Newbies are still missing a few simple Twitter principles

Direct messages

You can't send a direct message to someone who is not following you. This means if someone follows you and you then direct message them asking a question, they can not reply privately if you are not yet following them.

Auto direct "thanks for following!" messages. Please don't do this

No one, but no one appreciates these lame automatic replies. Your "quality" followers won't click on the link to your blog. If they followed you it must be for a reason, assuming the follower follows the logical rule: follow people of interest to you. Further, the automatic message often makes no sense. Sending a "see my recipes and learn to cook" message to a famous chef is bound to make you look pathetic even if you could engage personally with the same person. Engage, don't enrage.

Should you reciprocate when someone follows you?

Only if you're willing to do the one minute of research needed to see if they are worth following. Why follow people who aren't of interest to you? It will just clog your daily reading with useless stuff.

Look at the their profile and look at what they've been saying over the past few days. Is this stuff you want to read? If so, follow. If not, move on. I'd also recommend you look at the avatar, web site, Twitter name. DOing all of the above only takes a minute. You don't have a minute? THen don't follow them.