Twitter ‘followers’: More is not always better

Lisa Cunningham hoped bigger numbers might mean bigger business.

"I’m new to social media and only have 400 or so followers," says the 47-year-old writer/editor from Tampa, Fla. "I thought it would be great to get 1,000 or whatever, just to market my writing business."

Apparently, even in the world of microblogging, size matters, at least when it comes to the size of those Twitter "followers" lists. But while many people spend days, weeks or months increasing their followers tweet by charming tweet, others have opted for what appears to be a quick and easy shortcut.

You’ve heard of oversized codpieces and padded bras? Welcome to the era of the inflated online posse.

Over the last few months, a handful of free or low-fee bulk followers services — many with the words "follow" or “"tweet" in their name — have popped up online, each touting the ability to increase a client’s followers count by hundreds of people a day.

New users can appear instantly popular and businesses can, as one service puts it, "transform (their) Twitter account into an unstoppable viral traffic machine."

Who would want to fluff up their account with a bunch of "fake" followers?

Shel Israel, author of the forthcoming book "Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods," says individual users — particularly people new to Twitter — may decide to pad their online posse in order to look more popular.

But most of the customers who opt for these services are people who "are used to traditional mass marketing techniques such as TV advertisements or direct mail.

"It works almost exactly like a bulk-mail list service where you buy a list of addresses,
he says. "These people see Twitter and realize it’s something new and they think, 'I have customers there, I need to get in.' But if they just open an account, they’ll start with no followers and they want to shortcut it."

Unfortunately, as often happens with shortcuts, there can be some unexpected twists and turns.

One door opens, another one slams shut
"I just followed a link and put in my Twitter name and password and it had different people’s pictures and said, 'Follow this person or follow that person' and I clicked on them," says Cunningham, describing the "free follow" service she joined several weeks ago. "It was easy, just like four steps."

Shortly afterwards, though, she realized the free service was starting to "cost" her.

"They started sending out these tweets that said 'Get 400 followers a day' under my name," she says. "A woman who was following me finally contacted me and said 'I like your tweets but these messages are getting annoying.' People started unfollowing me because of the automated tweets."

Cunningham admits she didn’t go over the terms of the agreement "with a fine-toothed comb" which explains why she missed the section that clearly delineates, "We may use your account to promote our services."

But even after changing her Twitter password to sidestep the handful of "auto-tweets" that went out under her name each day singing the service’s praises, she says she's still disappointed the service co-opted her account and refused to answer repeated e-mails asking to be dropped.

“If they had told me this would be going out 14 times a day, I wouldn’t have signed up,” she says. “It’s nice that I have some new followers but it’s making people hate me or something. They don’t understand why I’m promoting these people.”

Justin Germino, 31, a Web site security specialist from Casa Grande, Ariz., says he, too, signed up for one of the services, primarily as a way to gain information for his technology-based blog, Dragonblogger.com.

Like Cunningham, the bulk followers' service began sending out promotional tweets in his name and he began receiving direct messages from his "real" followers, asking what was up.

"I was losing more followers than I was gaining and I noticed that people who were following me on these chains were low quality, like adult Web sites," he says. "If you just want numbers you might not care, but if you want quality followers, people who will retweet or read your articles, you’re not going to find valuable followers on these chain sites."

According to experts, quality followers may not be the point when it comes to certain aficionados of the padded posse, such as Internet marketers.

"Their end goal is not the fake followers themselves," says Mina Sirkin, an estate planning lawyer from Woodland Hills, Calif., who has a blog about marketing and the law.

"Their end goal is to attract real people by showing they have a lot of followers," she said. "After they attract the real people, they try to present them with offers and products, such as how to make a seven-figure income or pull your business out of the recession."

Author Israel, who also blogs about social media, says spammers also purchase followers' lists, hoping people will "auto-follow" back and unintentionally open themselves up to direct messages designed to glean personal information.

"They’ll send messages that say 'I can’t believe they sent me a free computer just by sending a little information!' " says Israel. "And that information will be your user name and password or your mother’s maiden name. Because it’s a direct message, it seems like you’re getting this from someone you know and trust. It increases your susceptibility to being swindled."

There are ways to avoid these kinds of Twitter troubles, though, including Israel's cardinal rule: "Don’t automatically follow everyone who follows you," he says. "That’s probably the most important single message."

Israel also advises Twitter users to avoid following anyone whose tweets smack of pornography, anyone with a user name composed of random letters and numbers (those are likely computer-generated names) or anyone who has several tweets that are all the same, especially if it’s a marketing-type message. Also highly suspect: accounts that have "62,000 followers and no posts," he said.

Quality, not quantity
Figuring out who to follow — and who you can trust — can be confusing, though, especially when many of the bulk followers services have names that sound as if they’re associated with Twitter.

"I thought there was some kind of affiliation because they had Twitter in their name," says Michelle Griffith, 48, a media relations executive from Tampa, Fla., who signed up for a "get more followers" service as a way to promote her fiance’s new children’s book. "There was Twitter in the name and they copied the logo and the Twitter branding. It was misleading."

Representatives of Twitter did not respond to questions about bulk follower sites, but Twitter’s “Spam Watch” page has had repeated warnings about the sites.

On May 27, Twitter posted "Don’t believe the hype & sign up for 'get followers fast!' programs. They can be scams that steal your username and password!"

On June 6, Twitter said that "Giving out your username and password to a 3rd party site promising you more followers: not a good idea! Please be safe!" And on June 16, there was this tip: "If you give out your username and pw (password) to a site claiming to get you more followers, updates often get sent out on your account."

Bloggers, such as Germino, have also posted warnings about "pyramid sites" or "trains," as they’ve come to be known although there are those who readily defend the sites.

"Some people have contacted me and said it’s gotten them 3,000 or 4,000 followers," he says. "If all you care about is the number, these sites will work for you."

For people like Cunningham, though, big numbers just aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be.

"Now that I’ve read some things about it, I think it’s better to get quality people following you rather than quantity," she says. "But if you have any questions, you can just Twitter about it. That’s the best advice."

Diane Mapes is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "How to Date in a Post-Dating World." She can be reached via her Web site, dianemapes.net.