Looking for new people to follow on Twitter?

What do you look for when hunting for new people to follow on Twitter?

 

Sparkling repartee, pearls of SEO wisdom, exclusive offers and discounts, celebrity gossip, a fresh perspective on world news or someone who shares your interests (professionally or personally)?

 

Are their tweets all self-promoting, all replies to other users, singular nonsense, social comment/newsy or just a bunch of links. A little of everything is about right - isn't it?

 

Does it bother you if they don't have an Avatar (the little square photo of themselves, product, logo or something more obscure)?

 

Does it bother you if they don't have a personal bio?

 

Perhaps you only consider following people who have neither or who only have both?

 

And what about their page background. Does a personalised background carry any weight?

 

Have you even followed their link to their profile to follow them or did you use a Twitter client and follow them directly?

 

And once you'd gone to the trouble of following someone, did you drop them a line to say why you were following them?

 

Did they follow you back? Are you bothered if they did (or did not)?

 

If they did follow you back, did you tweet a thank you to them? It's only polite you know.

 

Finally, have you honoured them with a #ff (follow friday). Who knows, they may return the favour, promoting you to their followers - the best #ff are a single user with a line on what makes that person special or worth following.

 

Twitter - makes you think doesn't it?

 

Jonathan.

 

p.s Where do you go / what do you use in the hunt for new users to follow?

 

Jonathan's Twitter profile can be found at http://twitter.com/fabphotogifts

 

Jonathan also tweets for @priceengines, @solarpanelqtr and @home_improver

Petrol Head

Regular readers here will know I became the proud owner of a Skoda Octavia 1.9tdi Elegance in February of this year after my old 2.0 petrol Mazda 626 was cruelly written off during Christmas.

 

After a month of commuting from Buxton to Derby on the Trent Barton Trans Peak service - a 6.40am start and getting back at 7.30pm, you can imagine the journey was wearing a little thin.

 

Anyway, after researching and plotting, the Skoda Octavia TDi was the obvious replacement - doing over 500 miles a week, I needed something a little more frugal.

 

At the suggestion of my father-in-law who's owned 3 Skoda's, I've been adding Miller's diesel fuel additive on every fill up.

 

Anyway, keen to see what sort of mpg I was getting, I started a log from the first fill-up. (see below).

 

monday (am) 14th feb - 47 ltr > 10.3 gal = 50.48 mpg - 520miles - £129.9 per ltr

tuesday (am) 22nd feb - 43.66 ltr > 9.61 gal = 51.71 mpg - 497 miles  - £129.9 per ltr

 

Always keen to be as frugal as possible, especially with fuel prices and diesel in particular rising to over £140 pence a litre, I thought I'd try a few weeks without the climate control on (which auto engages air-con) and see if it does really make a difference.

 

I must stress I've always driven steadily - rarely put my 'foot down' and although not driving at 'towing a caravan' speed, rarely get above 65.

 

Here's the results without the air-con on anyway:

 

Saturday (pm) 30th Apr - 46.26 ltr > 10.18 gallons = 57.07 mpg - 581 miles - £133.9 per ltr (morrisons voucher) - no air-con!

Wednesday (am) 11th May - 42 ltr > 9.25 gallons = 57.83 mpg - 535 miles - £138.9 per ltr (tesco) - no air-con!

 

So, in conclusion, a massive average of 5+ mpg more, over the course of a tank - that's nearly 50 miles (or a single one-way commute for me) which means eventually I'll get a 'free' journey - I'll let you do the maths.

 

p.s long periods of running without using the air-con in a car isn't recommended so I've taken to making one journey a week at least with the air-con on, just to make sure the system stays primed.

a little Friday groovin' with Anita Ward - Ring My Bell

Yes, from 1979 folks....

Saturday night entertainment

Has it really come to this? Watching Britain's Got Talent final again... (wasn't the reverse order of who'd won a cruel way to deliver the results???)