Twitter – How to control who follows me on Twitter

Please consult http://support.twitter.com/

Specifically How to Use Twitter Lists

There are a few ways to create a new list, the easiest way is by clicking “New list” on the twitter sidebar. Clicking on this link will pop up a box, as shown above. Here you can name your list. You can also make the list public (everyone can see it) or private (only you can see it).

The homepage will always have the timeline of everyone you follow.
The profile page (twitter.com/username) will always have your tweets

The noisy users can be handled by this question

How can I throttle an over talkative person I'm following on Twitter without unfollowing?

I think you are thinking about it differently.

These companies rely on your promotion. So when the host says every week

tweet your questions and comments to us.

They are asking for you to

1) Follow them / Place them a list - They want to know that you are looking at their timeline and that your followers see that you are following the company

2) Mention {@username} them / Reply. Here you are promoting communication to the Radio Show, depending on how their twitter client is set up, these "mentions" will be received by the user/company in a better format than

Science Friday Rocks

which then all tweets on Science Friday will need to be searched by hand. They could have used a #hashtag (e.g. #scifri instead ,thus clumping the event messages) to achieve the same objective.

On inspecting the site you have linked it seems directions are given as to what to do to ensure your message is received

Use Twitter? follow @scifri to get our updates, and tweet your questions and comments to us during the program.

I have hyperlinked the relevant portion of their message. So there are three ways I know that you could have found their account on twitter.

1) http://twitter.com/#!/@scifri 2) http://twitter.com/@scifri 3) http://twitter.com/scifri

Any would lead to their twitter account. Now I do not know much about scifri but it does not seem like they acknowledge receipt of your mentions via their account. Maybe during their podcast (Fridays, 2-4 pm Eastern time), the interesting comments/questions are selected for the rest of the audience to see.

In your next example with support requests, I think you should look at

http://twitter.com/support
and
http://twitter.com/delbius

who are representatives for Twitter Support Team, as said on the support account page

Make sure you are following us if you'd like a response to your DM

I would hope that the company you are working with executes this in a similar manner

• Ensure whatever needs to be sent in private will be done as a direct message
• If the information can benefit the customers at large then it shall be broadcasted in public

Companies also tend to use Twitter to try to persuade users into writing shorter questions (getting content into 140 characters) so that they can read and respond as quickly as it was sent.