Following Twitter Trash

Thanks For Following…Here’s A Sales Page

This post will seem a whole lot more level-headed than my previous rant about telling your readers the truth.  It will also be a lot shorter.  Here’s the gist.

You see somebody has just started following you on twitter. You click their profile link and they appear to be somebody who has put some thought into their profile and site.  You say “What the hell?” and follow them back.  Within minutes you’ve got that automated message telling you thanks for following me and here’s some crap sales page to go waste your time with.  What do you do?

A. Delete the message and go on with your life

B. Follow the link, and send them a direct message telling them how much you appreciate the info

C. Click on their profile again and unfollow them

What I Do And Why

I pick option C every time!  Here’s why:

• Twitters who use these automated software systems don’t understand the social part of social media and this direct message will be just the beginning of the spam you will receive.
• Twitter is supposed to be for learning about people or companies that can help me further my goals. Not another outlet for spammers.
• I rarely see anything of value from this person. It’s like they’ve expended all of their energy putting up a false front on their twitter page. There’s no integrity left for any quality content to follow.
• The other group of twitterers that use this software already have 10,000 followers and won’t be responsive to any tweets anyway.
• Even if they’re not spammers, how am I going to get anything useful out of them if they start off our relationship with spam?

The Final Analysis

I enjoy having somebody trying to tweet me with their sales page even less than I do having them email it to me.  Why?  Because the tweet might fool me into clicking whereas I’m immune to clicking on spam.  After all, the assumption on twitter was that you followed them so they must be worth something, right?

Your Thoughts On This?

Let me know how you deal with your twitter follow-backs. Do you really care who you follow? Does twitter generate any clients for you? Tell me about it.