Posts Tagged ‘Spammers’

Your Twitter reach is defined, in large measure, by the number of followers you have. That means you want people to seek you out and to follow you whenever they have interests that overlap with your own.

Unfortunately, many people are unwittingly decreasing their follower counts. Here are two ways people are limiting their Twitter effectiveness.

No photo. If you don’t upload a photo, Twitter gives you that default avatar. You know who else ends up with that default avatar? Lousy spammers. Most robot accounts and spamming accounts feature that image because the folks behind them were too lazy to upload a picture. If you don’t have a picture, people will assume the worst about you.

Bad username. If your username is bad, you won’t get as many followers. There are two main instances of bad usernames that I see regularly. First, there are those with the long number sequence in the name. These are also the kind of handles that spammers end up with, so when I see one, I sort of assume that the owner is a spammer. If your handle is Bob199938, be prepared to be unpopular.

The other “bad name” is the one that makes it perfectly clear to the reader that you’re not very serious. This includes the profane usernames an silly ones like “ILuvMyKittyCats”. Get a good username.

Once you have a decent name, add a picture. These two “little things” can make a huge difference.

Here’s something you should know about the average Twitter user if you’re in the Internet marketing business: The run-of-the-mill member of the Twitter community doesn’t like you very much.

Sorry, but it’s true. And who can blame those folks for feeling that way? They’ve seen their completely legit, commerce-free social networking venue attacked by some of the lousiest spammers in history.

You have the guys with the direct messages featuring affiliate links. You have the robot accounts that work around the clock pounding anyone who was silly enough to follow with link after link after link. You have goons who self-promote to the point of nausea, balancing self-congratulatory Tweets with their sales page links. Ick.

So, unless you’re marketing to other marketers via Twitter, you are going to have to come up with a much better and far more trustworthy approach than the spammers and clowns who’ve already started to poison the pond.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s very possible to do just that. If you’re using Twitter the “right” way, you can overcome a built-in bias against marketers.

Do you ever follow those people on Twitter who don’t have photos? I’ll be honest: Unless I know the individual associated with the profile personally, I don’t.

That’s not because I hate that little default graphic Twitter supplies (although I do). It’s mainly because experience has shown me that 99% of the accounts that don’t have a picture belong to spammers and robot accounts–not the kind of “people” I need in my social network.

So, if you don’t have a picture for your Twitter profile, I’m not following you. And I’m not alone.

You look suspicious. You don’t appear to be invested in participating. You bear a strange resemblance to a spambot. That’s not your best look.

If you don’t have a picture up yet, get one there now. If, for some reason, you don’t have a little picture of yourself, find a stock photo of a cottonwood tree on a summer day or a cute puppy or something. Just put something in that space.

Let us know that you’re a real person. Please.