list the Twitterholic Top 100, but you can find that anytime. Instead, here are a few lists of some of the more “interesting” people that you can follow on Twitter. And, you can always follow me on Twitter too.

My Personal Top Ten

Guy Kawasaki: Yes, everyone follows Guy and for a good reason. He’s awesome.
Andrew Warner: Founder of Mixergy.com. Great Tweets and he’s always talking to interesting people.
Bert Decker: Founder and chairman of Decker Communications. Always interesting Tweets and just an all-around nice guy.
O’Reilly Media: They Tweet more useful information in a day than some people do in a year.
Ben McConnell: Co-author of the Church of the Customer blog. The blog is like “the word of mouth gospel”.
Jackie Huba: Ben McConnell’s partner in crime at the Church of the Customer blog.
Nancy Duarte: Author of Slide:ology and an amazing presentation designer
Kathy Sierra: Web developer, author, former blogger (we miss you Kathy), and another all around good person
37 Signals: A few guys who know a thing or two about elegant interfaces, thoughtful features…you know, design and usability
Doug Ulman: The CEO of Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong non-profit that believes everyone has the power to make their life better.

The Cool Geeks (Technology and Social Media Experts)

Celebrities (If you’re into that sort of thing)

Tina Fey
Jimmy Fallon
John Cleese
John Hodgman (The Daily Show/PC guys from the Mac ads)
Elijah Wood
Demi Moore
William Shatner
Luke Wilson
Wil Wheaton
Yoko Ono

Athletes

Politicians

Musicians

Tweeting Brands

Agile Software Development (It’s what I coach)

And a few cyclists (I love cycling)

14 comments so far ↓

1 Pliggs // Feb 6, 2009 at 7:49 am

Wow, thats quite the list, will need to do some browsing.
2 jigar435 (Dr. Jigar Patel) // Feb 6, 2009 at 3:01 pm

RT @ChrisSpagnuolo A few top ten lists of who to follow on Twitter, plus tools to help you find good people to follow: http://bit.ly/xeZr
3 BertDecker (Bert Decker) // Feb 7, 2009 at 12:30 am

RT @ChrisSpagnuolo: Who to follow on Twitter, plus tools to help you find good people to follow: http://bit.ly/xeZr
4 jurgenappelo (Jurgen Appelo) // Feb 7, 2009 at 9:56 am

From @ChrisSpagnuolo: I’m on the “People to Follow on Twitter” list: http://is.gd/iByo
5 AndrewWarner (Andrew Warner) // Feb 7, 2009 at 5:47 pm

@ChrisSpagnuolo put together a great collection of tools and recommendations for who to follow (& included me) : http://tinyurl.com/cadrwm
6 Deb // Feb 7, 2009 at 6:01 pm

Nice list – but how about some ‘non famous’ people or people w/o HUGE followings. I’d like some of those recommendations to follow!
7 Chris // Feb 8, 2009 at 12:57 am

OK Deb, some “non-famous” folks to follow (and BTW, I think my friends in the Agile Software category would be thrilled to know they’re “famous” LOL).

LisaBraithwaite
ajturner
bikesbelong
bfeld
crazeegeekchic
Dana_Wilhoit
GabrielRossi
JetWithKids
joelfightsback
justinlevy
WineTwits
velonews (if you’re into competitive cycling)
OliviaMitchell
8 trisler (trisler) // Feb 13, 2009 at 5:54 pm

RT @ChrisSpagnuolo: #followfriday Who to follow on Twitter: A list of 90 of my favorites on Twitter: http://is.gd/iByo
9 Jordan // Mar 16, 2009 at 12:46 am

Also, for who to follow on twitter, check out http://www.tweetTop.com (various topics).

J
10 Web 2.0 Junkie // Mar 17, 2009 at 7:36 pm

http://followontwitterlists.com/ is a big list of “follow on Twitter” lists.
11 clarisse // May 3, 2009 at 9:07 pm

the Tina Fey twitter account is actually not hers, she confirmed it a while ago, so you should probably take it off the list. just a heads up.
12 Swanton F Fleming // Jul 6, 2009 at 1:43 am

hey buddy.twitter applications can really be understood with a great effort after reading your post.
13 Facebook Management // Oct 16, 2009 at 12:16 pm

this is a great list, thanks for the info
14 LLR // Jun 2, 2010 at 5:13 pm

Follow @Baby_DeDe she is really cool and always updates.