FUSIONb2b Blog

by Pavel Solyak

A spam-less Twitter feed is just too good to be true. Increasingly, spam in becoming a problem for Twitter users as spammers are finding new and innovative ways to clutter up the emerging communications channel. Ten years ago search engine optimizers have developed link farms to take advantage of search engine’s dependence upon link popularity. Mostly automated, link farms are landing pages containing groups of hyperlinks to other sites and no content. It took Yahoo! and Google several years to catch on and change algorithms to stop spamdexing users with irrelevant results, but was it enough?

Perhaps link farms have lost some of their appeal to spammers. Getting little love from search engines, not generating much traffic (or revenue) and paying for the domain, spammers had to find new grounds. And this is how Twitter Spam Farms were born.

We’ve compiled a short list of several ways spammers might try to get you, and things you should watch out for. Also we’ll give you valuable tips of how to protect your account against unwanted twitter-solicitors.

Spammers will use Twitter by replying to your @username, which then causes Tweets to show up in your timeline or mentions.

Get unsolicited DM’s (Direct Messages) that often include a promotional link or are typed in all caps.

Spammers will follow you in hopes of you following them back. They might have deceiving names like ‘GoogleGuru1’ or simply ‘JohnDoe’. Check their profile, and if there is no bio, only a couple of tweets, followers in double digits while following thousands of users – don’t bother adding them.

Many complain that twitter is full of ‘bots’. Sure, many bloggers and news outlets use syndicating technology to update tweets every time something gets updated on their site, blog, or Facebook. What’s worse, are spammers who use ‘bots’ or rather scripts for their deceptive techniques. An example of such script might be an algorithm that follow, then un-follow people with the goal of keeping a follower to boost follow/follower ratio. Another one might be to re-tweet random tweets from public timeline, in hopes you will add them as a follower.

Re-posts. Many spammers will post duplicate content several times a day on their accounts so the same message appears regularly in the timeline. Not only this is considered spammy, but it violates Twitter terms of service. Cross-posting the same content on multiple accounts is also considered a violation of Twitter code of conduct.

Have you encountered a spammer? Here are several tips how to clean up your account:

Alert Twitter of spam by sending a DM to @spam with @username of the spammer you’ve encountered.

Don’t follow spammers. Take the time to check their account bio before you follow them back. Look at their last 10 most recent tweets; if you see anything about making money online fast, get rich quickly, lose 20 pounds in 5 days or getting hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers by following a link – report to spam.

Block the spammer by heading over to their account page and clicking ‘block’ link on the right side.

Use Twitter Spam Applications like TwerpScan or TwitSweeper to clean up potential spammers.

Don’t use automated programs. Inevitably you’ll see promotions like “Get 1,000 followers in one day, just click here”. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Those programs will follow a number of questionable people in hopes they will follow you back. Don’t forget Twitter is a communication tool used to build relationship – it’s about quality, not quantity.

We also recommend taking a look at the Twitter Support page for security FAQ’s. Feel free to comment on this post or find us on Twitter at @FusionB2B if you have any questions.

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B2B, Link Farms, Marketing, SMM, Social Media, Spam, Twitter