The Twitter Book

Know your new followers

When you first sign up for Twitter, it's set to send you an email every time somebody new follows you. If you don't like the interruption, create an email folder and filter for the messages so that they can pile up without bothering you. Every now and then, you can peek at the list, which will look like the one we've shown here, and see who you might want to follow back or say hello to.

Unfortunately, Twitter's notification emails don't contain much info—which means you have to click through if you want to learn about your followers. For richer notices, try Twimailer (http://twimailer.com), which will include a follower's profile and most recent tweets. (Twimailer requires that you swap in an email address it gives you, which some people find problematic. Chris Messina [@chrismessina] has a workaround: http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/03/04/how-to-use-twimailer-securely.)

twitter tip

If you decide you don't want email notifications from Twitter when you get new followers, you can turn them off under Settings → Notices.