As time progresses, everyone involved in Twitter will gradually begin to gain a larger following. This following will begin to cheer in a louder voice (usually for themselves) that continues to gain volume as the mass of followers grows. All that cheering is coming through a loudspeaker pointed at you.
Not everyone is doing it, but a fair number are involved.
So What Constitutes Spam On Twitter
Well, the same things that makes other contacts online “Spam”. Incessant messages that are irrelevant, off topic, laced with hard sales and promotional crap. It’s the equivalent of internet junkmail. Has been and always will be.
It’s found its way into Twitter because there are hundreds of thousands (probably more like millions now) of people looking to gain the most followers possible. They believe that once they amass a large following then they can just send out junk promo content and get a fair conversion rate. After all, a 1% conversion on 5,000 followers is better than a 1% conversion on 50 followers.
This is primarily done by people who have no real interest in being active on Twitter. These people just heard it’s a great way to make some money do they’re joining in to add to the noise. They are the god-awful commercials in the middle of the episodes we love to watch.
This might not be considered spam to some, but it is. So is an autofollow message from someone you just swapped follows with that says something like “hey thanks for the follow” with a link to a product page or some other link that says “check this out”. In the big book of online etiquette that’s about as spammy as spam can get.
Avoid The Noise
You can try to minimize the spam that comes through by paying more attention to the people you follow. Twitter is just like any other networking channel. It’s about building a relevant follower base and shaking hands with people that provide some value. If you take the time to review someone in depth (their profile page, their tweets, their followers, their retweets) you can paint a picture of whether or not this person is just a promo-hog or someone that actually engages people. When you hook up with real people and not promo-bots that people setup, you’ll dramatically reduce the number of junk direct messages you get.
What Is Twitter Doing About It
Twitter is more concerned with the live stream and what people are posting publicly. Excessive link tweets or repeat tweets that are too frequent can get someone flagged for spam. However here’s their take on direct messages:
Their police states –“If you follow a user, then you are allowing that person to send you direct messages”
If you still get a fair amount of direct messages even after weeding through and carefully choosing your followers then you have a few options.
1) Turn of direct message (DM) notifications. While you’ll still receive DM’s in your account on twitter, you won’t be notified via e-mail
2) Stalk the people sending you DM’s and destroy them.
Spotting A Spammer
You don’t need a sniper rifle or black-ops training to pick out the people in Twitter that provide zero value. By closely examining the profile of people you’ll be able to spot those whose sole intention is to generate the fattest list of followers possible using the most artificial and “plastic” means available. These mass followers that send out millions of spam messages each day are actually threatening to cripple the performance of the network and drive people away.
If you come across someone with thousands upon of followers and a similar number of follows (or far less) you have the potential for a spammer – especially if they’re not a celebrity. Their tweets tend to take on the following form as well
And of course any combination there of.
It’s a good idea to avoid these practices, because Twitter can and will ban accounts based on being flagged for Spam. The active users within the system are growing tired of the excessive self-promotion and marketing and are quick to flag people for Spam that deserve it. Stay human, stay engaged and keep your promotion to a minimum and you should do just fine.
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Joerg Weishaupt is a 48 year old entrepreneur, software architect, search engine optimization and social media expert. Joerg has been building a lot of profitable Internet businesses since he put his first website online in 1995. He is also one of the founders and partners of Social Media Science LLC, where he launched a content syndication network called SYNND.
Joerg resides in a small, quiet community about 100 miles outside of Munich, Germany. If you ever seek to find him, look for where the cows gather.
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