If @aektktibtfbd follows you on Twitter, do you really care?
What about @hqepdpubkobe, @Cz2bt2, @BelindaOwens68, @FreeMacBookAir9, or the @GreatestHebrew?
I am routinely singled out at meetings and conferences for having a high number of Twitter followers as an indicator of online influence. That’s all and well, but with recognition that 60% of new Twitter users quit in a month, I assume 50 to 75 percent of my followers are inactive users–who never closed their accounts. That, or they’re a combination of the types of users linked above. If you asked me if I cared, I would have said no. But I’ve seen the light…
Scanning through the last 20 followers out of JetBlue Airways’ 1,082,065, the White House’s 978,943, and Ashton Kutcher’s 3,277,522, I see many squiggly avatars and similar names as aektktibtfbd–two signs those Twitter users are not real.
All of the above accounts are technically following me (and may be following you)–and while I’ve sporadically blocked followers, it’s a monotonous process. Thanks to David Bradley who tipped me today to an algorithm tool called TwitBlock, it’s now much easier to identify who has the highest percentage of being a scammer, spammer, robot, or porn artist–accounts most likely to be comparable to the above user links.
Blocking suspicious users
The odds are favorable that most of your Twitter followers, like mine, are inactive or spammy, etc. You can let that number grow without intervention–a belief I generally share with others, such as in an email to David Bradley this morning–or you can block the spammers. Cognizant I sporadically click to see who is following you on Twitter, it’s fair to assume you do the same to me. David helped me rationalize that I probably wouldn’t want you to see that aektktibtfbd was following me.
Thanks to TwitBlock, aektktibtfbd may still be following me but I’m not letting you see it. Whether you’re an individual or an organization trying to boost the number of your Twitter followers as a similar sign of influence, perhaps you should weed out and block the obvious fakes–and therefore reduce the number of those you want people to know are following you–to let quality trump quantity.
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- 1 Way to Be Popular on Twitter
Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Some people really just like the number. I have a client who just asked me the other day how some people get tens of thousands of followers. I told her that they are either celebrities, they put up quality tweets everyday that others are interested, or they do some other methods that entails just getting anyone to follow them, but those “followers” probably don’t actually pay attention to anything they said. My client just wanted me to inflate her numbers as opposed to find quality followers, which was kind of sad. But it’s a numbers world I guess, and the bigger your numbers are, the “better” you are, perception wise.
~ Kristi
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Sadly, Kikolani is right on the money. But it’s not necessarily our clients’ fault; they’ve been bred into a world that has long survived on numbers as the only sustainable proof of ROI (the only number that really matters, to most people anyway).
Thanks for the heads-up on TwitBlock, Ari. Hadn’t heard of it yet!
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You can thank me by clicking over to David Bradley’s blog and browsing around. Smart Brit!
I wonder how he’s determining that number….
I’m working on something similar, but it will unfollow in bulk. It’s my belief that being able to bulk unfollow those with only API tweets will be of value.
At least, it would be for me and my purposes. I don’t care about the numbers at all. I would rather have a relationship of some type with the user on the other end.
Apparently, Kikolani’s client doesn’t get that, and will probably regret it later on. But, it’s all about those numbers right? Wrong. People are smart and will eventually understand by looking at who’s following a user whether they are a ‘numbers’ user, or a real, quality Twitter user.
In fact, I think there are apps out there that will give a quality score to a particular twitter account. Don’t think the client would like to be high on one of those lists….might be hard to shake any stigma that comes from it.
meh, just my two cents on the whole thing.
Ari, great site! I got a score of 0 somehow….although I tweet from about 4 different sources now… Good stuff!
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I’ve never subscribed to the “it’s all about the numbers” mantra. Point in question – of these “60% of new users quitting Twitter in a month”, it doesn’t take into account how many simply left the web version and went third-party like Seesmic or Tweetdeck.
Additionally, when a client wants the most effective and beneficial bloggers for a PR or marketing push, it’s never about how many subscribers they have, or Alexa rank or Google Page Rank – it’s about fit and relevance.
There are many ways you can control who follows you and vice versa. You can separate the chaff from the wheat, dead accounts, inactive, or spam. All it takes is an oft-forgotten practice called “choosing friends”.
You can’t dictate who follows you but you sure as hell can dictate who you follow. That’s the number people should look at (if any).
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This is similar to the question of what makes a successful blog, comments or traffic.
In the grand scheme of things it is always more beneficial to be able to say that you have an active and invested community, be that readers or followers on Twitter.
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