Let’s face it. If there’s a way to exploit a new service for monetary gain, folks will figure it out. Some of us, however, still find that building relationships and meeting new people is more valuable for our personal and professional lives. Because of this, I like Twitter. I love to follow smart people. I find meeting them in person is twice as nice. And I review (or vet) each new follower before I follow back. I don’t auto-follow, follow everyone and will often unfollow those who break a few of my Twitter guidelines. The following is a visual illustration of my Twitter rules . I have edited out the names to protect the not so innocent.
Type #1 – Endless Sales Pitches
If your Twitter stream looks like the image below, well I’m not interested. Any type of multi-level marketing scheme that claims I can make this much money sounds like a scam to me. The URLs in each Tweet is suspicious as well. Where’s the conversation? How are you getting to know me and what my interests are? Unfortunately, I have manyof these to pick from but there’s not enough room on the page for this.
Type #2 – Thanks for Following, Buy My Product
If your auto direct message (auto-dm) looks like the image below, you will get unfollowed. If you send me a sales message the first time you speak with me, how do you know what I want? I am not looking for a “get rich quick” scheme nor am I interested in starting another business. I’m plenty busy and love what I do.
Type #3 – Numbers are Everything
What’s wrong with this picture?
I’m not sure if the account holder is at fault or those who auto-follow! How can someone who has never twerped a tweet have almost 2000 followers?
Type #4 – The Valley Girl
For those who know me, I’m sure they can figure out pretty quickly why this person wasn’t top of my list to follow back. Like, IDK like I’m like sooooooo thrilled 
. Oh please. Save me.
Type #5 – Gimme More Followers
Like with all social media tools, the number of followers, connections or friends you have tends to indicate your social media “power”. However, it is very easy to get followers on Twitter, so the numbers aren’t necessarily the best measure of the value of a Twitter user. I get amused by what I sometimes see in an email I get from SocialToo that gives me a list of my daily followers and those who unfollow (they do more but this email is a nifty feature). When the same person follows and unfollows me within the 24 hours that the email comes out, it gives me a very blatant clue to what this person is after – connections not relationships. Go figure.
Type #6 – Extreme Adult Content
Ok this one also goes without explanation. I do like their creativity around their bio to try and capture some of us who may not look at their actual tweets. Newer tools like Tweepular and Tweepler enable me to see not only your bio but also your last tweet or two. I wonder what SEO means to this person? In any case, I don’t think this person got their target market quite right.
The moral (pun intended) of this story is if you want to get to know me and establish a mutual relationship, this is not the way to go about it. I am pretty open to connecting with people who care about the relationship and how we can both benefit each other in some, maybe tiny way. I may not Tweet a lot each day, but I read, absorb and understand what makes those I follow tick. So by all means, please do follow me on Twitter. Just know that I want to get to know you.
Update: yes I know there are 6 – I added a bonus but forgot to change the title.
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