Me, Her, the Boy and a Dog

Since joining Twitter in January 2008, I have posted more than 4,100 Tweets, received more than 500 “follow” notification e-mails and currently have 360 followers. At first, I did my best to weed out (i.e. block) the accounts using Twitter for the wrong reasons such as spamming, shameless self promotion or agressively pushing an agenda. But, with about 10 new follows a day, it became a bit time consuming to go through and block all the bots and jokers that started following me.

With so many new followers every day, why isn’t my “followers” list a little bigger? Well, that’s because Twitter appears to be doing a great job of suspending the suspicious accounts. For example, yesterday I got hit with four new followers whose user names all followed a similar pattern - a woman’s first name, a middle initial and a year. (See the image on the right.)

Though I have no information or research to back it up, my theory is that these Twitter spammers (Twammers) are targeting males by using women’s names and years - presumably birth years - to appeal to an age group that I might consider potential dating material. I believe these accounts are automatically generated and then use an API script to search for a specific demographic within the Twitterverse.

What I cannot understand is how anyone with half a brain could consider these accounts to be credible and return the follow. Any time you have a Twitter account with a disproportionate ratio of following/followers, that should be a red flag. If very few people are following a user, but they are following several hundred, be cautious. There are some accounts, such as CNN, that have a million-plus followers, but don’t follow very many in return. That’s acceptable in my book. Not ideal, but acceptable.

What other signs should you look for before you follow someone that has followed you on Twitter? Excellent question! Assuming you aren’t one of those people that likes to rack up the “followers” total on your profile, and you actually care about credibility and your online reputation; just using a little common sense will point you in the right direction. Here are just a few things that I look for:

Do they have a picture?

If the picture is of some busty woman in a bikini or provacative pose, that’s a huge red flag and grounds for immediate blockage. I prefer to see a face so that I at least feel like I might have the opportunity to communicate with a human and not some corporate mouthpiece. I do follow some Twitter accounts with logos or other non-personal images, but those are generally trusted accounts like CNET, CNN, LighterFootstep, etc.

What does their bio say about them?

This is probably the third thing I look at, right after their user name and profile picture. I want to know if they are real. If their profile is related to my interests and seems genuine, then I am more likely to reciprocate the follow. If there is no bio, 99 percent of the time I will not follow them. Take the time and tell me about yourself (in 160 characters or less) and you will likely get more followers.

What do they Tweet about?

Content, content, content. It’s the Twitter equivalent to real estate’s location, location, location. What are they Tweeting about? Are they pushing links all the time with masked URLs from tinyurl.com, snurl.com and digg.com? If so, that’s a red flag for me. I get enough e-mail spam - I don’t want it showing up on my Twitter stream. Are they interesting, funny or posting informational content? If so, I am more likely to follow. If every other post is “People are dumb,” I would likely include that person in the aforementioned generalization and not follow them.

Also, if someone posts inflammatory or offensive content, I will “unfollow” them. I actually stopped following someone for their derrogatory and ignorant comments about President Barack Obama. I respect people’s right to free speech and the fact that everyone has their own opinion, but I also value my right to not listen. That being said, I don’t unfollow people for posting opinions with which I disagree, but if there is a pattern of offensive posts, you are going to get the unfollow.

How many posts?

This criteria is related to the previous two items in that I want to see how many Tweets this person has under their belt. If I visit a new follower’s profile and they’re following 500+ people, have two followers and only 1 update, that’s a pretty good sign that this is not a legit account. I have had legit newbies follow me and when I see their profile I see they are following 20 people, have 12 followers and a few posts. I will give that Twitterer the benefit of the doubt and see how they do. I am all about encouraging the use of social media, but only for the purposes of good, silliness, frivolity, tomfoolery and of course networking and knowledge sharing.

I think just using a little common sense will make your Twitter experience a little more enjoyable. And don’t be afraid to not follow or unfollow someone or something that you don’t feel comfortable with.