Spot the spammer

Was it something I said?

Although I was initially alarmed to find I had lost more than a hundred of my loyal and dedicated (?) following on Twitter last Friday, I was reassured to hear that this was just Twitter clearing out some of the spammier accounts.

They should be applauded for doing this, although I wonder how they identify spam accounts. I'm sure they have some very sophisticated algorithms for identifying unacceptable behaviour but, without these facts to hand, I thought I would offer my 5 suggestions to help you spot the spammers in your Twitter stream:

1.    Any tweet that starts with "Get". As pointed out to me last week by @BilleBaty, this is a surefire sign of someone trying to sell something. Usually followed by "millions of followers" or "a six-figure income".

2.    Any repeated tweets that feature inspirational quotes from famous people. With apologies (and therefore a plug) to services like @Quote_OfTheDay, this is again classic automatic Tweet behaviour and likely to signal a spam account. As Thomas Edison probably once said "Never trust a man who has to rely on the wisdom of others".

3.    FollowFriday-style tweets when it's not Friday. I don't want to stop people recommending others. That's one of the great things about these communities. But Micah Baldwin's excellent idea has now been hijacked by bots (not basebots, of course) and there are hundreds of accounts out there that keep up a regular tweetcount and pretend to be real by (randomly) recommending others with comments like "great people to follow". I wonder if the bots are just recommending bots each other?

4.    ANYTHING IN CAPS. Hush now.

5.    RT fever. Check out their profile and see if they actually create anything of their own. Using RTs is a great way to spread useful information. But if that's all they do, you may as well cut out the middle man.

Those nice people at Mashable have been slightly more scientific and have classified Twitter spam into three categories: twitomercials, straight cons and clueless cons. Meanwhile there is plenty of advice for those who are angry enough about it to take action, for example from Blue Falcon.

But while we can hypothesise about which are the spammers on Twitter, I wonder what other popular online services are doing to combat abuse? In particular, I am thinking about LinkedIn.

There was a time when the groups I used were a useful forum for discussion. You could join in, offer an opinion and gain knowledge whilst not being fearful of overt salesmanship.

I was at a meeting with several B2B marketers last week and one of the criticisms aimed at social media was that no channel can become popular without becoming a focus for thinly veiled product pitching. As soon as the buyers find it, the sales guys will follow shortly.

For me, there is an important principle to observe here. We are all salesman in that our organizations all have to make money (or justify governmental budgets) by finding people who want our products and services. But social media, by its very nature, allows buyers (or people in 'buying' mode) to go where they want to avoid pushy sales and spam. The art lies in true content marketing, ie offering real information: interesting content, fresh thinking, well-crafted arguments and original research.

Even if your main aim is to get out there onto social media and drum up some business, the first law of sales should be Not To Sell. Give information and establish yourself as an expert and the buyer will come to you.

Hmmm. "Get a six-figure income with content marketing". Sounds good. I might tweet that one.