I have played my Twitter account kind of passively, or "organically" and I think I've lost out because of it.
I think there is some pretty serious auto-follow type gaming.... people spending time to build up lots of followers... and now I am kind of kicking myself not being a little more pro-active or aggressive... because Twitter is where I think a lot of the mainstream viral marketing is gonna be going down for a long time!
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
It definitely is an interesting phenomenon for sure...but I'm sure this kind of gaming will ultimately have a backlash effect.
vtbarrera
· 10 months ago
Great Post. This is one of the most honest assessments I've read about this very popular but detrimental twitter trend.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Thanks Victor!
Marvel Goose
· 10 months ago
I've been using Tweet-later to manage my auto follows. Gives you 48 hours to decide if you really want to follow or not.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Great idea. Def. going to test that out as well :)
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Actually 48 hours may be to long...
Marvel Goose
· 10 months ago
after 48 hours it just auto follows them anyway. I believe you can also set the waiting time.
adrielhampton
· 10 months ago
Thanks for explaining that. I just figured they followed a bunch of people and see-sawed up that high. Silly me, not seeing the bots at work.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
No problem, I was in the dark about it up until recently as well. I'm definitely glad I've gotten the word out though!
ickledot
· 10 months ago
Thank you. I've been wondering how they do that.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Glad I could help you see what was up!
Laura_N
· 10 months ago
It sucks that people do this but it doesn't bother me because 1) I would never follow someone based solely on their number of followers and 2) I would never turn on autofollow. I don't understand why people do that. I don't feel any obligation to follow people who follow me. I follow people who are interesting. Is there really something to be gained by having lots of followers? Is there money in this game yet?
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Amount of followers to a person who has been using Twitter for awhile=worthless. Amount of followers to a person who is new to Twitter=Very Important. I'm just worried about people taking the advice of someone who has more perceived authority then they actually do... No money. But lots of jobs, business knowledge and important info gets passed around Twitter. In fact I've been concentrating on Twitter as one of my main sources for trying to find both consulting work and a marketing job.
jeremyvaught
· 10 months ago
My litmus test is simple. I read 2 or three pages of their tweets. If they have even one interesting post that provided me value, I will follow them back. That being said, I also periodically go back through who I am following, and if I can't dm them, they are not following me. If I still value them by name at that point, I continue to follow, otherwise, I drop 'em.
What get's me is that some people, I have received probably 3 or 4 emails to follow them, they are clearly following and dropping only later to follow again. Drives me nuts.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
That is definitely a great method Jeremy, I should probably utilize it more often. I tend to base my follow on a. job field b. amount of tweets c. value added and d. blog/website/company they are affiliated with.
PixieHouse
· 10 months ago
A very educational post, thank you. I have been wondering how they did it and should had known the answer to be robots as GreaseMonkey. You sure add value to me, so you'r on my follow list for sure.
Jesse Stay
· 10 months ago
Where is this GreaseMonkey script? I want to be sure we block its activity on Socialtoo.
1stAngel, that's Greasemonkey itself. I'm looking for the actual script these people are using on top of Greasemonkey to do this.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
As of right now I've had a hard time finding it Jesse. It definitely exists but I haven't been able to find a link (have to do a lot of digging for it apparently). Doubt anyone will send me the link now though...
fantomaster
· 10 months ago
Are you sure it exists in terms of actually having seen, possibly tested it yourself rather than merely reading about it? A Greasemonky script, as you say? There's others around, but they're not GM based. Merely inquiring to check if this isn't just another rumor mill a-spinning, or a case of mistaking one app for another. Would be nice to see something more definitive and verifiable, if it's not asking too much. (And don't get me wrong: I'm NOT saying you made this up, or anything - but this thingy does seem pretty hard to track down. Which is a mite strange if it's really being deployed as widely as you say it is.)
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Digging up the pertinent information for you now. If it's not GM based I'll eat my words. But a reliable source informed me that that's what they were using.
1stAngel
· 10 months ago
OOps lol sorry
Molly Bermea
· 10 months ago
Realistically these people aren't really going to last out there in the Twittersphere. I have never been concerned with amounts of followers for others or for myself, although I know for a great number of Tweeters it is a daily goal it seems rather than gaining something from the actual experience.
Anyway, I go through EACH and EVERY new Tweeter that follows me, check out their short profile, scan their most recent page of tweets to see if they've tweeted something valuable, visit their link and review their site (if they have one. annoying if they don't sometimes). I make my judgment mainly based on their site, BUT if they have failed to make ANY kind of valuable (to me) Tweet in the past 30-50 posts then I strongly consider not following.
On the flip side, I myself might not even be that great a person to follow bc I can probably blast out 20+ lame tweets some days and others I try to post good content mixed in. So .... guess that's just how it goes. :)
Anyway... I don't really get the stupid "How many ppl are following me" obsession anyway... using script to cheat is really lame. But who are they cheating.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
The main reason it caught my attention is because a service like Twitbacks.com utilizes follower count to offer free custom backgrounds to that user. I definitely am pretty scatterbrained when I tweet. But I try to add lots of value when I can. I'm very interested (and knowledgeable) about marketing, branding, social media and advertising. So I pop my head into those conversations and add my 2 cents :).
Molly Bermea
· 10 months ago
.... oh yes, sorry, got carried away. Thank you for the detailed explanation too. Great to be in-the-know.
Wow, great response! Getting to all the questions now :)
antfaber
· 10 months ago
Why not just get rid of the auto-follow feature? If a twitterist has to confirm, this won't work.
johnnywon
· 10 months ago
I've noticed this epidemic as well. I do not know if it's really the worst thing in the world but I like this post. Love the graphic.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Haha thanks...it was really really starting to piss me off. But hey...they are being Farvas :)
andymurd
· 10 months ago
Good detective work! I'd wondered the same thing but I soon worked out that the number of followers a person has is a very poor measure of their worth/interest.
It's more fun to find those people who are interesting but have only just started tweeting and then interact with them. They might get 4,000 followers in the next twelve months, but they'll remember that you're the nice guy who chatted when they were starting out on twitter.
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Definitely, I feel like a broken record from how many times I have had to say "Twitter is all about the relationships"
Alysson
· 10 months ago
There is more to Twitter than generating followers for me. My goal isn't to build a rock star following of people who also follow thousands of other people and, because of that, never see even one of my tweets throughout the day.
I follow fewer than 300 people and I'm sure I miss out on a lot of useful and relevant information just because of the noise in my Twitterstream. Everyone's goals for using Twitter are different, I suppose...but I actually use it to connect with people who share similar interests or, at the very least, have something interesting to say.
I also don't reciprocal follow and certainly don't follow someone based on their number of followers. Most of the people I follow have some ties to the search marketing industry. Like JeremyVaught, I go through those I'm following periodically and weed out those who have never engaged me or offered anything useful that I can recall off hand.
By the way, I absolutely adore that you used a picture from Super Troopers to illustrate shenanigans! Just for the record, I'm pretty sure they're really baked in that scene. I'm just sayin'!
Stuart Foster
· 10 months ago
Oh...they are, love that movie. And Aly, you're one hell of a good Tweeple :) Glad to have met you early on!
Alysson
· 10 months ago
Right back at 'cha, Stuart! I'm happy to have you as part of my Twitterverse. :) It doesn't seem like all that long ago one of my friends said, "Hey...have you heard of Twitter?" Almost 6500 updates later, here we are!
All Comments
I think there is some pretty serious auto-follow type gaming.... people spending time to build up lots of followers... and now I am kind of kicking myself not being a little more pro-active or aggressive... because Twitter is where I think a lot of the mainstream viral marketing is gonna be going down for a long time!
What get's me is that some people, I have received probably 3 or 4 emails to follow them, they are clearly following and dropping only later to follow again. Drives me nuts.
You sure add value to me, so you'r on my follow list for sure.
--Jesse Stay
CEO, SocialToo.com
these people are using on top of Greasemonkey to do this.
There's others around, but they're not GM based.
Merely inquiring to check if this isn't just another rumor mill a-spinning, or a case of mistaking one app for another.
Would be nice to see something more definitive and verifiable, if it's not asking too much.
(And don't get me wrong: I'm NOT saying you made this up, or anything - but this thingy does seem pretty hard to track down. Which is a mite strange if it's really being deployed as widely as you say it is.)
Anyway, I go through EACH and EVERY new Tweeter that follows me, check out their short profile, scan their most recent page of tweets to see if they've tweeted something valuable, visit their link and review their site (if they have one. annoying if they don't sometimes). I make my judgment mainly based on their site, BUT if they have failed to make ANY kind of valuable (to me) Tweet in the past 30-50 posts then I strongly consider not following.
On the flip side, I myself might not even be that great a person to follow bc I can probably blast out 20+ lame tweets some days and others I try to post good content mixed in. So .... guess that's just how it goes. :)
Anyway... I don't really get the stupid "How many ppl are following me" obsession anyway... using script to cheat is really lame. But who are they cheating.
http://twitter.com/mollybermea
It's more fun to find those people who are interesting but have only just started tweeting and then interact with them. They might get 4,000 followers in the next twelve months, but they'll remember that you're the nice guy who chatted when they were starting out on twitter.
I follow fewer than 300 people and I'm sure I miss out on a lot of useful and relevant information just because of the noise in my Twitterstream. Everyone's goals for using Twitter are different, I suppose...but I actually use it to connect with people who share similar interests or, at the very least, have something interesting to say.
I also don't reciprocal follow and certainly don't follow someone based on their number of followers. Most of the people I follow have some ties to the search marketing industry. Like JeremyVaught, I go through those I'm following periodically and weed out those who have never engaged me or offered anything useful that I can recall off hand.
By the way, I absolutely adore that you used a picture from Super Troopers to illustrate shenanigans! Just for the record, I'm pretty sure they're really baked in that scene. I'm just sayin'!