The latest Twitter follow scam
March 11th, 2009 |
Recently I’ve noticed people repeatedly following and unfollowing me on Twitter. This morning, my good friend Michelle Naranjo explained why this is happening.To understand this phenomenon, you need to know a little background on Twitter following/unfollowing.
Twitter bars users from following more than 2000 people until they are followed by 2000 people. This is intended to curtail spam accounts that follow thousands of people, though I’m not entirely sure how you spam people who don’t follow you and hence don’t get your updates any way. (Another topic for another time.) So for the new Twitter user, the follow/unfollow is a way to get past the 2000 limit. The reasoning is, you keep following people, some follow back, some don’t, but if you keep rotating the “pool” of followed/followers (by unfollowing most people), you’ll get to 2000 followers much faster than if you had just waited for actual relationships built on value and mutual respect.
But the wrinkle is that I am seeing the same behavior by long time Twitter users with follower counts far in excess of the 2000 limit. Here’s how Michelle explained it to me. These users are targeting other users with large followers/followed lists because new users go to these lists to find new people to follow. (I know, it’s complicated.) So the thinking is that I have around 5000 followers, therefore new users might look at my list for suggested people to follow, and these veteran users who are gaming the system trying to add followers en masse want to be at the top of my list so they get found and followed more readily. They can move to the top of my lists by “renewing” their membership, by unfollowing me, then following me back, hoping I then follow them back. (I automatically drop anyone who unfollows me and I never follow them again, because I’m not interested in playing these games.)
This is just the latest in a series of games played by people who see you and me as numbers, notches in the social media belt, and not as people worth engaging with, or who have something of value to say and who are looking to be informed by others. I call this Twitter Friend Optimization (TFO).
Before I understood this dynamic, I was “flattered” that such popular Twitter people were inclined to follow me, but now I just find it insulting and a waste of time.
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Well, that explain some recent interesting behavior, Joel. What I’ve begun to track is when these newly converted “I follow every one now” folks ask a question, I quickly track @ Twitter search and notice that *no one* is responding. Again, so many ways to use Twitter but, gosh, if it’s just about follower numbers and not relationships and results, why bother?
Also, I am beginning to experience “RT Burnout” and believe the RT has reached it’s max of effectiveness. If I really like something someone has tweeted, I now do the hat-tip (h/t).
As always, thanx Joel!
Comment by BarbaraKB — March 11, 2009 @ 11:24 am
I have seen this system explained by many “power” twitter users. The fact of the matter is, if you “only” have around 500 people following you, as compared to someone who has 10,000, the new twitter user will naturally be impressed by those with a larger following. I have seen these same power twitter users then sell the information that you have outlined in your post to new twitter users with promises such as “5000 followers in 30 days”.
Sadly a lot of people new to the service are falling for such scams and we need to raise the awareness levels. However everyone has the right to use the service the way they want to. I guess this is where ethics and moral code comes into play.
Comment by Usman Sheikh — March 11, 2009 @ 11:44 am
I’ve been feeling quite jaded about Twitter lately and wondering if it’s popularity isn’t dulling it’s luster a bit.
Not only are there the follow/unfollow types, but now there are following covens (okay not really covens, but it sounded funny.) You join a group and agree to follow everyone back who follows you.
I signed my experimental twitter account up (@myupdates that’s a whole nother story) and I’ve gotten 200+ followers to this account, despite the fact that my last tweet says the account is dormant and you should follow me at @freerangemom.
Why would anyone want to follow a dormant account? Makes me wonder. If I hadn’t met such great tweeps like you by following people I didn’t know I think I’d never follow back another person. As it is, I’m often feeling quite disenchanted with the whole “get into the 5 figure follower level” game.
I’d rather have a smaller number of tweeple I can actually keep up with AND who reply to me when I @ them.
Comment by Peggy Dolane — March 11, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
Following many people, then unfollowing those who misbehave or tweet things I don’t want to hear is one strategy.
Also using twitoria to prune my ‘following’ list of people who haven’t tweeted in 30 days is another stategy.
For gathering ‘important’ people I will find someone with my interests and go through their “following” list backwards assuming they added their most important contacts first.
But mostly just tweeting as myself true to my own interests will weed out those that don’t like me and attract those who do.
Comment by andilinks — March 11, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
It’s really starting to bother me how many people talk about “How to Use Twitter” and go on diatribes moaning and complaining about how others use it. Twitter has no mission, no business plan, no real plan.
Here’s my two cents on Twitter: Follow who you find interesting enough to interact with on a regular basis, and keep your tweets interesting. Ignore the other BS, because everyone is entitled to use the service the way they see fit. Spammers can only spam if they are followed, and when people see the spam, they will un-follow. That’s the beauty of it. Twitter is self-selecting.
Comment by Brett Bittner — March 11, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
Brett, I agree with you in principle. And I’m not telling people how or how not to use Twitter. There are so many ways to use it, which is part of its popularity. But when people manipulate me and waste my time playing games, that bothers me.
Nothing is a free-for-all. There are boundaries of common sense and courtesy. Would it be OK if someone borrowed your log-in and tweeted insults at your friends? Or what if they deleted your account altogether? These are extreme examples, but I use them to illustrate the difference between saying there is no right way or correct way to use Twitter (which I agree with), and saying there are no rules at all, which there sure as heck are. The question is “where do we draw the line?” in a particular situation, not “do you believe in the existence of lines?”. Our personal ethical codes vary, but we all have them.
Comment by joel — March 11, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
One of the annoying things I’ve seen is these instant “success” people. Ones that start with 20k+ followers, but when you click in, the majority of their followers have the default twitter avatar.
I think twitter’s gotten wise though, as I haven’t see this in a week or two.
And I have noticed the behavior you are describing, but I attributed it to a different motivation. This happens to me on people I decided not to follow back. I just figured they were jumping to the front of my line and shouting, “Please pick me!” I then block them at this point. I am with you in that I generally don’t care how others use twitter, and I for sure don’t care who follows me, but if you are taking up my time, making me look over your account to decide if you’re a worthwhile follower, when I’ve already decided you weren’t, well then, that earns a blocking. Backfire!
Comment by Christopher L. Jorgensen — March 12, 2009 @ 10:19 am
Following and follower count mean nothing if the information and sharing doesn’t occur. It takes time to build up over 2K followers, so soon, spamming will be a waste of an effort. Follower status will be quickly erased by simple natural selection, there will only be a ’survival of the authentic’.
Comment by mkedave — March 13, 2009 @ 7:36 am
Should I say Bump!!! I agree with you totally. I am slowly building my follow list on people that I think I can share/get good information with/from. I dont usually follow back immediately either. Hence my list is growing slowly, but at least of people with information that matters.
Thanks for sharing….
Comment by Ricky — March 13, 2009 @ 7:50 am
I find myself blocking more new followers than anything else at the moment. If I see an account with 1 or 2 updates and following hundreds, it’s blocked on the spot.
I probably don’t have the number of followers to draw this behavior out, and probably won’t either. I use Twitter for social contact of other web devs, not for anything business orientated as yet.
Comment by WebKarnage — March 13, 2009 @ 7:50 am
The mind boggles! Like Webkarnage, I don’t have enough followers to attract these, erm… mercenaries.
However, I have been garnering a lot of new followers lately. When I get a new follower, I go their bio page. If they haven’t added any kind of bio, I don’t follow them. If neither their bio nor their tweets seems to overlap with my sphere of interest, I don’t follow them. If, as someone else mentioned, I see about 2 tweets and they’re following screeds of people, I @spam them.
Over time, my list of followees is growing, too, and our conversations shift from the personal to the professional and back again with the same kind of ease as office chatter, which suits me, since I work alone. Many of my mutual followers (if that makes sense) are also Facebook friends and people I encounter at online conferences, many of us probably read each other’s blogs. In some cases, we have formed relationships that are sufficiently strong that I would invite them to my home if they were ever in this neck of the woods.
I wouldn’t dream of abusing that in search of numbers. But, then again, I’ve never really been motivated by numbers. It’s a shallow way to live.
Comment by Karyn Romeis — March 13, 2009 @ 8:10 am
This is not new, it’s just happening i more often. People have been doing this for as long as the Twitter API has been available. It’s very effective in fact. You get roughly a 20% follow back and if your profile bio is pimping your website you can expect around a 15% page view. Not bad for 30 lines of code.
Comment by Steve — March 29, 2009 @ 6:33 am
It took me over a year to get 1,000 followers (and thousands of tweets), but I’m not following that many b/c I want quality relationships with other users, I want conversations & @ replies … Users who never respond to repeated tweets @ them directly, I’m usually going to unfollow them. On rare ocasions, I follow people who never say a word in return but thats b/c they have interesting things to say or “teach”
Again, I enjoy twitter for the interesting people I’ve met there. Especially the “mommy bloggers” (ugh) who are up at 2am like me & willing to chat about sick babies, fatigue, etc. Thank G-d for them, they have gotten me thru some rough patches many times over.
But I agree there should be some sort of ethical code. I don’t follow spanmers certainly, but I also don’t just follow someone b/c they followed me… TALK to me, I’ll be more likely to do so. This follow/unfollow crap is more than annoying, it’s plain rude & as you said, a game playing waste of my time.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
@Jasperblu
Comment by Cheryl — March 29, 2009 @ 6:50 am
I just joined twitter about 2 weeks ago and Im glad I found this information. Thanks for the tip.
Comment by ladymystery38 — April 1, 2009 @ 11:27 pm
I call these people “twitter bandits” because they steal little bits of my time and attention just to get me, and maybe some of my followers, to follow them, which is the real booty. There’s an inordinate number of “twitter experts” and “social media experts” who have been using social media just a month or two, and purchased a sytem to inflate their numbers and artificially inflate their online reputation. Over time, they’ll either all be following each other, or leave twitter altogether when the glitter of a new toy catches their attention.
Comment by Barbara — April 6, 2009 @ 7:32 pm
[...] then unfollowing all of them once they’ve followed you back. Other wrong ways include the “optimization method” (I’ve seen a bunch of right-wingers do this to me), plus the various flat-out scams, [...]
Pingback by Getting Followers On Twitter The Non-Douchebag Way » Boztopia.com — July 3, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
I then block them at this point. I am with you in that I generally don’t care how others use twitter, and I for sure don’t care who follows me, but if you are taking up my time, making me look over your account to decide if you’re a worthwhile follower, when I’ve already decided you weren’t, well then,
Comment by manish pandey — August 31, 2009 @ 8:43 am