Twitter Observations
Now, I know that everyone has their own opinions on how Twitter ‘should’ be used and I agree with the thought that it’s really best when each specific user is using it in a way that makes them more comfortable and effective. I also know that there’s certainly not a shortage of ‘articles’ written out there about the different ‘styles’ of Tweeting. This is not going to be another one of those posts. This is more of an observation over the last couple days and I thought I’d share.
As most of you know I’ve been working with Billy Currington for the past few months. Now this hasn’t been a SkörInc thing necessarily, but more of a ‘consulting / online presence management’ type of thing. You know starting him off on Twitter, making strategic web moves, gathering content, that kind of thing. Well, when I first sat down with Billy, he had 94 Twitter followers. It was a few radio stations and some fans that were paying attention. Not that big of a deal though, because he had just signed up and hadn’t even started using it. At that point we decided that we’d take the “follow everyone that follows” approach. You know, to boost the numbers. Well, we’ve been using that method for over 15,000 followers now and yesterday we decided to change that. See, Billy has figured out his Twitter experience and it doesn’t involve managing 15,000 different feeds. Makes sense right?
So yesterday, literally all day long, Billy and I were clicking the ‘unfollow’ button. Not because he doesn’t like people, but because he wants to follow the people he wants to follow. You know, like Twitter was made for. Now, one thing I did notice in the fifteen hours of ‘unfollowing’ was how much spam there was out there. I can not believe how many real estate companies, money making schemes, and porn Twitter accounts are following Billy, and in turn he was following back. Not exactly something you want on your list of “Following” right? So, in this ‘unfollowing’ process Billy has lost about 70 followers and my guess is that he will lose about 100 more. But that’s okay right? I mean who cares if @EarnMoneyFast stops following you, right?
So here’s my thought. Billy’s ‘Followers” number is dropping the more people we stop following from his account. Now, that’s less impressive when I go to the label and show them what we are doing. They see the end result. The final number, and over the last two days that number has dropped. They aren’t going to like that. But I see a number that is free from porn and spam and a more cohesive list of “Followers” wanting to connect with Billy.
So here’s my question to all you “Follow Everyone That Follows” people. How do you deal with the porn sites, the money making schemes and the businesses just looking for a massive number? Do you deal with it? Or are you just another one of those same things?
***And here’s the other thing I realized throughout this whole process. How can I confidently and morally advise a band like MercyMe to “follow everyone that’s following them”, when I know that anyone with Twitter can check out their list of “Following” and be subject to an array of adult content? Is it ministry or numbers?
Here’s what I’d advise you to do. Take a second and go browse a few of your favorite “Tweeters” Following list. Check out who they are endorsing. Who they are publicly proclaiming that it’s “okay to follow”. Who they are okay with “Following” themselves. Let me know what you come up with.***
Everyone that follows me, I will look at their profile, and if they are spam, marketing, porn, whatever… I will block them straight away,
If it is a normal person, then I may follow back, if I am interested, or may just let them follow me, but I won’t follow back
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i can’t believe how often i have to block porn twitter accounts now…because i’m just some guy, not a famous musician. that tells me how pervasive it has become.
this is really sad in my opinion because that’s not what twitter is for. i respect companies like vimeo who just take a stand and say no to adult content, because they know it will absolutely overshadow the real content and bog down the speed of the service.
every week or so i go through and unfollow people who just don’t make sense to me in my twitter feed.
and, while i understand the follow-everyone-who-follows way of doing things, it just doesn’t appeal to me since i really only want to follow individuals who i have some sort of connection with.
I go through my husbands, because when you get a follower, you might not automatically check it right away or forget all together.
This way, he can be sure that anyone who is following his is following for the right reasons.
Well, for what it’s worth, I only have 51 followers and I’m OK with that. I only follow 78. However, I’m not a Billy Currington either. Little ole me has to whack all that mess of spam out almost daily and I’m essentially, nobody in the eye of the public. So I can only imagine someone who has a real fan base.
I think that you have to a.) choose to be who you are, b.) choose the level of “noise” that you can manage in your life (i.e. who you follow), c.) and to absolutely draw the line on what you will allow on your followers list. I for one am totally against porn type spam and will eradicate every time. I’m also vehemently against invasive solicitation too, so it’s an axe every time to them as well. I mean who really likes a pushy salesperson?
It’s just not about a numbers game. I think that game = fail. I think honest connection and connection with a real plan to build base (in the case of an artist) grows things in a better direction. All those other folks “attaching” themselves to someone of position are just trying to coat-tail to make money or increase their chances of getting their business seen.
The artist goal should be a pure and honest connection with their fans through the social media. Know your market, target that, and have a real thought out plan for expansion.
$0.02 from the least famous person on the globe…
Beautifully said. I started the trimming a few weeks ago and actually wrote a similar post advising people to unfollow the noise– (sorry Brody, not sure if you allow links or not– if so no worries!)
http://www.inkeddigital.com/digital-ink/unfollow-the-noise-social-media-connections/
I was guilty and for a while did the auto follow thing but really… why? It’s a numbers game and you are right it = fail.
Preach on my friend.
I stopped ato follow a while back when I realized I was following the porn or strippers as I call them. I scan new followers evry few days. If I see legitimate followers that I am interested in following then I follow them. I also clean up my followers weekly blocking all of the porn/strippers and ad spam.
I keep a check on who is following me and I block all porn, spams, marketers and people I do not know. When I began using Twitter I set my account on private but I didn’t like the fact that I could not send an @ comment to someone who was not following me so, I made it public.
I love the graphic!
I don’t view twitter as a numbers game. To me, it’s another way to keep in touch, to learn, and to connect with people in industries or activities I’m interested in.
Anyhow, I do exactly what Connor does, plus I report them via DM to @spam.
Ok, I’m going to give you an opinion of someone who opened a twitter acount specifically for two reasons, one was to follow a photography blogger who offers special updates to his twitter followers and to follow Billy Currington after hearing him talk about his twittering on CMT. I added you, Brody, after Billy’s live chat from Dubuque (and by the way, enjoy your posts). Anyway, I don’t autofollow anyone and really don’t post much but already have had requests from porn accounts to follow me which I won’t approve. While, as a fan, it is kind of cool to have someone like Billy say he is following you, I don’t really expect Billy to actually be following my and other fans’ posts. That would be insane, he wouldn’t have enough hours in the day to read them all. I would prefer that artists not autofollow to prevent the porn and spam accounts, especially when you are referring to artists such as Mercy Me. I also think the numbers for the record company execs would be much more meaningful if the numbers reflect real fans not porn and spam account numbers as well.
I rarely ever use twitter. i have it, and i went through and turned on some device updates for a few people (such as you) and so I read the texts i get. I totally agree with what you’re sayin though. when i did use twitter i got really tired of the spam accounts
I enjoy using twitter, and find quite a bit of value in it. A lot of that comes from me only following people I want to follow. Right now, I’m really at the max that I can reasonably handle as far as followers. Any more would be information overload and I would no longer be participating in the conversation, but watching it go by.
On a side note, I find it interesting that @BillyCurrington is following only people he wants to follow. Right now one of those five is Perez Hilton?!? How do I interpret that 20% of @BillyCurrington’s follower list is a d-bag?
Nate.
Billy’s “Following” bank has been empty for about an hour and a half. I’m pretty sure he’ll have more that 5 in the next couple days.
Remember your post on your how you choose who you follow on Twitter? I liked it & it got me thinking about how I follow people. I did a whole lot of deleting & blocking. Since then I’ve stayed on top of my followers list. Unfortunately, the only people who try to follow me now are spam/porn people!
I followed Billy to support you and it’s been fun to watch him evolve his online presence. I’m not devastated that he unfollowed everyone.
I do think bands/musicians like MercyMe should be aware of who is following them & clean the smut up. They wouldn’t allow that stuff on their blogs. It should be about the quality of fans not the quantity. They’re the ones talking the bands up & getting others excited about what’s going on.
Btw, if MercyMe unfollows me I’ll be devastated!
You’re always looking to take technology to the next level. I have been fascinated by all these things, that a year ago didn’t exist for me. I hate having my tweets set to private, but I don’t have the patience to go through the list & constantly groom! I am selective. For me it’s not about the numbers. I do have regrets to some degree that artists can’t see my tweets. That took some getting used to, but I’m ok with that.
So do you think I’ll get tweets in WA? Tee, hee, hee!
Since my comments this morning I’ve had to remove two porn followers from my list. This last one was the first one that I’ve ever gotten with an explicit picture. Yikes! Glad my kids weren’t looking over my shoulder when I checked my followers after seeing my number increase! I learned today that I can DM @spam and shoot these directly to twitter. I will do this from now on will all spam. Maybe twitter will get tired of me spamming them with spam?!
I also may have to un-follow some folks that I enjoy following because their followers list is ripe with this kinda crap.
I am a person who works with opt-in email marketing (the kind people sign up for…not SPAM) at the company I work for. It is good practice in email marketing to make sure that the list of emails you are sending to is sent to frequently (but not too frequently), and that your list is up-to-date and contains people that care about what you send them.
In my opinion, the same goes for Twitter, especially if you are using it for business — update often (but not to the point of being obnoxious) and make sure the people who follow you are following you because they are interested in you or your brand.
I opened a Twitter account a while back but never did find “my experience” with it. So, I finally deleted it. Now that you’re telling me about the spam issues and maintenance work involved, I am quite sure I won’t be starting up another account any time soon! FB will do for me!
It matters not if you are a housewife in the middle of nowhere Nevada, the most famous person in the world, or somewhere in the middle–your followers list should reflect the values you want to portray. You choose who your friends are in real life, and you should do the same online. Twitter is an online network that reflects the kind of people you would choose to associate with if you had the opportunity to do so.
If you are allowing spammers, money making schemes, and porn accounts, to follow you on twitter, what does that say about what kind of attention you like to get? If that is how you choose to find your following online what does that say about how you would choose your friends in real life? Or in the case of someone famous-who you would allow to be part of your crew, your company, your surrounding?
I do the same as a lot of people on here. I follow people I want to period. I also check out who follows me, if they are spam, porn etc they get blocked and reported as such. I do check out who some of the people I follow are following, I have found some awesome people to follow that way
I can understand how the label would see that, but even with 1 follow they are getting more bang for the buck then an ad, after all twitter is free! Does it matter if he has massive numbers of followers who will never go buy his record, or is it better to have the right followers who will? When marketing is free you still have to be wise how you use it.
I don’t twitter to market myself, so I have a protected account, that means no porn, no sales, no real estate companies, no spam, all because they don’t bother to ask for a follow.
Brody, you’re saying that Billy (and others) are cleaning up who they actually follow more than their followers, right? Basically disabling the auto-follow. What’s your take on cleaning out/blocking those who follow you too?
Second question: I notice that Billy tweets in “text speak”. With over 65k followers I guess that works for him, but just curious as to strategy there. Is this just his easiest mode of shooting out a quick tweet over “proper grammar”?