Social Media – How To Not Spam Your Followers
I have to confess, I was the worst of the worst of the worst when it came to spamming followers on my social media accounts.
I remember when Twitter first launched a few years back. I set up three revolving Hypertext Pre-Processing scripts on my Bluehost server that woulddo three things:
- Automatically Follow People Based On Keywords – Basically it would search the Twitter database, find people or accounts with certain keywords associated with them and automatically follow them.
- Spam People Who Followed Me Back Relentlessly – Yeah, I had a second script that would drop an ad into the stream about ever thirty seconds with an affiliate link. I did get tons of clicks this way.
- Automatically Unfollow Dead Heads Who Never Followed Back – I wanted to keep my account free of dead weight. You don’t read my tweets, I don’t read yours.
In retro-spect, this was the absolute worst possible way to handle these accounts. Sure having it all automated was cool and I was able to build massive accounts this way, but they never made any money for me.
Ultimately, handling social media accounts this way turns out to be a wash, meaning, even if you do make money this way initially, eventually, your followers (if they even pay attention to you) will become blind to your account, if they even look at it.
So how can one avoid spamming a social media account? Well, here is my opinion on the subject…
How Not To Spam Your Accounts
The are a few things you really need to stop doing with your social media accounts…and, yes, I am totally still guilty of some of these, but I am trying to do better.
- Turn Off Automation – Most people will think that they are shooting themselves in the foot with this one, but I don’t think that this is the case. Using sites that automatically manage your social accounts, while "romantic" in concept, really just end up turning your account into a mindless churn. Honestly, I can tell when a tweet or post is real or it is not. My desire to click on an automated post is almost completely zero. But, I like to respond to real posts…even if its only to see if they are paying attention.
- Stop Shamelessly Promoting Yourself – Does every tweet lead to your site or an affiliated site? Are you always ONLY about business or do you post something funny and/or entertaining once in a while? Do you drop a link in every single post? If so, that’s not a good sign.
- Stop Following EVERYBODY – Following everybody sets you up for failure. If you build followers by following others, then there is a problem with your concept of how social media should be used.
If you do any of the above, however, its not to late to turn things around. There is hope. Social media can be a great relationship-building tool if used correctly.
So what can you do to make the most of it?
How To Use Social Media
Social media can be productive and profitable, if you treat it like the interactive relationship-building tool that it is which can be done using the following pointers:
- Seek Out People Who Actually Write Real Posts – It isn’t hard to identify people who just spam their accounts. If you see something like this…just stop following them or unfriend them or whatever. This will help keep your account from turning into a whirl-wind of useless messages.
- Write Real Posts – What is the point of following real people with real things to say unless you do the same. I mean, after all, we’re trying to build a community here right? Spammers are not allowed here.
- Save Your Ads For Advertising – In other words, advertise through advertising outlets, not through social media accounts. Relentlessly sending ads through social media accounts will ultimately turn into a massive waste of time that can literally span YEARS!
If, by some strange twist in the fabric of the universe, you actually do use advertising outlets to advertise, as you should be doing, optimizing that is whole different game with its own challenges and successes.
One really cool product I found that can help you to optimize your campaigns is "Double Your Likes". Its a Facebook ads optimizing course that I think you would be interested in. Check out the video.
Mark is the Administrator of TheBitBot.Com News Articles For Ezines and Chief Editor of the TBB SEO Newsletter. Writes. Scripts. Hacks. Cracks. Re-Writes. Mods. Practices SEO of ALL shades. Has Some “VERY SMART” Friends 
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