This is intended to cover intermediate to more advanced Twitter topics. For advice if you've just started using Twitter, see the other article - Twitter Explained, which covers the basics.

Firstly, who should I follow and why?

The Anatomy of a Twitter Follow

Either looking at the stream of a potential follow, or looking at the profile of a new follower.

Ask some of the following questions:

1. Are they saying the same thing over and over?
2. Do they pump out dozens of similar sounding tweets per day?
3. Is their twitter stream empty?
4. Did they last say something months ago?
5. Is their stream empty of retweets? (i.e. all content is about themselves or their organisation).

If the answer to any of the above is yes - I'll move on. There's no point in starting a dialogue with anyone if they only talk and don't listen. It doesn't matter to me if they're the Library of Congress, The Prime Minister or a Hollywood Star. Social Media is essentially about interaction, even if it's brief or occasional. There are plenty of platforms for people in elevated positions to talk, be broadcast and heard, without having to suffer the indignity of proles answering back. Twitter isn't one of them. Its value is in its interactivity.

Other reasons not to bother:

5. Lots of tweets about something I'm unlikely to need to know (e.g. vacation rentals in Tucson, Arizona). Something I'll only look up if I need to.
6. Scripted followers - those with 10s of thousands of followers, who have little to say. Quotes are used to bolster the lack of content.
7. Those that follow and defollow. Then keep refollowing because they're running a script. Tedious - though easy to identify and remember.
8. Sponsored tweets or repetitive feeds (101 Photoshop tips, 20 must have phone apps, etc). If I want that info, I'll just subscribe to a feed.

Ones I will follow, but watch:

9. Many, many followers, but only a few being followed. Often indicates a defollower (not necessarily an 'authority'). Will follow for a bit then remove you. The high 'following' numbers are part of a vanity drive, not genuine expertise in something. 'Goodbyebuddy' and 'Friend or Follow' are good for sniffing these types out. 

This weeds out the real people from the bots. The Inside Guide to London doesn't filter based on how interesting or worthy a person or organisation appears. A lot of people get better at using Social Media and also, many celebs are far less interesting than 'ordinary' people - so I keep an inclusive policy. Also, because the subject matter is 'London', it's easy to see straight away whether they're following other London sites and if they appear to have a genuine interest in London.

That's it.

Lists - What's the Point?

Ah lists, what are they for? I think it differs between users, but I can tell you what I use them for. In IT or data terms, lists are a live aggregation of data - which will put all but the geekiest straight into a coma. I'll explain. By adding 500 users into a list about London, anytime you view that list you're looking at a live headline feed of what people are up to right now. This is especially useful on a Friday or Saturday night when the lists are spooling quickly and show where everyone's going. It's a great prompt or reminder if you're stuck for something to do, or need inspiration about somewhere to go.

Other lists on the Inside Guide to London show art and museums, food, drink, they may contain offers, or details about forthcoming events. I also find them useful for 'concentrating' information about London. One of the lists is just a listing of similar London portals, so skimming here will give a good précis of what's going on right now, or in the near future.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about lists is: "list people and they're more likely to list you."

Klout, Peer Index and Assessments of Your Twitter Value

Klout is becoming increasingly popular and is actually just one online company. There are several others such as Peer Index and Twitter Grader and they're a way of classifying the value of a Twitter stream by looking at several factors. Google, Bing and the other search engines are also fascinated by this kind of 'value' as it helps to improve the results their engines return.

You are evaluated by a combination of the following:

• - Who follows you. This is like Google PageRank - you can't make people follow, you can only entice them by trying to offer value, humour, reliability, accuracy, scoop-value or any number of other reasons. It's not necessarily the numbers either. If you have 5 followers and they're: The British Museum, Richard Bacon, The Mayor of London, Mashable and Twitter then the part of your ranking determined by 'who follows you', will be off the chart, because those followers have a stellar rank and follow very few. So it's not numbers, just like 20,000 links from spammy sites in Google won't beat a single link from NASA.
• - What your influence is. This measures how much reaction there is to your Tweets and how many different people - so it's not the same 5 people retweeting you.
• - Who and how many talk to you. Measured by the '@YourName' tag. A look at how interactive you are. Chatty is better than not.
• - How often you talk. Crucial, if you're a celeb who has millions of followers and never speaks, your Klout plummets.

There are many other factors, but all of them are combined to assess the kind of Tweeter you are. It's interesting for sure, but easily the quickest way to assess the quality of a stream is to multiply the number of times they've been 'listed' by 20 (let's call it the 'Inside Quotient'). If the number you get is more than the number of followers they have, they're likely to be a good source of information, if it's a lot less I'm thinking 'auto-script'. You can auto most things on Twitter except 'listed' which can only be done by others - hence for me, it's the bedrock of measuring Twitter quality. People list you, only because they want to.