Identifying Fake Followers on Twitter

[InsightsDigital]

On Twitter, there are Follows and Followers. Thus, it does not surprise me that there could be many bogus or padded accounts who follow me on twitter. Having a business related Twitter account, I check on who is following me. If the Follower seems legit, I follow them. If not, I dont follow them. What is your policy regarding Twitter Followers? At SES NY conference, Guy Kawasaki said he follows everyone though many internet marketers do not follow his advice.
http://searchengineland.com/26-people-who-mislead-you-on-twitter-21561

[InsightsDigital]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623159206366203.html

Wall street Journal on this topic.

[MktgRob]

For both my personal and business related accounts I check whenever someone follows me and, like you, if they are legit they remain. If not they are blocked. The two types I see a lot of and block automatically are ones that offer investment advice and ones that are from young women looking for new 'friends'. I just started a twitter feed for one of my clients and they are still building a following but I have already told them that they need to develop a policy in regards to this.

[InsightsDigital]

I consider fake followers like weeds and there are many of them on Twitter.

[MktgRob]

One of the other issues I have come across is followers who are actually competitors who are trying to glean some info that they might use for their benefit. Is there a way to create a private twitter feed that the owner can give permission to who he wants to follow his tweets?

[Salem]

Real or Fake?
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread204090.html

[kronikmedia]

There is not much you can do with fake followers on Twitter. Recently Twitter has grown in popularity so much that users have started flocking to it and registering accounts even though they hardly use it. A lot of marketing and search engine consultants are also using Twitter to build links, etc.

[MktgRob]

Real or Fake?
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread204090.html

As I was the person who started that thread I am curious to know what you mean by asking 'Real of Fake'? Are you talking about me or about the topic I brought up?

[MktgRob]

There is not much you can do with fake followers on Twitter. Recently Twitter has grown in popularity so much that users have started flocking to it and registering accounts even though they hardly use it. A lot of marketing and search engine consultants are also using Twitter to build links, etc.

It comes down to due diligence. As you get new followers you have to check them out. Some, like the people who are posting sex offers and investement advice are obvious and can/should be blocked immeadiately. The others you need to read as many of their tweets as possible to try to glean what they are all about.

[InsightsDigital]

Another type of Twitter Fake Followers are ones that capitalize on a Twelebrity's status and picture. The fake twelebrity uses a slight misspelling of the name and then post a link to a spammy site. This was the case some time ago with Jeremiah from Forrester. I was surprised he followed me and I clicked to the link and it was to a site that advertised "Free Google tricks" but it required credit card information for the shipment. I did not trust the fact that this transaction was not in a secured site - thus, no https. So I aborted the process. Then, for the next two days, I must have received at least a dozen or so calls from a weird number stating that it needed my credit card info. I did not trust this and after telling each caller a few times to stop calling me, it finally stopped. I wonder how many other people felled into this. You just have to exercise caution.

[Maximlis]

I don't understand whats problem if a person with fake identity follow me. I think its only to increase the popularity.

[audrey110]

Most of the fake followers sends you the messages of their products.That is a way to identify a fake follower.