Twitter Validation Services are for True Twits

The best way to describe Twitter is like a “water cooler”. It’s an ongoing stream of conversations (sometimes one-sided) that are updated real-time and are limited to “short bursts” in under 140 characters.

There is a lot more to what Twitter is, and you can read more about it here.

When using Social Media for business, I always tell my clients: STRATEGY FIRST.

To save time and spend less time spinning your wheels, you want to stay focused on your business objectives:

• who is your target audience?
• who is your “tribe” or community?
• how do you help solve their problems?
• are they actively using this social media channel (in this case, Twitter)?

You have to remember that Social Media is about TWO-way conversations focused on relationship-building – not always pushing your agenda out to the masses.

This is why validation services make me cringe so very sad.

Ones that send messages like these:

Any active Twitter person will tell you that the first thing they do when they get these messages is click on “unfollow”

These auto-responses are annoying and they scream “I’m not really actively participating on Twitter. I have a robot do this for me”

On the TrueTwit home page their value proposition states:

“Twitter spam is a drag. What if you could know for sure that your followers are truly human, and not some bot? TrueTwit is designed to help you:

• Verify people from robots
• Avoid Twitter spam
• Save time managing your followers”

Ok, so let me get this straight… I’m supposed to use an automated service to weed out automated services?

Let’s look at that first line again…. “could you know for sure that your followers are truly human, and not some bot”?

That would be simple: Take a brief look at their Twitter feed. If they are engaging properly with two-way conversation, then chances are…they are not a bot. It’s not rocket science.

I “get” that sometimes Twitter may seem like a numbers game. It may feel good to have over 5,000 followers and I was happy to surpass that mark recently. But quite frankly, 5,000 doesn’t mean ANYTHING if no one is listening or buying.

I follow about 3,800 people on Twitter. I have taken a fairly close look at most of those profiles to ensure they are sharing great information and are not spam or fake profiles. Could I have missed a couple of fake profiles, or spam? Sure and if they rear their ugly heads, it takes two seconds to click “block” or click the “unfollow” button.

               

QUALITY connections – those that engage WITH you. The ones you build relationships with. The ones who ask questions, answer questions, share great  information….THESE are the people you want to connect with.

Are all the 3,800 people I follow quality? Probably not.

Some create profiles and then don’t tweet.

Some are just pushing their agenda and not joining conversations and providing value.

Sometimes, I will unfollow inactive people or those who are clogging up my feed but I DO know that I don’t need a website to vet my followers or who I’m following for me.

It’s not rocket science to actually vet each person who follows you to see if you should be following back.

If you can’t carve out a few minutes to do this, you shouldn’t be on Twitter at all.

Just say “NO” to validation services, bots and #Team Followback.

 Now it’s YOUR turn….what do YOU think about Validation Services? Have you used them? Do you unfollow people who use them? Share your thoughts below.