Now that Twitter is a part of everyone’s marketing plan, I receive more and more “so-and-so is now following you” notifications each day. These teasers wish and hope I’ll be enticed enough to visit the fake profile of what looks like the mail-order Russian bride I was so enchanted by when I was younger. The profile hosts what I call a “hook line and linker” — a one line teaser and a link to whatever wares they are pawning today.
This type of marketing is expected with any technology that catches on with the general population. I’m not surprised or even overly bothered by it. Most technologies provide tools to deal with it though, once it becomes problematic. I believe it has reached that point. Twitter provides the ability to block a user but this feature doesn’t go far enough. The problem for me is that these junky profiles remain in my Followers list permanently and frankly I never want to see them again. What Twitter can use is a Spam designation that removes individuals from my profile and also blocks them.
Most Twitter users have thousands of people following them or are following thousands of people. They probably don’t see this as a problem, they probably don’t spend their time sifting through thousands of listings–I wouldn’t. I’m probably using the Twitter service incorrectly but I tend to only follow (and like to be followed) by legitimate people. Keeping my followers and followees clean is important to me. With the upgrades Facebook is doing to compete with Twitter, maybe Facebook will be all I really need.
Do others have this problem? How are others dealing with Twitter spam?
[UPDATE: They totally got this idea from me!]