Are you a followback girl?
If they like you, will you like them back?
If they follow you, will you reciprocate?
Are you an automatic follow?
Do you just click the follow button without even a glance?
Do you at least read the description to check them out?
Are you a selective follower?
Will they have to be your cup of tea to earn your follow?
Will your follow mean you’re in their target audience?
Are you criticized either way?
For selective follows: Why don’t you return the favor?
For automatic follows: Why don’t you make it meaningful?
chrismcmullen 
I am not a follow-back guy particularly. I tend to follow the sites/blogs which I would like to read. I don’t want to be the one who follows a blog and completely forgets about it. Though I may not be a regular reader, but I would eventually find my way back to at least one of their posts.
That sounds like a good way to do it and probably is pretty common. I also follow blogs (and Twitter and Facebook, too) that are likely to interest me when I find them in my Reader. 🙂
I follow new people only if I like what they post, mostly blogs that I could relate to but I do follow back most of the people as I think blog is more about sharing and learning. I feel blog is about community and we should give time to understand the experiences other have. I think business websites are more suited for commercial purposes. 🙂
I agree, blogging is very much about the community experience. 🙂
I always look at the person that followed. There are a lot of follow bots out there and I don’t want to follow blogs that are not even in my language or are so far off my target audience that it makes no sense. I also like to read through and engage my readers in comments, so it would be a bit ridiculous for me to follow someone who writes, say, about how to make money sell cleaning products from home.
I’ve been seeing more and more of the business and foreign language sites recently. Personal sites are certainly much more likely to engage my interest. 🙂
I think the more followers you get, the more like you are to run across those. At least that’s how it has been for me.
I used to do this and then I checked blogs because I found I was following a bunch of empty sites. It’s a jungle out there on the Blogosphere.
You need a jungle guide. 🙂 I always scratch my head when I check them out and find empty sites.
Never understood how that one works. Guess you can design bots for blogs just like Twitter.
Gosh, that’s a lot of questions to answer! I am a meaningful follower.. I check them out before I follow.
Now I need to ask you a question.. how did you do the header? The followback girl thing? That is great. 🙂
I should have passed out scantrons. 🙂
I’m glad you like the header. It’s actually a picture I made (in PNG format).
There is no end to your talents it would seem! 🙂
I’ve also seen a lot of business blogs lately following my blog – how to make money from home, how to make money through your blogging, how to make money with no effort lol! – These do not get my follow click. Sorry, I need something to relate to.
That’s right. Making money with no effort isn’t something I can relate to. 🙂
I always try and check the about page and make sure I like it, as well as some of their most recent posts before following. 🙂
Yes, I look at the recent blog posts. When the blogger is new, I kind of feel it would be nice to show some early support, but I also would like a sample to see if it will interest me. 🙂
All good questions. I follow with those I want to read. Not sure my followers are in the same category.
That certainly makes it easier to manage the reader (or emails). 🙂
uh no. I get over 300 e-mails a day. I really can’t read every blog every day so I have cut out the re-blogs unless it’s really good stuff. I do try to hit most in a week
That is a lot. I follow several, too. I’m learning to sort them out: Follow the blogs I read frequently by email, and scan through my Reader daily to check the others (I got this idea from someone else recently).
I’m a selective follower. I also occasionally go back and unfollow blogs/twitters that don’t say anything I’m interested in reading (like finding out a blog is much more about tv than books, time to scrub it from the follow list). It cleans up my feed that way. I still follow too many blogs to be able to comment on each post, though. There’s a happy medium somewhere, I imagine.
Oh yeah, the unfollows. When the follow count drops by one, if we notice, we wonder, “What did I do wrong?” 🙂
Oh I am very very picky when it comes to following back.
That certainly makes it easier to keep up with the blogs that you follow. 🙂