Measure and modify your twitter behaviors as your community grows

It is always important to step back and evaluate how well you are doing, in life, in business.  I have been closely evaluating my efforts on Twitter for the last couple of weeks and wanted to summarize my thoughts.  This is not a "final word" on the subject, just a reflection of where I am at this point.   Note that this is an extension to comments I made on Jeremy Buenvieje's site here:  http://goodtraveldesign.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/whats-the-real-deal-with-followfriday-on-twitter/
To understand my goals, and the metrics I am using to determine success, read here:
http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/johns-twitter-engagement-index/
To understand where I am now it is important to understand where I have been.  Here is a view of my history on twitter from the perspective of my use of #followfriday.

As a new user I had no idea how to engage properly on twitter.  I never sent out a recommendation and was not recommended.
When I received my first recommendation I felt like a child receiving a gold star in school.
I decided that I wanted to utilize #followfriday to encourage communication and relationship building. I joined twitter, among other reasons, to learn new lessons from a wide audience.   I have generally used #followfriday to encourage users to engage, “rewarding” them with a gold star on #followfriday.  This has been extremely effective as my community has grown in size and I have learned a lot from the great people I engage with.
I now have more than 3000 people in my community and my #followfridays have become spammy, not because I am trying to make them that way, I am just having many more conversations.

This is where I am at now.  I have asked my community for opinions and, as always, they are mixed.  Some people truly love #followfriday and appreciate the recognition.  Other users feel it is annoying to see the timeline filled with dozens of recommendations.  My approach is changing in the coming weeks, I'll let you know how it works out.  Here is what I will be doing:

Recommending the few people that are always there, always engaging.  These best of the best will always be recommended but will try to recommend in logical chunks like "Master of Business Intelligence:Peter, Ajay, Jill, etc...
Recommend, with specific reasons, the top 4 or 5 people that have engaged the most.  The most conversations, DMs, RTs.  This will still reward engagement  but hopefully in ways that are not spammy.

 I hope to hear back from you on how this compares to your experience and where you are with your use of social media.
John Moore

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