Those of us who consider Twitter to be an invaluable business tool often have a number of grievances about who we follow. And sometimes, it’s not plainly obvious who is polluting our stream with unnecessary waffle. Unfortunately, not everyone adheres to the same code of ethics or behaves the way we want them to.

Do you have a Twitter stream that’s crowded by people who only ever tweets links? Or only ever tweets famous quotations or supposedly inspirational sayings? Or what about those who rarely drop by but when they do, only want to sell something? How do you weed out the people you follow who really don’t offer much in return?

Well there’s an easy way to determine who out of your followers is not performing to your expectations. It’s called TwitCleaner and it’s supremely simple! Twitter aficionado Si Dawson created TwitCleaner to rid his own Twitter stream of unnecessary ‘junk’, and then he thought he’d do us all a favour by making his application available ... for free!

You simply go to www.thetwitcleaner.com, allow it to connect to your Twitter account and twitcleaner goes to work analysing tweeps your following. You’ll receive a "Direct Message" from @TwitCleaner containing a link to access your report and voila! You will have answers, my friend.

The report lists by category, who out of your followers is exhibiting ‘dodgy behaviour’. It tells you who hasn't tweeted in a very long time, who tweets nothing but links, who tweets very little original content and a range of other indicators. The best part? Right there on the report, you can unfollow anyone you choose.

There’s also a really cool “How do I look?” option which allows you to see if you would appear on someone else’s report. It might surprise you to learn that you’re just as guilty of ‘dodgy Twitter behaviour’ as some of the people who annoy you! Or, you could find that you’re doing a great job ... in TwitCleaner’s eyes at the very least!

We use this tool monthly, and not only is it a relief when the noise level drops, but you realise how much interesting and useful information you are missing!