Days later the trend continues.
I think I'm beginning to like this. Deleting spammy followers hurts my following, but once you get the hang of it, it really is fun knocking off the quote-spammers, the check-me-out-online spammers, the SEO-spammers. Heck, I think my spammer count has gone UP because I keep mentioning spam, spam, spam, spam, wonderful spam, wonderful spam. My count above, Added since yesterday: -1. Average growth per day: -20. Oh my. I was so close to 7,100! And for what? I may sink forever in a torrent of spammy tweeters. Oh whoa is me and my flock.
From a high of 7,093 I have aggressively BLOCKED spammy followers using TwitBlock.org, my new favorite tool. [I'm not sure how I got spam listed by 9 twitblock users, but I have some suspicions. Oh well. If you're in the neighborhood and would like to "whitelist me" as not spam I'd appreciate it.]
Well, my aggressive unspam blocking has resulted in a drop in my follower count to 6,870. Seems like the Tweespammers are aggressive about unfollowing unfollowers. I say if you're gonna blast crap quote spam, MLM marketing messages and sexcam solicitations I think you should be blocked. Perhaps those folks can figure out who blocked them and block back?
No worries. Seems like the value of a tweet just got a little more easy to spot with Twitblocker. Two great things about this tool.
1. It shows all your spammy followers on one screen allowing your to unfollow a lot of people at once. And the spammers are easy to spot, believe me. Especially when they are all lined up together like a police lineup.
2. As the tool gets more users and more accounts are rated as spam, the ratings will get better and the tool will be better at pulling spammers out of your flow.
Here's a sample output as TwitBlock began scanning my followers:
You can see I have not blocked sxpanel, but I am about to block Schwartz632. It's easy to spot the spammers, but TwitBlock makes it really easy to find them all in one place.
What we need perhaps is a kick ass Tweeter list. I've been wanting to build a matrix of folks I follow in different fields. Like a verification or a seal of approval for some folks I think are awesome. Starting with my very few #FF #followfriday nominations and Mr. Tweet recommendations, I'm sure I could produce a shortlist of recommendations. That will be my next task.
In the mean time keep it clean and add your account to Twitblock.org and get blocking. The twittersphere will thank you and together we can reduce the noise.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/twitblock-inaction
NOTE: If you think I'm spammy please let me know. I'd be happy to understand how I can provide more value for you. My motto is WIIFY (what's in it for you). And an ON NO: In unfollowing so many peeps I just upset my follow/follower ratio and I can follow no more people. Gotta get out the wackin tool again. ARRRGGH!
See also The Twitter Way, the collected posts about Twitter and Doing Twitter Right
A funny post from Mashable on the Top 25 most spammy Twitter Avatar images.
Latest Twitter Posts
- Why Everyone Wants to be Your Social Media Strategist
- Bored Tweetless: When Twitter Is Not About Conversations
My favorite twittertools:
- TweetReach (measure your reach)
- TwitBlock (scammer deletion!)
- TwitterCounter (keeping count)
- Twitterholic (search + discovery)
- Mr. Tweet (discovery + recommendation)
