Last week I complained that Twitter has turned into a cesspool of people Twittering about sales crap.
Way too many people are posting (in a dishonest and sneaky way) about something that takes you to a site that asks that you sign up or buy something.
The most absurd (and by far the most irritating) are the ones that say, "Get 1000's of new Twitter followers." Then when you look at that person's Twitter profile, you see that they only have two-hundred followers or so.
How can they say, "I got 1000's of new followers" etc., etc., blah, blah... When they only have a few hundred? At the link, it tells you that it costs, for example, $500 dollars for 200 "new friends." I thought only rock stars and people like that had paid friends (read: entourage). Why in the world would anyone want to pay for "friends"? What good is it to follow someone who you have zero interest in excepting to add a "1" to the numbers of followers you have?
If I have lots of followers, does that make me popular?
In the past, I've complained - and showed proof - that 60% of all Twitters users quit in the first month (uh, that means that way more of your current followers to your Twitter account have not opened their Twitter account in over 30 days - this also means that Twitter has retained only 10% of all followers after one year).
I've proven that Twitter manipulates their trending numbers.
I've also proven that Twitter is dishonest about when their service is down.
I also really don't like how many people today are using Twitter - in a dishonest manner - to try to find business and sales leads. I've written before that using Twitter or Linkedin for sales is fine, but you have to be upfront and honest about what you want... Tricking people to click a link is a stupid way to do business.
Today, I want to show you that many people agree with me and show you that actual readership of Twitter is seriously down and could be crashing right before our very eyes due to the fact that Twitter is just full of people hawking crap like "Get 1000's of followers on Twitter" or "Make $1000s of dollars off of Twitter sitting at home" etc., etc.
This guy has a good example on his blog at Blogation:
Twitter is the ideal medium for spammers. They set up scripts to follow as many people as possible and then hope that those people are using an “auto-follow” program and will then follow them. I’m one of those suckers that auto-follows – when I started using Twitter, it seemed to be the thing to do. After about one week of auto-following, I was getting several hundred messages a day that could just have easily ended up in my email spam folder. To prove this point, I just logged on to my “TweetDeck” and looked at the last ten tweets I received. Here are some of the samples:
Learn all the stuff the Twitter Pros won’t tell you about! [Link]Quick Ways to Make Money Online [Link]Need more room to promote your product or service? Do it on [Link]MAKE MONEY ONLINE (EASY ONLINE MONEY) WORK ONLINE [Link]
The above is pretty self-explanatory. Twitter is fast becoming like the back pages of the Marvel comics I read when I was a kid. I am expecting, any day, the Charles Atlas Tweets telling me how I can become a beef-cake in just 7 days....
I have also written extensively that you have to give away good, useful and free information on the Internet if you want to get followers and a strong readership base. I also showed why a blog beats out Twitter any day of the week.
Like many others, I want to use my blog to give away free useful information. I have told people how to get free airlines tickets, free pizzas and food, all sorts of things. In a few weeks, I'll be the first in Japan to tell you how to get free vacations to Malaysia.
I use Twitter to drive readers to my blog.
You know what? Even though the numbers of readers to my blog is skyrocketing, the numbers of people coming from Twitter to my blog is rapidly declining. Why? I strongly suspect that it is, as one astute reader wrote in;
Twitter is my least favorite of all the social networking stuff. I have it connected to my Facebook so I just use it as a one-stop way to post any updates to my blog or to link to new stuff I write. I never "network" with Twitter either. It's a one-way form of communication for me. Honestly, I've never known an influential or important colleague to EVER read Twitter. Some of them POST on twitter, but none of them read it.
I think he's absolutely right. The influential people I know (the few) do not read Twitter. They use it to sell services or goods.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE LARGE SIZE
Businesses take note: Notice the huge disparity of visitors from Google compared to Twitter.
This shows a massive difference in the quality of visitor. Google visitors had to search for me.
On the other hand, I had to search for Twitter visitors.
Twitter is it's own worst enemy. People say, "Get thousands of followers!" or, "I'll follow you, you follow me!" But, let's be honest with each other, do you read Twitter? I don't.
Think about this; people will surf the Internet or Facebook, but no one surfs Twitter. Whenever I Tweet something, if there is not a message right there at the top (amongst the 1000's and 1000's I have received in the last 12 hours), I certainly am not going to go back and see what others have written.
It is a waste of time to do so.... Especially when all they ever want me to do is to get 1000's more followers. .... Why would I want 1000's more followers who - all they want to do - is sell me something and they don't read Twitter either....
The excitement about Twitter reminds me of the early days of Amway. Everyone was excited and everyone was doing it; a few years later, reality set in and, well, do you know anyone who does Amway anymore? I don't.
Do you know anyone who reads Twitter? I don't.
Come to think of it... Who does read Twitter?
Reader comments welcomed.
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