Go big or go home? I guess it depends on where home is, huh?

This week at GoZAPIt, we were discussing the art of gathering followers on Twitter, and whether the goal to get 10,000 followers was misguided.

For what it’s worth, we like knowing who our clients are – and it’s almost impossible to really know who 10,000 people are.

And as it turns out, we have scientific cause to think this way; in fact, there’s an entire scientific theory that says that the maximum amount of people you can have a relationship with peters out after you reach around 200. It’s called Dunbar’s number.

Putting our pocket protectors aside, we reasoned that following every Tom, Dick, or (Anthony) Weiner out there probably isn’t the best way to go about tweeting. We crave knowing who are clients are. After all, you can’t really help someone with their branding or website if you don’t understand them or their company.

So, if you’re looking to follow 200,000 fellow tweeters, you need to know that it will probably a) drive you insane; and b) hurt your business.

Because people can see through bad marketing in a second, and nothing says “spammer” quite like a company who is following 30,000 people yet has only 4 followers themselves.

So, before you decide that following everyone will make you go big, you might want to turn off the computer and go home.