Top 10 Signs You’re Not Worth Following on Twitter

August 11, 2009

Since I stopped auto-following people on Twitter, I’ve really been trying to weed out all the spammers from my follow list.

I’m still pondering whether I should do a big mass-unfollow and then re-build my list. I still might do so. I was ready to do it on Friday, but then Twitter got hit with that big DDOS attack and I couldn’t pull it off.

As I (at this point) gradually remove people from my follow list, I am beginning to arrive at common traits that I personally find either annoying or classic signs of a spammer. I thought I’d share. :)

Typical Twitter Spam

Here is what I’m finding a LOT of right now in the form of tweet spam:

  1. Make money from home without lifting a finger. This can be, of course, phrased in multiple ways, but the end goal is the same. These people have a full profile of tweeting “make money” tweets, with little to no actual interaction with their audience. In short, their fishing for leads and you’re an idiot to follow people like this.
  2. Teeth Whitening. I’m seeing a lot of people out there spamming about teeth whitening. I see it, you’re unfollowed. Period.
  3. Getting More Followers. It is SO annoying because these people are complete FAKES. They have no idea what they’re doing with Twitter and all they ever talk about is how to get more followers. Many of these follow “services” end up tweeting ads for themselves via the API, and the Twitter user has given them permission to do so in order to themselves gain more followers. It is a classic Twitter ponzi scheme.

I’m also seeing crap about porn and Forex trading.

Top 10 Signs You’re Not Worth Following on Twitter

As I manually weed people out of my follow list, I have a pretty itchy trigger finger. I might get some choices wrong, however these are the top things I look for to tell me you’re not worth following:

  1. You tweet any of the above spam.
  2. You don’t have an avatar. That brown default avatar is, for me, classic sign of a spammer. If you’re not a spammer and you’re still using the default avatar, change it now because you’re in bad company.
  3. Your avatar is sexy. You know, I’m a guy and I like a beautiful woman as much as any other guy. But, I don’t want to subscribe to it on Twitter. If your avatar is you simply advertising how much you want to get laid, then get lost from my Twitter account.
  4. Your profile bio is stupid and offers no reason why I should follow you. A profile like “I like fun things” tells me nothing.
  5. Your profile has nothing but links, with no personal interaction with your followers. If you’re just a one-way stream, you’re not using Twitter correctly and I won’t follow you.
  6. You just tweet news or quotes. Sorry, I can get my news from anywhere and I don’t want AP headlines tweeted to me. And if all you do is tweet other people’s quotes, then you’re just telling me you let other people think for you, too. You offer no value. Buh-bye.
  7. All you do is talk about stupid stuff like what you had for lunch. I like personal (non-business tweets), but at least be somewhat interesting and don’t make that the only thing your profile broadcasts.
  8. You tweet in another language. Nothing personal here, I know not everybody speaks English. But, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to follow somebody I can’t understand.
  9. Excessive Blip.FM links. I don’t CARE what music you listen to, and for me to click it and listen to a song is the biggest waste of time EVER.
  10. Tweets with a lot of weird characters. Some people like to tweet endless amounts of people full of heart symbols and and other “wing dings”. No.

So, what do you think? Do you have other reasons for not following people? What do you look for when you decide whether or not to follow or not?

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

  1. Top 10 Signs You ARE Worth Following On Twitter
  2. The Big Secret To Lots of Followers on Twitter Is…
  3. I Follow Pornstars On Twitter? [Stop Auto-Follow]
  4. 10 Tips For Getting New Twitter Followers
  5. Twitter Spammers, Who Are They?
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  • Most seem to be forgetting that Twitter started as and still is a SOCIAL network. We all interact differently in social situations in real life- as we do on Twitter. So to say there is a correct, or incorrect way to Tweet, is like telling someone what to talk about at a dinner party. Someone may discuss a subject you find boring at a certain point-but who knows what they will share 10 minutes later? This is why I try to give everyone a chance, except the obvious spammers and quote people.

    I have unfollowed several of the top users, simply because they managed to get to the top by RTing and using @ replies, to the point newer users think they're an authority- to me, it's a subtle way of spam and self-promotion. If I wanted to read the NY Times, I'd read it- I wouldn't go through 15 copy and pasted Tweets about a news story. All this proves- is that the person can copy and paste. Engage with followers- converse and you'll get the most from Twitter. Be yourself instead of listening to those who say you should utilize the service a certain way. Unless someone has a PhD in Tweeting, there is no such thing as a Twitter expert.
  • Interesting list.

    Most of the people I know that are heavy twitter users violate at least one of your items.

    I closed my twitter feed. Now if I add someone, I might be interested in what they had for dinner, or what they are listening to. Makes a big difference.
  • Batman
    I second that emotion. Are we to start deciding who may or may not tweet? Sounds like you've taken the first step onto the slippery slope, especially when you use phrases like, “You're not using Twitter correctly.”
  • I'm not deciding who may or may not tweet. I'm deciding who I will or will not follow. Big difference.
  • Batman
    Not really. If you're telling me I'm not tweeting correctly, then you're wrong, as there's more than one way to tweet. I guess I'm rankling at that one specific statement more than anything. Of course, by extension, as you're an authority figure when it comes to this type of thing, people will believe you when you say something like that...
  • They could believe worse things, trust me. Twitter is about interaction and relationships, not a pipe for an RSS feed only. But, you use Twitter how you want, dude. It is up to me and anybody else whether to follow you or not.
  • One other thing that's really annoying me recently is links to some make money scam that include my name in them as an @mikecj reply. It kind of suggests I'm endorsing it or something.
  • I agree with Mikecj...this one has been bugging me too. I immediately block anyone that uses my name to tweet spam out to me. I don't want anyone to think I am in on any of that junk they send out.
  • I had this happen to me this week with Follow Friday. Somebody I didn't know FF'd my with a link in the FF tweet. Of course I wondered who it was so clicked on and the link... and it was a get rich quick scheme. I immediately blocked the person from my account.
  • clunkclunk
    I'd have to disagree on the profile thing. I have a 'stupid' profile, simply because I can't make decent use out of the 160 characters to explain who I am (why are profiles 160 characters when tweets are 140?). However I think my twitter stream speaks for itself. It's either useful, or its not in defining who I am.

    I make my decisions based on that as well. I read what people are actually tweeting, and then decide to follow or not.

    One thing I would add to your list is excessive retweets. Whether it be someone who just doesn't have an original thought, or someone who thinks they're helping spread information by retweeting current news (that everyone already knows about), I tend to not follow people who spend more than about 40% of their time retweeting others.
  • I'm with you David. Social Media is supposed to be about the conversation not about "hey look at me."

    Perry Belcher said very smartly--it's a party. If you went to a party and were immediately put in a room and shown a presentation--it wouldn't be a party, but really a sales presentation. What would you think of that guy after the bait and switch? Yeah, me too..what an ass.

    Now that doesn't mean you won't generate business around the BBQ--Hey, what do you do is a typical question, so at that point, you could ease into your conversation.

    Remember, Social Media and Twitter is part of that brings word of mouth (which is really the most sincere and effective form of marketing) to a larger group of people.

    It stinks that too many guys are abusing it.

    My .02
    Laura
    http://yadayadamarketing.com
  • gregellison
    I have two accounts for Tweeter. One that is my personal account and one for my general use. I don't really care about my general use account. I do agree that there are a lot of spammers on twitter. I hate seeing how to make money on twitter or something like that. Greg Ellison
  • I think this is the best way to use Twitter... I have ELEVEN accounts, all based on keywords. My close friends don't care about my Social Marketing expertise. Those who enjoy photography don't want to read my posts about parenting.

    And to ME, Twitter is about the least "social" of all the ways we approach each other... things just scroll by much too quickly (when you get more than, say, 100 followers). So FACEBOOK is the Social spot - many of the rest of these just support FB and my main websites.
  • WooHoo Looks like I'm worth following.

    Oh and BTW I'll be having spaghetti and meatballs for lunch! lol

    See you at GameWorks tonight!
  • Name
    You left off my biggest pet peeve - those who go about 'mining' for followers by tweeting out hundreds of Twitter names expecting a follow back. #fail

    My personal favorite, @herpesinfo who tweeted my company name today. I do not want these folks tweeting about my company for me. Not only will this guy not get a follow from me, I'm blocking him altogether!
  • Funny, you used a hashtag in your comment. Twitter is spilling over. ;)
  • Thanks for this, David. Gives me a pretty good guideline for what to watch out for when deciding to follow or not. Quantity over quality not ever a good thing.
  • probloggingtips
    This is an excellent post, I think I need to start doing the same thing here as I'm not having much success with the whole twitter thing. The only thing I've really used twitter for was to promote my new blog http://CraigDawber.com I was showing my followers the progress of my blog design and layout but I didn't get much interest.

    This tells me that I have the people kind of people following me also.

    Thanks for the tip David, I will certainly use this :-)

    Craig
  • Blocking your feed to choose who follows you gives you even more advantage: tweet what you want, they asked to follow after all.
  • I agree with your list except the part about Blip.FM. Music is a huge part of my life. I like to tweet song links now & then. I also like other people's song links. Sure, there's a lot of noise on Twitter. Very few of the people I'm following interest me *all* the time. But I'm willing to filter out the noise to get to the good stuff.
  • dakwegmo
    #11 The ratio of following to followers is radically skewed. I've found that people have a huge gap between the number of people they're following and the number of followers they have are usually a waste of time. Either they're using twitter as another "look at me" channel, to broadcast their crap to everyone without listening back, or they're following everyone but not contributing enough to be worth the reciprocal follow. Either way, it's a big red flag for me.
  • I wholeheartedly agree with you David. One pet peeve are those that tweet nothing but quotes. One followers whom I know personally does this all too often. I have this image of this person sitting before their computer with a book open of nothing but quotes, flipping pages as they Tweet.

    I have unfollowed people if they have nothing useful to Tweet about or if I have nothing in common with them whatsoever.
  • Here's a couple of classics;

    someone follows you and you go to check out their profile and find that they have 1 or 2 tweets - alltime!

    So what the hell's the sense and following them, they've already told you they have nothing to say.

    Another is this, they follow you, you check their profile and it's on lockdown. You have to make a request. Yeah right!
  • FoundIt
    So what. I've had that; it's a person who wants to follow me which doesn't necessarily mean they want to be followed in return.
  • David,

    So now you need to post a "Top 10 Reasons Why You ARE Worth Following on Twitter".

    Roger
  • bobhereyo
    Why is is SO important to follow anyone in the manner that you can on Twitter? What is the primary reason why you Twitter and Why One Follow others on Twitter instead of a Blog or other media?
  • Twitter can be used effectively as a tool to compliment your blog or website. Case in point, yesterday I was putting together a Fundraiser Packet for someone who was interested. I tweeted what I was doing. Within 5 minutes I received a reply from a blogger I follow who volunteers for a non-profit organization who is always looking for new ways to raise funds. I sent her out a packet as well. And if they decide to utilize my fundraiser, I will have gained a new customer at no cost to me other than a few moments of my time. A pretty good ROI if you ask me.
  • David,
    I concur about your list of ten. One that I don't like is tweeting the same message many times in a row.
  • Yeh, I feel the same as you about those boring tweets. If they don't have something interesting to say then don't waste my time trying to get me to your link.
  • I am still so new at the Twitter stuff... but I do not any of the stuff you hate... so you can follow us :) I actually wrote a post that is set to display tomorrow trying to find out how everybody utilizes Twitter. It just seems that if you are following a ton of people there is no way to keep up with the 1000's of tweets a day.
  • But internet marketer says that twitter is a best platform for promoting the blogs. is it wrong?
  • Great post David. And I'm quite happy that I pass the "test". But it's so true that there's plenty of "fakes" on Twitter - but happily there's the choice to follow or not to follow, and stop following is always an option :)

    But to get the most out of Twitter, or any social network for that matter, turning these steps around - being honest, transparent, non-spammy and keep the self-promotion in moderation will bring in great results..
  • I follow my friends, people whose blog I love (like @dooce) and those who post real interesting stuffs (like @wordsapart)

    And yes, big no to spam!

    However, I kind of disagree with 4, 7 and 10...

    4. Bio. in 140 words is really difficult

    7. To me, it's interesting when my friends snaps a photo of their lunch/dinner and share it on Twitter. Especially those expensive meals that are fancifully decorated.

    I treat my Twitter like my blog so I guess there will inevitably be "boring" or "stupid" content.

    10. But the heart symbol is so pretty~ But I guess it's a girl thing.

    (:
  • I Tweet for a variety of reasons - it's a convenient brain dump, so my timeline tends to be a little link heavy at times.

    It's a quick & easy tip that someone isn't worth following if their Following / Followers ratio is skewed by hundreds or thousands.

    Also, if you look at someone's timeline and find few (if any) Tweets that begin with @ - that is, they only spew, never converse or interact - they're not worth following.

    I'm definitely guilty of one or two of these "signs." I've been guilty of posting what I'm going to have for lunch - just in case anyone else is in the area and stumped.
  • Hi David.

    Nice guide line here. Which I what I see your list here as, just some basic guide lines to follow. I don't read your list here as just because they tweet a quote, a wing ding, a blip, a link etc... you will unfollow them.

    Twitter is about building relationships, and sometime you might want to add some of the things you mention on your list. But at once you start become the squeaky wheel then you are moving towards the risk zone of getting unfollowed and blocked.

    I also have experienced what mikecj mentioned, where people send a tweet with an affiliate link with @ reply of my Twitter account. That is for me an automatic unfollow and block that user. And like mikecj says the links they send I am not familiar with at all.

    Also experienced many click jackers - they follow me to get my follow back, and then when I follow back they unfollow me. Dough lately I am aware of that this has become harder to determine due to Twitter clearing a lot of malicious accounts, and some ok accounts has been taken off.

    Also getting a bunch of annoying DMs - I just gave you .... I just sent you ... I just took...

    Have to digg up an email one of my friends sent me about track the spammers before they track you.. These spams has killed DMs, I have closed my DM column on my Tweetdeck. Spams was just taking to much of my time.

    Keep up with articles like this David.

    Cheers..
  • ML Vanessa
    I chuckled when I read your list because I've encountered at least one of them. I'm picky about who I follow too, and believe that you have to be. If you can't provide a clear description of who you are, then why interact? Your picture says a thousand words and if you have the default picture, that's an automatic decline on my end.
  • This is great well said agree with everything your doing here. I am well over do to do some twitter pruning myself. No Pic's your are out, Sexy Pic's questionable, tweeting that looks like a robot or un-human out. Twitter is powerful for connecting not spamming.
  • But Dave! I can't help it that my avatar is sexy... that's just how God made me! lol

    - CD
  • Shouldn’t we hear now: “Top 10 Signs You Are Worth Following on Twitter!”?
  • Teeth Whitening is to Twitter, what enlargement pill was for spam mails :-) Expecting spammers, I never set auto follow. Cleaned up more spammer followers. I still need some cleaning up (he he :-) third category in your 10 point list :-)
  • kcrystina
    I go through my twitter list every once in a while, most of the criteria you mention above is what I look for. However, I also look to see if that person has tweeted in the last month. If they haven't they go bye-bye forever. I want to connect with people who have something real to say and offer me.
  • I still don't get what I am missing here. Is there really that much good stuff on twitter that it is worth this kind of hassle to manage? And so many people complaining about SPAM and people just using it as advertising are, ironically, using it for the same thing, only in a more sophisticated manner. I still just don't get what I am missing.
  • Pam, there is a lot of good and interesting things to be found on Twitter, a lot of things to learn, other than learning about products and services. I have been very blessed since I started using Twitter in Nov 2008. Twitter is ultimately about learning many things, and about building relationships. If one happens to build their business in the process all the better. I don't think you have the right concept of Twitter at all!
  • David, what on earth did I do to make you unfollow me, LOL? I tweet in English, and I have an avatar, LOL. Okay, never mind, I won't take it personally.

    krissy knox.
    follow me on twitter:
    http://twitter.com/iamkrissy
  • FoundIt
    Obviously it depends on the person. I love links to news stories, for example, as well as funny personal observations.
    I don't think there's any right or wrong about Twitter, other than annoying spam being universally disliked. The world is a big place with room for every kind of people.
  • Bryant
    Top Ten Signs Your Blog Isn't Worth Reading.......I'll let other finish this one.
  • goldenTwine
    There are many affiliate marketers using twitter as a marketing tool. You shouldn't brand them all as spammers. If someone is trying to earn some commission by promoting teeth whitening, or for that matter any product on the net, what is wrong about it. If a product is wrong then there are authorities to book them, and it has happened with many alternative medicine sites. If for some unknown reason you have problems with teeth whitening products (when thousands of products are promoted on the net) that is your personal phobia. No one is forcing you to follow someone. Some earn six figures on the net yet I have seen them promoting one page websites to entice people. Some make it big, others don't. But everyone has a right to try and get a slice on the net.
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