J.P., I don't know who told you that "The rule is that when
someone follows you, you should be polite and follow them back."
That's crazy-talk. If you're using Twitter mainly as a platform
for self-promotion and are trying to build as big a circle as
possible, following back and interacting might help, but there's
no reason you have to do that.
This is something that a lot of people don't seem to get:
Different people use Twitter in different ways. It was originally
conceived -- and is legitimately useful -- as a way to let your
friends know which bars, movies, etc. you're going to so you can
meet up. Since it's also fun, if not exactly "useful," for
sharing amusing observations and bantering back and forth, people
naturally started following people who they don't know personally
but do find entertaining or interesting. This means that,
depending on what you choose to do with it, it can also work as
something like a platform for very short blog posts, or like a
message board. (I know a few writers who have two Twitter
accounts -- one "locked," for friends only, and one publically
accessible. I resist this because I don't want to keep track of
two accounts, and I kind of want to meet anyone who would
actually bother to stalk me.) Because Twitter has several
different uses, anyone who says that there's a correct (or
"polite") way that you must use it doesn't know what he's talking
about.
