Sometime we’ll just be rolling along enjoying the Twitter stream, finding great links, enjoying conversations with people near and far and then bam…it happens! Out of no where a seemingly innocuous tweet rolls into view: “Does your company lack an effective training program? ‘deleted shorturl’ @person1 @unsuspecting person2 @yourprofile and before you can catch your breath along comes another, “Affiliate swears under oath: NOT ILLEGAL! ‘deleted shorturl’ @happytwitteruser @spam recipient @you” You’ve been spammed! Not just any old spam, @reply spam. Sure enough you don’t like it, but just as surely you are partly to blame. Why? Well, because you probably followed the spammer who you now find offending. Now that you are in a spam pickle, we have a few strategies to help get you out.
We admit it, we have made some of you have mistakes you have made. Whether we made the decision personally or automatically [by setting a Twitter account to auto-follow] we now have spammers in our midst. In some cases..a whole lot of them! While it might not seem fair to say we invited the spam, the bottom line is that indeed we did. Getting out of this pickle is going to require swift action and ongoing vigilance, so we talked to some of our friends and did some research to provide you with a few strategies to help you control the spam in your own twitter stream.
Strategy 1. Report Spammers
It is easy and only takes a moment to report spammers on Twitter. First follow @spam Twitters spam account. Then, when you suspect a spammer send a dm to @spam with the tweet and user who sent it. They will look into it.
Strategy 2. Stay up-to-date on Spam Tactics
Now that you are following @spam make sure you pay attention to their tweets, they will alert you to spam issues. For instance, here is a recent tweet from @spam
If you gave your login and password info to TwitViewer, we strongly suggest you change your password now. Thanks!
Yes, my friends there are good and helpful twitter apps and unfortunately also some that will use your Twitter credentials for evil purposes. Beware.
Strategy 3.Take Control of Your Followers
Many of us set our account to auto-follow those who follow us. It might seem polite are a good strategy to grow a following list – but the fact is it really just ensures you see more spam than worthwhile Tweets. Turn it off and get in the routine of actively targeting good Tweeple to follow. If you are providing quality they will follow you back.
When you are out there following people, consider the guidance provided by our friend @HeatherO who shared some good suggestions in her comments our previous Stop Twitter Spam post. She suggests:
My process certainly isn’t foolproof, but seems to work OK. I go to my followers list a couple of times per week and look at:
A) Photo? No, no follow
B) Where do they tweet from? API, either no follow, or look at stream (tweets) to decide. Almost always spammers.
C) Last 2 of name = 2 digit number, look at tweets (70% are porn bots!)
D) Read last tweet. If it appears spammy, I either look at stream or just don’t follow
Lastly, when in doubt, I follow & will promptly unfollow if I get a “thanks for following now go to my website” DM, or at any sign of “spamminess”. That’s the beauty of twitter. I can always Unfollow.
We thank Heather for her sound advice. We would also suggest looking at the person’s follower/followee and tweet counts. If they are following far more people than are following them and if they have an inordinate number of tweets we would be inclined not to follow them, but reviewing a few past Tweets will help secure our decision.
This approach really works best if you keep up with it, making your follow decisions on a case by case basis right from the beginning. But if you have thousands followers and are getting spammed left and right you really are in a pickle and may need to perform a mass follower-ectomy! Well, if that’s the case, here are two Twitter sites that can help you out:
Chirpio provide a couple of important functions in the battle against Twitter Spam. It allows you to rate fellow Twitter users – so you can promote the good ones and put the others on notice. Also once logged in you can easily trim your followers list by monitoring your Twitter stream live from within the application. Pushing the unfollow button feels especially good right when the spam arrives. When you are not logged in you can still rate followers using the following format as described on the site:
Rate Users by Tweeting!
If you like @techstartups,
If you hate @techstartups,
If @techstartups is spammy,
“@chirpio @techstartups spam”
You can also use “good” and “bad” in place of the “+” and “-”, rate multiple users, and add extra words to make the tweet more readable!
You might also consider using the helpful interface at My Tweeple to manage your followers list. You can follow, unfollow and block Tweeple according to your own the criteria you set. When you first log into My Tweeple you’ll have to sync your follower list with the app. It can take a little while so the app politely suggests a you enjoy a cup of coffee while you wait. Once your account is synced you can sort by followers and followees, review and follow/unfollow/ding/or block. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a FAQ document on the page so we can’t for sure say what a ding does. But, we are glad for the ease of the other features.
Fighting spam is an ongoing battle on Twitter. Using these tools and some good old common sense you can significantly reduce the spam you receive. You can also view some other spam fighting tips in our Stop Twitter Spam post. As always, we’d really like hear if you’ve found other ways to get out of a spam pickle. Be well, and Happy Tweeting!
