it's a behavior that i had kind of unlearned over the years since leaving Tumblr and moving almost entirely to Twitter, and for good reason! A lot of times, these things feel like Entering Into A Contract with the followee, and sometimes this contract is even codified into follow-for-follow type behaviors to juice numbers.
my own strategy kind of ends up at "oh, i like this post a lot! i'll click into this person's blog" and then i'll toss a follow if their first half dozen posts or so pique my interest. (hell, that bar is sometimes "if their posts aren't things i actively dislike!") It honestly hasn't failed me yet; obviously YMMV if you have more stringent or specific triggers/preferences. I don't think i've unfollowed anyone that i've followed this way, and i'm the type of person who fully subscribes to a "hit da bricks" philosophy when it comes to stuff i don't like or don't care for. More often than not, that rando i just followed writes some sort of essay length exploration of A Thing I Dont Care For and i come out the other side Caring For that thing. It's neat!
just follow people! 
it's easy, free, and totally reversible.
give it a shot :D
