Webomatica

 

Rooting Out Fake, Spammy Twitterers

April 4th, 2008

I use Twitter regularly but have recently received a large influx of followers to where it’s getting a bit out of control. Before, I would automatically follow anybody who followed me, since the number was manageable, but that’s quickly not becoming the case. I am currently following 130 folks and 150 are following me. That may not sound like much to the Robert Scobles of the world, but it’s too many for me.

Anyhow, I can’t afford to blindly follow everyone back anymore. I have to instate a bit of following criteria. Here’s how it goes:

Step 1: I look at your avatar and get a gut reaction. It can’t be the generic Twitter one. I’m more partial to harmless headshots, ideally taken in a casual setting with a webcam or cellphone. Also, tastefully abstract stuff is great. Your blog’s logo is fine.

Twitter

Any cat or cute animal is a big plus (in that sense, I’m easy).

Twitter

Note: I despise “hot” avatars. If you have an avatar of a ridiculously hot woman with damp clothes falling off, obviously ripped off from a magazine or something, odds are it’s not really you and you’re trying too hard. I don’t appreciate blatant, obvious ploys to get followers based on looks (well, unless you’re a cat).

Step 2: If you passed step 1, I then check out your handle. Any handle that has an association with sex or spam I am more likely to ignore. “usedcarseller” is a big no.

Step 3: If you passed step 1 and 2, I will then drill down to your profile and see what sort of Twitterer you are. It will help immensely if your website is a blog that I’d like to read on a regular basis. If your twitters are all merely links back to your website and not sharing fun links or anything I’m interested in, you’re out.

A Fake, Spammy Twitterer

Here’s an example of what I consider a “spammy” twitter, that breaks all the rules, and certainly does not receive a reciprocal follow:

FAIL: Generic Twitter avatar. Handle contains “deliveri,” signifying business spam. All twitters this handle sends out are links back to a flower selling website.

Twitter Spam

This crap is getting more common on Twitter and if it gets out of hand, will destroy the service. So I hope to do my part and not follow clowns like this.

So if I haven’t followed you back on Twitter, no hard feelings, you probably failed one of my gut instinct Twitter follower tests. It’s what I must do to keep Twitter useful.

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  • That guy in the first icon you used is shockingly handsome. :P
  • Yeah, our cats thought so, too.
  • They're choking that cat with a scarf!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

    I have a program that automatically friends all who follow me, and then I manually unsubscribe from them if they're spammers. It's pretty effective.
  • Aw, I think stuff on a cat is cute.
  • Mike
    That's fair. Another rule I tend to follow is that I don't follow someone that I wouldn't be able to read daily.

    People who post every single blog article link to Twitter bother me immensely - that's why we've got RSS feeds, c'mon. If I wanted your articles, I'd visit your blog and subscribe there.
  • Mike
    Heh, whoops...re-reading more carefully, it seems you might do the same.
  • Yep - I totally don't mind if a blogger shares a link every once in a while sprinkled with other stuff, but yeah - it's a personal pet peeve of mine when each twitter is just a link to their blog and nothing else.
  • Guest
    I agree and applaud your criteria for weeding out low quality twitters. I over-did following at first, now I'm cutting down using criteria similar to yours. My main blog is my Flickr stream and I use Dave Winer's auto tweet from Flickr. I tweet this way once, sometimes twice a day. I worry if this is too much, but I also tweet links to stories I like and tweet personal comments and @ responses to other's interesting tweets. I try to keep the mix interesting, not tweeting more than once per hour, usually only three or four times per day. And always attempt I enjoy reading a lot of tweets from those I follow and appreciate their links.
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