Would You Follow This Twit?!!

Twitter Robot

When you gain a new Twitter follower do you Auto Follow back? Or not.

I always have a look at follower profiles first to decide if I will follow back, do you? As I don’t have thousands following me everyday, it’s simply done. I get notified by email and check out their profile and Tweets before deciding whether to follow back. I have no interest in following someone who won’t enhance my experience on Twitter. I do realise that if like many do, I auto followed back, I’d have a much larger number of Twitter followers, but I never have. Whilst I realise that a large number of followers can equate with influence, its not always the case.

So how do I decide who to follow back?

These are my points for a follow back.

Profile picture.
Bio filled out so I can see what they say about themselves.
More followers than they follow.
They fit my demographic of who I like to follow
Extra points if they are Australian, as I run an Aussie business.
Interaction evident
Not too many tweets over a day
Interesting mix of Tweets.

These are my points for NOT following back

Egg or sexy girl profile pic.
Bio has a quote only, or something obscure or anything sleazy.
Near equal followers to Follower ratio if over 5 thousand.
Nothing about their profile interests me.
Speak foreign language only.
Only broadcast, there’s no interaction.
Too many quotes
Too many spammy tweets.
generic tweets
Boring tweets

Now let me show you a screen grab from one of my most recent followers, this goes into the “What the hell are they up to?” box…

Following & Followers Madness

I’m not going to name and shame here…but the numbers on their profile (left), absolutely guarantees I won’t be following back. This account is presently following 13 thousand more Tweeps than they have following them. Most experienced Tweeps would be right in assuming that this company are using some sort of auto following software, which basically, indiscriminately follows people on Twitter, and probably auto follows back.

So nope, I have no interest in following them back, and nor will they miss me. I can almost guarantee that within a week, if I didn’t block them, I will be unfollowed by them, and possibly be re-followed at some time by them in the near future. Funnily enough the email also told me that 10 people I follow on Twitter are following this account!….signs of auto following back clearly.

So what does this automated Tweet building achieve? If this company are using a social media firm that has promised them over 100 thousand followers so that they get on some list of companies who have over 100 followers…(clearly they are going for higher). The aim is being met for sure. I might be wrong..but I smell a scam.

Just for the hell of it, I checked out their website, a diagnostic software company….hmmmm. I was also curious to see how Klout, ranked them with that many followers, they have a score of 38/100. A score of 38 is way to high for these folks, but it does show that a high amount of followers doesn’t necessarily build Klout, although clearly they have some. I know people with Klout scores over 50 but have less than 2,000 followers, they are very engaged, and have great followers, ummm real followers. Note: Klout is gathered over several platforms. Facebook Linkedin and Twitter all of which this company has.

When I looked at this accounts followers, the ratio of Bots (auto spammers) and empty accounts (egg profile pics, never tweet etc..) was very high…there were loads of them. This company has 7 Twitter Accounts, under their name, and all have followers over 100K, probably all the same ones.

In 10 months since this account started they haven’t replied to a single Tweet, or Retweeted anything at all, because all their Tweeting is totally automated and is just garbage. The text looks like it’s just copy pasted from some sort of software manual. Each tweet goes out every hour on the hour.

Garbage Tweets

Obviously they are building numbers only, NOT engagement. Even if this company started tweeting proper tweets, they most likely would stay at nearly 0 engagement, because of the amount of their followers who don’t speak english (they are an english speaking company) and are bots, or spammers, or simply aren’t in their demographic. If they really are looking for some hits on their links, I wonder how many they get?

This type of Twitter spamming account is a good reason to NOT Auto follow back, as these type of accounts rely on Auto Follow back to grow, and they are useless dead wood for you, they are also the type that will spam D.M you, (a huge draw back from following spam accounts).

So the next time you read that there are now 20 thousand people with 100K followers on Twitter or whatever the figure is now….take that all with a grain of salt. I wonder how many of these type of accounts there are?

No wonder there are so many influence ranking apps being developed…like Klout and Hubspot and Kred…..follower count in some cases means nothing.

Follow Me on Twitter! Click here → @_LeonieGSmith

Twitters Official Anti Spam Policies are these:

Spam: You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone. What constitutes “spamming” will evolve as we respond to new tricks and tactics by spammers. Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are:

If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
If you post misleading links;
If a large number of people are blocking you;
The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account;
If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #;
If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic;
If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies or mentions;
If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies or mentions in an attempt to spam a service or link;
If you add a large number of unrelated users to lists in an attempt to spam a service or link;
If you repeatedly post other users’ Tweets as your own;
If you have attempted to “sell” followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn;
Creating or purchasing accounts in order to gain followers;
Using or promoting third-party sites that claim to get you more followers (such as follower trains, sites promising “more followers fast,” or any other site that offers to automatically add followers to your account);
If you create false or misleading Points of Interest;
If you create Points of Interest to namesquat or spam.