We often talk about how many fans and followers we have. Our numbers go up and we feel like we're achieving our goals. But, how often do we talk about the people that we're following? When was the last time you went through the list of people you follow on your social media sites? When was the last time you unfollowed someone? If you're like most people, it's probably not very frequently.

But I'd like to get you thinking about these people you're following. Are they helping you? Are they benefiting your strategy? Or are you only benefiting them?

Over the years, we follow numerous people, brands, and companies. Maybe you followed them because they followed you. Maybe you followed them because they offered a promotion, once, a long time ago. Maybe you followed them because they shared one of your blog posts. Maybe you followed them because they commented on your photo. Whatever the reason, you chose to follow them. But what are they doing for you now?

You see, a lot of scheming social media marketers will follow you in order to get you to follow them back. But then, after a period of time, they unfollow you. But you don't notice and you're still following them. This is how they keep their followers numbers high, making it look like they're soooo popular. And now your feed is full of their posts, most of which you probably ignore.

Think about it. How often do you actually read every post in any of your news feeds? Seriously, stop and think about it. I'll confess, I skim most of them, especially Facebook. I try my best to read them all, but there just isn't enough time in the day.

And this is why it's important to clean up your connections! Every now and then (usually every couple of months), I go through my Twitter contacts and clean house. I keep following anyone who is following me. However, if they're not following me, they risk being axed. I don't mean this to sound crass. And I do follow people who don't follow me back. But these people have to provide some additional benefit to me. Perhaps they're industry leaders or great resources. Or perhaps they are local connections that I'm looking to connect with further. But, if they're not providing any real benefit to me, it's time for them to go.

It's also worth noting that once you are following 2000 people on Twitter, you hit the magic wall. At this point you have to have a certain ratio of followers to following. Basically, you can't follow 2000 people and only have 100 following you. My understanding is that once you hit the magic number, you can have no more than 10 percent more following than followers - so if you have 2000 followers, you are allowed to follow 2200 people. With Twitter implementing these restrictions, it's very important that you aren't following too many people and jeopardizing your ability to make new connections.

As for Facebook, I follow hundreds of brand pages. For various reasons, I choose to follow this many pages. But every now and then, I have to go through and unfollow some of them. I choose to unfollow those that don't serve me well anymore. Why? Because I want the pages I actually care about to show up in my news feed. With this many pages, Facebook's Edgerank can only show so many stories in my feed. And I don't want the ones I don't care about clogging up my feed. This is how we end up scanning - we're desensitized and think the majority of the posts are irrelevant.

You may not notice these things as much when you have a couple hundred followers and you're only following a couple hundred back. But wait until you get into the thousands. And then into the tens of thousands. And at that point, it would take forever for you to go through and audit all those people you follow. So start now. Start going through your list of people that you follow and clean it up. Make it a regular habit and it will be easy to maintain in the long run.

It will also allow you to focus on those who actually value your posts and insight. It will strengthen your interactions with these connections. It will make you feel better about the people you see in your feed every day.

I promise you, it'll be worth it!

Are you someone that cleans up your connections regularly? If so, I'd like to hear how often you perform your clean ups. Please leave a comment below!