1. Search Their Username: Generally speaking, a truly engaged twitter user will have many mentions and retweets throughout the day. A simple and easy way to see if people are talking with them is to either search up their username in twitter’s search field – or use a simple tool like Twinitor. Remember, it’s not always the number of followers a person has, it’s WHO and HOW they’re engaging with them.

2. Look At Their Follower Count Ratio: This can be a very telling sign that someone is using a ‘bot’ to gain followers. If someone has 12,000 followers and they’re following 13,000: you can easily deduct that they simply followed a ton of tweeps to gain the ever-so-precious follow back.

3. Klout or Kred: These 2 sites are built to assist in measuring people’s online influence. Although they’re not the be-all end-all in scoring, they can (along with these other tips) gain you a more well-rounded perspective.

4. Look At Their Followers: Don’t be lazy. If you spend a few minutes going through the follower list of the person in question, you’ll get a pretty good idea as to what kind of influence they have (and what kind of people they’re influencing)

5. Fully Connect: When involving influencers and bloggers, it should be more than a couple of minutes of decision-making. In essence, these people will end up being extensions of yourself or your brand. One wrong selection could have a rather nasty effect – so make sure you’re googling, reading past blog posts, and even connecting with them personally before the moment of involvement.

Have some other tips, or want to recommend some fab bloggers or influencers? Sign off in the comments!