Most people in this world judge a person by the number of fans and followers they have. It’s a sad fact in life. I even find myself, more often than not, evaluating a person of Twitter’s worth not by the number of followers, but my the ratio of followers to followings a person has.

Why all the evaluation? It’s because most people are trying to find value in who they follow. No matter if you are a causal Twitterer following @DrDrew because you enjoyed his work on Loveline, a business Twitterer following the competition stay informed, or a professional Twitterer who’s looking to keep up with the latest trends in your industry, you’re searching for the value others have to offer.

What does the ratio mean? Well, that’s a matter of trust and a whole other blogpost, but to summarize: You’re more important to the “Common Joe” if there are more people who want to listen to you than the amount of people to whom you choose to listen. Did you get that? From here on out, let’s call it the follower/following ratio.

I’ve been on Twitter for quite a while now. And during that time, I’ve built up quite a following. Now, I’m generally not one to brag about the number of follower I have. But now, after much deliberation and a lot of soul searching, I’m going to share with you my most valued Twitter secret. It’s how I’ve been able to build such an engaging following over the course of my time on Twitter. It’s one of those, “Slap yourself on the head” sorta things, to. Ready?

Add value by sharing.

That’s it. End of post. You can leave now.

Just kidding.

People using Twitter are really looking for information. They may be answering the question, “What are you doing?” when they actually tweet, but, when they check their feed they may be answering a different question like, “What’s going on?”. When they do a search, the question is more specific, like, “What’s is _______?” or “What’s going on with _______?”.

Now, there’s a lot of information on the internet. One person could never make it through all that information. But everyone tries in their own way. Everyone finds great information in the places that they know to look. People choose everyday what is important and matters to them, giving their information a certain perspective. By choosing to share that information, you’re adding value to your followers by generating highly filtered and incredibly valuable information.

So, by saying “Add value by sharing”, I’m really just saying that I ReTweet a LOT. As a matter of fact, I’d say more that half of all of my tweets are ReTweets. I make sure I follow people whom I value their information and perspective, so that I can pass on their information that I find important. And people who follow me like the information that I filter and share it on to their network. This cycle can go on and on and on.

The possibilities of this kind of information sharing are endless, especially considering the immediacy that tools like Twitter provide for us. Let’s say I’m downtown and looking to head home when I go to my Twitter feed and find that two people are stuck in traffic on my normal route home. Minutes, if not hours saved. Maybe there’s a nasty storm that is making it’s way through your area. Local EMA and authorities can answer questions where many people can read and reread the answers or figure out where their services and help is needed. Now we’re talking about lives possibly being saved. Local venue sells out early but happens to open up more seats at the last minute. A single retweet could get you and your friends out of the house and into their seats.

That’s some powerful stuff.