One secret of Twitter that many new users take too long to work out is that putting together a good, solid list of accounts to follow is just as important as who, or how many people, you get to follow you. You don’t want your Twitter feed clogged up with useless rubbish – you want links, information and discussions that can benefit your business.
So, you should avoid the temptation to follow everyone who follows you. There are a few obvious warning signs that your new Twitter follower is a spammer or time-waster:
- They are following hundreds of people and have very few followers themselves.
- Their user name is complete gibberish, usually a weird and random collection of letters and numbers.
- Their profile picture is a young girl (usually blonde), typically showing a generous amount of cleavage.
- They link to their own website on their profile through a URL-shortening service such as Bit.ly, in order to disguise where potential visitors my be headed.
- They have only made a few Twitter posts yet are following thousands of people and have thousands of followers. They get to this position by rapidly following thousands of people and then unfollowing people who don’t reciprocate within a day or two.
- The tweeter is in a totally unrelated business to you, for example you sell perfume and they sell insurance or spare car parts.
- The tweeter promotes themselves as some kind of guru, but you’ve never heard of them.
- Their tweets are nothing but blatant attempts to sell things to you.
So, before deciding whether to follow someone back, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is their business relevant to you and your followers?
- Are their posts interesting?
- Are their followers relevant to you?
Remember, you have no obligation to follow someone just because they follow you.
