Feb 05 2010
I mean, it's kinda cool to think I could've done this, but 13,989 tweets in one day? Wow, that would be worse than a bot. I'd better go check my stream and see if I've been tweeting where I shouldn't have.
I'm not the only one with a funky blast o' tweets.
Ping me if you have examples of what's going on with this?
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/tweetin-madly
Dec 08 2009
UPDATE: 12-8-09: Updating the stats from a four day unfollowing spree!
My followers count has dropped from 7082 to 6708, or a LOSS of 374 followers. ;-0
My following stream has dropped from 7498 to 5894, or a DROP of 1604! ;-)
Thats a 4-to-1 ratio. Drop 4 and 1 of them will unfollow you.
And I tell you, it is as much fun figuring out who to UNFOLLOW these days as it was figuring out who TO follow. Give it a whirl, not with my tweets please.
+++
I have been culling who I'm following lately. And once I got going I was fairly ruthless. Several criteria came up for me as I began the process of separating the noise from the signal.
What I DO NOT LIKE:
1. Quote posts. If you don't have anything original to say, don't tweet.
2. Going to the bathroom posts. Lunch, bathroom, diet coke, i'm not really interested.
3. What I'm eating posts. Foodies unite, I'm just not that into it.
4. I'm so sexy posts. If your avatar is too suggestive… what are you selling? I'm probably not buying.
5. Your tweets are all about SELLING, deals, offers, bargans, specials, coupons, nope, not interested.
6. You don't have a real name on your bio.
7. You don't have a real link on your bio.
8. Your twitter ID contains SEO, SEM, MLM, Realtor, Super, Guru, Money, Success, Coach. Um… to me you need to show in your content and thoughts not in your cute twitter ID.
9. All you do is RT. It's fine to RT smart stuff, but you should be generating some smart stuff yourself.
10. Your tweets are repetitive and uninspiring. As Seth Godin says in Tribes, no one forwards a boring email, same for Tweets.
11. Your posts are more like newsfeeds than original content. I don't need any more RSS inputs, thanks.
And then I've just unfollowed some folks just because…
What I DO LIKE:
1. Original thinking.
2. Insightful observations on social media, pr, marketing, innovation, green, entrepreneurship.
3. Something funny. You have a knack for making me smile for no reason at all. (I have a thing for tweeting cats.)
4. I know you. (I will admit to unfollowing friends who fall under the fault category too many times.
Here is my TwitterCounter stat for people I'm following:
So the triage has been harsh on my followers as well. A tit for tat kinda repercussion, I imagine. Here is my TwitterCounter stat for people who follow me:
And then you get people like this fella who took offense at me saying I was unfollowing folks that quoted or mentioned Tiger Woods.
And his snipes went down from there. I don't now where he came from or what prompted his vitriol, but he seems to have begun targeting others with his wiseacre comments. You can find him yourself if you want to see how repetitive his pestering became.
Ah but the balance is returning. Less empty tweets, fewer empty followers. And Mr. Badera, I'm not labeling them, I'm just sayin, my tastes are different.
Learning all the time. And what I am learning from this Twitter drop is I need something to energize my enthusiasm about Twitter. It's kinda spammy and boring. Lists are cool. Groups are cool. Tweetdeck is indispensable. But getting "value" out of Twitter these days is dependent on my own participation and aggressive weeding.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/reducing-noise
Two super cats that tweet: Sockington and Sparklecat.
A few more Twitter-related posts:
Aug 24 2009
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
My favorite twittertools:
