Is Twitter Spam getting out of control or is it me?
First things first – I’m a huge fan of Twitter!!!
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Second things second – I believe Twitter is the most powerful social networking tool ever – in fact, nothing else is even close, including Facebook and MySpace. I’ll write a post in the future about why I feel this, but for now I want to address the issue of Twitter Spam.
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Thousands of these types of messages flood Twitter every day.
Does this mean Twitter has hit critical mass or that there are loop holes or no rules that would disallow Twitter Spam.
OR
Does this mean that these types of messages generate clicks and convert into what ever the sender wanted them to convert to?
My guess is that people are making serious money on Twitter…by gaming the system to generate huge amounts of followers and delivering them spammy messages.
The purpose of this message isn’t to be a critic.
I know what it’s like in the beginning for many entrepreneurs…anything to make a buck.
However, if you are one of the spammers I’d encourage you to develop a strategy that can help you build long-term customer value.
Think about it. If you build trust with your followers they will be much more likely to buy what you recommend. If you use your Twitter account to share your insights and let people get to know you you’ll be in a much better position to leverage Twitter.
Just some thoughts.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
No doubt Twitter spam is getting wild.
I don’t think of SPAM as a web-only phenomena – in my experience, spammers are everywhere, and they simply follow the masses. As more people sign up for Twitter spam will get worse. Twitter will have no choice but to take a more active role in filtering it.
I suspect as well that there are people making good money on Twitter already – it’s a numbers game and always will be with pushy/spammy tactics. Yeah it annoys the hell out of most of us, but as long as 1% convert that’s enough to keep it coming.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Mike,
Thanks for your comment!
I’m not typically someone who spends too much time complaining (I’d prefer to be a solutions guy), but the proliferation of spam on Twitter seems to be pretty out of whack.
Kris
May 6th, 2009 at 8:51 am
I agree, and most of it is pretty passive on the part of spammers. With a tool like TwitterHawk (which just got a bit pricey at $.05 per click) spammers can auto-respond to tweets from multiple accounts. It’s a pretty simple tool and requires almost no effort to set up / use. The rough part is that most Twitter clients like TweetDeck display those @ Tweets no matter what you do – you can’t block a mention.
It’ll be interesting to see how Twitter deals with it this year…
May 7th, 2009 at 1:00 am
I understand what spam is in my inbox while using my email account(s), definitely unsolicited. However, as it relates to twitter I think we have the ability via follow and unfollow and block to avoid unwanted tweets. I do admit wanting the functionality to approve or disapprove someones ability to follow me….but I’m only at 700 followers and I absolutely hate when I receive a direct message with a link to connect to my site…that’s a huge way to get me to unfollow you now that is spam to me.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Kim,
Great point.
I guess another post may address the philosophy behind whether or not to follow back someone who follows you.
It’s a good debate.
Facebook leads to the same dilema. If you friend lots of people (even if they are in your industry) you will still end up with spammy solicitations from some of them.
Your approach of automatically delisting the person makes sense – I’ve done that with Twitter when I see someone make multiple posts at once knowing it’s a bot and not a human.
Thanks for you comment.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Kris,
Another great post. It made me think of something that’s been in the back of my mind for some time – “twitter math” – and inspired me to write a post on my own blog.
I think there’s a difference between a personal and company twitter account. For the latter, it’s appropriate for the latter to be more of a “broadcast” mechanism for announcements, products, etc. People can opt-out any time if you overdo it – similar to the company newsletter.
However, this is where the “math” comes in, and is particularly important for a “personal” account where the conversation should be more intimate.
You can read the whole thing here if you like: http://tinyurl.com/q3k3dv
Cheers,
Ken