A great video about Twitter from the guys at CollegeHumor. Enjoy

The more I use Twitter, the quicker I’m able to see if someone is worth following after just checking their bio for a few seconds. But sometimes, a few seconds isn’t even needed!

Here is a prime example. Today I was checking the latest people who followed me and came across one person in particular. I wasn’t going to link to his profile but I don’t see why I shouldn’t (see * at end). His profile is at @jongillardi.

Here is a brief description of his bio so that you get a clear picture of what I’m talking about :

• Profile uses a custom background and avatar.
• Profile has a full name but there is no bio/description.
• There has only been one comment. It was made on April 25th and reads ‘Setting up a new Twitter Account…’.
• Following : 2,000
• Followers : 1,612

So to review, this person has made just one update to tell people that he was setting up a new account, has not added a bio and after setting it up, has not updated it since.

There’s 2 questions this brings up :

1. I very much doubt that all 1,612 people following him are bots. Therefore, it begs the question ‘Why are these people following him’?. Why would so many people follow someone who isn’t even updating their account?
2. Why is this guy spending more time trying to get followers than actually using Twitter itself?

But the plot thickens. Whilst writing this post the guy added himself to my account then removed himself and then added himself again. Which confirms to me that he is using software for this (or has just way too much time on his hands).

So I refreshed his page a few times and saw that this technique is actually working for him. His follower count rose to 1,635, then 1,694 and finally 1,699. He is basically just following people and then unfollowing those who don’t follow back within an hour or so. Originally he was stuck at 2,000 following limit but he has now broke through that. It wouldn’t surprise me if I checked back to this account in a few days and saw it break the 10,000 follower mark!!

Overview

I’ll leave you once more with a few questions. First of all, why are Twitter not working more to stop people who are doing this. He could get to 50,000 followers this method and then change usernames, put on a different background and then claim to be some social media guru.

In my opinion that doesn’t make you a guru : putting your name into some script and letting it run does not mean you know Twitter, it means that you are just fine with gaming the system. But unfortunately a lot of people don’t realise this and may be duped by people using this method which is why I think Twitter should work harder to stop people gaming them.

Lastly I will leave you with perhaps a more probing question : Why are people spending more time following than actually using Twitter? It seems that there is a large group of people who are more focused on increasing their Twitter count than participating in discussions through Twitter. Bottom line, the longer you are active on Twitter, the more followers you will get so isn’t building relationships on Twitter more important?

* Note, I had to rewrite this post twice because of this guys actions. Originally I was not going to link to his profile or name him but I don’t see any problem with listing a bots profile. At the very least it will help you guys watch out for people using this tactic.

Last week I spoke about how ‘following is a good way to get followers?‘. This is a strategy used by thousands of Twitter users and one that has been proved to work. I’ve seen some Twitter users with 2 or 3 updates and no bio or avatar yet they still have thousands of followers, which just goes to show how effectively this technique can be.

Maki from Dosh Dosh raised a few interesting points last week in his post ‘Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users‘. Specifically he talks about how you should be using Twitter to build relationships and how low-value followers offer no real value.

I have to agree. If someone follows me I do not follow them back if :

• They do not post updates – Seriously, why do people follow people who don’t even update their Twitter account!
• Only post links to their own website
• Don’t actively particpiate with others – Specifically, I am looking for those who engage with other Twitterers in conversation and drop the occasional Retweet too.

Most of the people who I don’t follow fall into one of the above categories and nearly all of them are just looking to promote their website and not develop relationships via Twitter. They are just the same as the people who spam forums with links.

Although I do want to promote myself and my website through Twitter, I don’t believe that the best way is to mindlessly just post links. The most effective way is to make good contacts and help others (this applies to any social site).

Patti Stafford put it better than I could with her comment yesterday saying :

I realize part of Twitter’s purpose is self promotion, but I think people go overboard. It’s a social network, which to me means, being social. If you went to a party to socialize and all you spoke of was your new venture, your book, your website, your product–how many people at the party are going to want to speak to you? More than likely they’ll go find someone else at the party who is actually fun and lively and I try to use Twitter in that way.

Are inactive Twitterers valuable?

Many of the accounts which follow you and do nothing but promote a website are owned by people running automated bots whereas some of them are updated by people who simply do not understand Twitter. However, all of them seem to be using the following to get followed technique and therefore if you don’t follow them back, they will no doubt unfollow you at a later date so that they are not restricted by the 110% follow limit.

So from point of view, you have stopped pointless updates clogging up your dashboard, but from another, you have just lost a follower. This is something that doesn’t concern me. Whilst I want to connect with more people and promote myself through Twitter, I do not want to play the numbers game and go for quantity over quality.

However perhaps I’m wrong. Michael Gray, a blogger I have a lot of respect for, wrote a post 4 or 5 months ago talking about this very subject. He wrote :

So why would you want to profile the thousands of fake friends … to get real friends that’s why…

Michael rightly points out that one of the things which users actively check when seeing who is following them is see :

How many other people are following this person

So is there value in having fake friends? Is it worth following automated bots, self promoting spammers and inactive accounts if your follower count goes up? I’ll put my hands up and admit that I am still unsure.

My first reaction to this question would be no as I am not obsessed with my follower count and I don’t want my dashboard clogged up with pointless self promotion links. However, if following more people means more people will follow me, surely that is a good thing as it increases the chance of getting Good Followers i.e. people I do want to connect with, people who are active in conversations and who are good retweeters. But on the other side of the coin, with a lot of poor followers you could perhaps miss a lot of tweets from good Twitter users because your dashboard is filled with junk.

I’d love to hear your opinion on this so please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on the subject