louisgray.com - Latest Comments in http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Julia — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:58:26 -0000

Ok, I'm pretty new too Twitter. I signed up for the service Tweetlater which I like and find helpful. When someone follows me on Twitter my tweetlater account auto sends (sorry no one hit me!) :) a DM that says thank you for following me. There are no links in it or anything like that. I just thought it would be good netiquette. Now reading these responses I'm rethinking my decision. Should I stop the thank you DM's?

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Danna Crawford — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:33:23 -0000

Thanks for the information! I've added your link to my wall!

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Cee — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:39:10 -0000

Even more annoying ist the fact that both @PoliticalUpdate and @twtr.us have found a way to "let me follow" the automatically. As I follow only a few people I remember who was the last one I followed. A couple of days ago I saw @twtr.us on top of my list. Today it was @PoliticalUpdate. Weird!

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Benin (@BeninB) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:47:26 -0000

I also wanted to add that directs are sent to twitter users mobiles if the get mobile updates. depending upon their plan they can actually get charged for these auto DM's. Not good at all.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Benin (@BeninB) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:28:27 -0000

One of the things about Twitter that a lot of these "follower in a box" type of devlopers don't understand is that although it is a very open system, there is something about Twitter that is very different than Myspace and some of the other social networks that lent themselves to these types of companies that create these robotic follower getters. In essence, anything that you do on Twitter that comes across as generic and isn't personal is immediately perceived as spam. Additionally, I would rather have a more tightly knit Twitter following where my followers and I share interests and conversation than many followers who don't or won't talk to me.

Now here is one of my pet peeves is the automatic direct message that some Twitterers have enabled for their accounts. If I am going to get a text message from a direct, it would really be good if it was at least somewhat original.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Bwana McCall — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:22:40 -0000

Dude, I'm STILL getting this today. It's ridiculous and annoying. I'm thankful for Gmail fitlers.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

grapplica — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:13:31 -0000

nice insights, tnx

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Renee — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:44:32 -0000

Wow, great post...I thought I was imagining names disappearing/reappearing. One person is very good: he waits several days or a week so you don't notice his name reappearing. Reading this post, finally realized what's going on. Why do people think they're going to get away with annoying hundreds or thousands of people and no one's going to complain?

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

coachpalmer — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:43:29 -0000

great tips on the post comments. This was starting to be a problem for my inbox.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

wordsforliving — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:17:14 -0000

I really hate the TweeterGetter system & don't understand why Twitter doesn't suspend those accounts that use it or at least the person who created it.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Jeff C — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:43:20 -0000

JIm's spot on. People are using new software called 'Hummingbird'. I read one users post instrucing his minions on how to use this Twitter cancer to quickly build massive followings. Basically, w/ Hummingbird, you manually choose a Twitter account, and the software automatically follows everyone that person is following. The post instructions said "wait 24 hours, then unfollow (I assume it's an automated, easy feature) anyone who hasn't followed you. Lather, rinse, repeat".

Obviously, people w/ larger follow/follower numbers are being targeted. Once that 2,000 barrier is breached, there's nothing to stop these asswipes from having 10, 20, 40,000 strong spam/junk peddling accounts. I still hand check each new follow, and am blocking anything suspicious, which is about half the activity now. It's a flood, it's a pain in the ass, and I fear it will only get worse.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

wecandobiz — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:09:00 -0000

If a simple "thank you" in a DM puts someone off following me before they have received any tweets then I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Networks on Twitter are likely to be fluid I believe. I, myself, follow and unfollow if I see that the content being tweeted is no longer relevant to me, too plentiful or of marginal value, or that I am just not "connecting" with the other party; much the same way that I drift between blogs. That's normal, isn't it? I expect it to happen.

I am not on Twitter, or any social network, to collect followers like Pokemon cards.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Liz — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:28:22 -0000

But if the people who receive them don't like Auto-DMs, don't you realize you are annoying them? It might make you feel good but it'll result in many people unfollowing you.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Susan Beebe — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:07:00 -0000

Jesse nice work on SocialToo and DM management... thanks!

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

wecandobiz — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:30:57 -0000

I don't see anything wrong with auto DMs. I send a response to all my followers thanking them for the connection, which happens once and that is it. I make no apology for extending a courtesy to them, even though I automate the process. And I am always happy to receive thanks from others when I follow them.

When you network you expect to get contacted. Twitter provides some great methods for unfollowing, blocking or even reporting anyone whose contact is getting overwhelming.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Jesse Stay — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:41:00 -0000

Robert, I'm reading your Naked Conversations right now on the iPhone Kindle app, and the section where you talk about Seth Godin's "Interruption Marketing" fits auto-DMs to a tee. I'm going to do a post on it tomorrow I think. auto-DMs are the new "Interruption Marketing". (note I've never read an entire book of Godin's, but I love what I'm reading in Scoble & Shel's book about it)

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Jesse Stay — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:36:00 -0000

Just FYI, if you see any of these please report them to me (and block them so Twitter knows). I'll ensure no one on SocialToo auto-follows them (and we'll retroactively unfollow anyone that autofollowed them in the past).

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Prokofy Neva — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:33:00 -0000

OHHHH I didn't realize what they were doing, I wondered why somebody would keep following and refollowing me like that. They also stack up lots of alts with names like seowiz123 sewiz234 etc. Well I just delete them if I see they are hustling something so obviously. I have a rule that if anybody's profile has the word "SEO" or "Leadership Training" or "Social Media Consultant" in their description, I will not follow unless they have a redeeming quality -- and "father of five" will not be that redemption.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

jmacofearth — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:31:05 -0000

This is great information. I disagree about the AutoFollowing practice and more so about the AutoDMing practice, I think this one post hits the problem on the head. Squarly on the head.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Wendy Piersall — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:32:26 -0000

YAY that twitr.us is suspended - these two accounts have been driving me crazy for weeks!

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Bill — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:47:21 -0000

I noticed this trend over the past week or two as well. In fact, several of the accounts that were following me, then unfollowed and refollowed are legitimate people, with legitimate businesses. I can imagine that this activity will play havoc on their businesses and is not smart at all. I am not sure if they are trying to stay top-of-mind with this tactic, gaming the system in someway or just trying to be annoying. Needless to say, I do track all follower emails - grouped by name in a separate folder via an outlook rule (since subject from twitter start with their name) and if there are accounts with more than one notification within a few days that they are following me I get suspicious. Granted, some of them followed a while back, unfollowed at some point and then refollowed so those don't strike me as the "spammy" type - maybe I wasn't providing as good of value then as I am now, which is true.

Anyway, if in a few days time there is more than one follow from the same person, I simply ignore at this point - will probably move to blocking them soon.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Judy Rey Wasserman — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:39:23 -0000

Good article and I plan to RT it after I leave this comment.
I have had the same experience. I had not thought that it was about bringing the follower to my attention . I am known and daily stated that I follow my followers. I am a big proponent of doing so for those who are in business or want to network with others, including making friends.
It seems that some of the spammers follow and then unfollw to get more followers-- without it costing them the ability to follow others due to Twitter follow ratios. A few people seem to follow and unf9ollow, or start new accounts when Twitter closes them down with this tactic. It is only a small handful o f people who behave this way.
I agree that it is almost always someone who is a basic spammer, seeking to sell but not als be a real part of the community.
Thanks for the insight.
Judy Rey Wasserman
http://twitter.com/judyrey

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Robert Scoble — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:38:00 -0000

Twittergator: you're wrong, but you'll eventually realize the error of your ways. Beliefs like yours are what destroys communities. I've seen it over and over again since I joined my first online community in 1985. By the way, how I use Twitter is documented at http://www.kyte.tv/scobleizer

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

bloqhead — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:28:06 -0000

This type of spam is starting to annoy me more than email spam. It's one thing to receive email spam but now they're bleeding over into popular social tools. I don't think I've gotten popular enough to see this and I hope it doesn't get too bad. Lately I've been getting a bunch of Twitter follows daily but I read all of them, check the Twitter profile and their updates and then I decide if I want to follow them.

The only ones I've been getting are the ones that say something like "Just got my free computer LOL" and I block every one of them. It has sloped off a little and I hope it doesn't get too bad. I don't use any sort of tools in unison with Twitter, except for apps like DestroyTwitter. I like to be completely genuine to my users but SocialToo looks like a great tool

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/newest-annoyance-on-twitter-follow-and.html

Patrick — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:15:00 -0000

I watch the show 24 and when I say something about that show people reply back to me. I try to find somnething that all my followers like. Sports, TV, Music, Polictics. I try and keep everyone up to date with everything I tweet. The more updates I have and the more variety the more likely I am to have followers who like that section. So I try and tweet almost anything I can.