…there is only follow and not follow. Even so, there are people who just can’t make up their mind.

When both Thubten Comerford and Chris Husong followed us again, we thought we’d check and see who else couldn’t commit to following us full-time. We found lots of two-timers, hat tricks, quartets and quintuples (okay, what would you call them??) so we thought we’d just give you a lineup of the ones who are the most prolific in the follow/unfollow/refollow game.

@ericleebow starts off our list with 7 follows, and is joined by @mcfixit:

Slightly more ambitious: @BstTwt, and @pattishock have each followed us 8 times. Perhaps decision-making isn’t their strong suit.

The highest achievement award for #followerwhoring goes to @SteveKayser, who makes all the other contenders look like slackers by following us a total of 15 times.

Why would people waste their time following and unfollowing so much? Don’t be silly, they aren’t doing it themselves. They have a bot doing the heavy lifting for them. If you check the twitter page of each of these users, you’ll see they either follow and are followed by a ton of people, or have lots more followers than they are following. The use the bot to follow people just so they can grow their follower numbers when those people auto-follow them back. And when people don’t follow them, they unfollow and move on to the next sucker. But these bots are pretty stupid, like some people we know (Hi Marcia!), so they end up following a bunch of people again and again because they can’t remember where they’ve been.

This is a popular activity for “social media experts/strategists/mavericks/consultants/marketer/gurus” because big numbers of followers gives the appearance of influence and authority to people who don’t know any better.

It’s much easier for these posers to use a robot to get mindless followers who don’t care what they have to say than to suffer under the weight of actually being interesting and providing valuable content. The end result is no different than whispering to a packed auditorium. A few people may hear what you have to say. The rest won’t even notice you’re on the stage.

Send in the Twitter Fail Bird! Tell them you saw them on Twitter Fail

You know what’s awesome about social media? Anyone with a computer can use it to talk to just about anyone else in the world. You know what sucks about social media? Anyone with a computer can use it to try to talk to you, whether you want to talk to them or not. On the one hand, you can communicate with family and friends without having to talk to them face-to-face ever again, and on the other, you have tons of spammers and bots (often the same thing) pretending to be your friend just so they can grab your attention and suck money out of you. Kind of like that bitch ex-girlfriend (Hi Marcia!) who dumped you on Valentine’s day, right after the dinner and drinks.

Fortunately, there are a bunch of experts to help you navigate the confusing world of connections and recommendations, hashtags and retweets. With very little effort, you can join their ranks, and take advantage of unfairly influence help yourself to loads of cash from help clueless n00bs who are trying to figure it all out.

1. Create a twitter profile. Make sure to use at least one of the following terms in your bio:
   • Social media expert
   • Social media guru
   • Social media strategist
   • Social media maverick
   • Social media rockstar
   • Social media wizard
   • Really, just about anything, as long as it starts with “Social Media”

   

2. Upload a photo of you looking all guru-y.
3. Set up a bot to follow a bunch of people, unfollow the ones who aren’t following you, and then follow a bunch more. Rinse, repeat.
4. Set up a bot to follow rss feeds about social media, and tweet the links to your timeline so you never have to actually do anything social, like interact with other people.
5. Make fun of all the people who just don’t get social media.
   Wait. That may be just us.

Okay, there you have it,   5   4 easy steps to social media stardom.

Disclaimer: The people mentioned here may or may not be social media gurus. They may or may not have used any of the techniques mentioned. What do we know? We thought gurus all lived on mountaintops and knew the answers to life, the universe and everything (and that it really isn’t really 42), so we’re not exactly sure what a social media guru really is.

If you’re a social media guru, tell us what that means in the comments.

Or, make fun of our cluelessness on twitter: @tweet_fail

There are times when we see a twitter stream that is so totally awful, we just need to sit back and admire its crappiness. Such is the case of @X07Brainiac, which was pointed out to us by alert Honorary Fail Bird Handler, @jackassletters.

Yes, Mr. Grammar Person, we know that a person is “who” not “which,” so we’ll point out that XO7Brainiac is not a person. It’s a bot.

“What?” we hear you saying, “How can you tell?”

The first clue:  robots don’t sound like human beings. All these posts sound amazingly similar. The formula:

1. Please Retweet
2. Item from an rss feed
3. Link
4. Hashtag

Observe:

1. The Retweet:

Only newbies, self-absorbed cretins, and bots ask everyone to retweet everything they say. We’ve talked about this before, “RT Please” just makes you look desperate and insecure, or totally fake.

2. RSS feed:

Real people, unless they’re twitter virgins, totally clueless losers, or self-important asshats, will interact with their followers, or the people they’re following, and say something original every now and then.  This bot just spits out its feed. If we want to read an rss feed about something, we’ll subscribe to it.

3. The link:

Every single tweet has a link. Read #2 again. Unless they are completely devoid of original thought, a real person will say something at some point that doesn’t include a link.

4. Hashtag:

The brainiac behind this bot thinks he can get his own username to trend, if he puts it in a hashtag at the end of every single post. So totally wrong, Wil Robinson. Terms trend when lots of people are using them. You can’t trend your own name all by yourself, so you need your friends help you out. Bots don’t have friends, because most of their followers are just as artificial as they are. And, while we’re on the subject, creating a hashtag that is your username is the most conceited, arrogant, supercilious thing to do. If @XO7Brainiac is not a bot (as if) this pomposity alone could cause him to spontaneously combust as the fire of a thousand sun shines down on his greasy, over-inflated head. (Sorry, we were daydreaming again.)

“Oooh,” you say, “he has a bunch of followers, so he must have lots of friends!” Wrong again. Follower numbers mean nothing. Some people get really envious of others’ follower count, as if numbers equal influence. Anyone can use one or more follower apps to get tons of followers. It’s one of the easiest things to do on twitter. The trick is to get followers who are interested in what you have to say. Thousands of followers who are only there because you followed them first will usually turn out to be people who are just after numbers, too. If you want people who will actually read what you have to say, fewer followers can be a very good thing. Especially if you want them to recommend you to their followers, who will follow you because you’re interesting.

Why do we hate bots on twitter? Because they use a lot of resources that could be better utilized by real people having real conversations and making real connections.  Every time you see the Fail Whale, get a 503 error, or a message that twitter is over capacity, blame the bots. Just like the Gunslinger in Westworld, their presence just ruins our fun

Today’s Guest Post is by our good friend @stinginthetail. She’s is a writer, blogger, singer/songwriter, and  genuinely nice person, even if, by her own admission she is The Queen of Darkness.

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This is my first ever guest post – Tweet Fail asked me around the middle of last year, and i’ve only just got it together. It’s very exciting and i’ve got the Twitterati to help make it go with a bang….

Let’s start with Guy Kawasaki, who deserves a visit from the Fail Bird. He doesn’t really get Twitter. I thought this last year when i blogged about unfollowing him. I offer proof, something he tweeted at me yesterday (10th January 2010 my time), in reply to something i said…

GuyKawasaki:@stinginthetail This explains what you can do: http://holykaw.alltop.com/the-art-of-the-repeat-tweet (not linked on principle)

But Mr Kawasaki, (or the minions who tweeted the above for him), I wasn’t asking for your assistance, quite the opposite. I was expressing my contempt for your lack of Twitter savvy while putting yourself forward as some kind of internet tech guru with your finger on the pulse of the world. What i said was…

stinginthetail:why i unfollowed GK RT @detlef_c RT @smallbiztrends “Repeat your tweets” says @GuyKawasaki. CNN repeats their news every hour. #opences #CES

For those not that familiar with Twitter, i was retweeting something the rather excellent @detlef_c RT’d, and adding my own comment – “why i unfollowed GK“. I unfollowed Guy Kawasaki because so much of his tweetstream was repeated, with no warning that posts were something he tweeted previously. I blogged about following then unfollowing him at the time – i also didn’t like that he wasn’t actually running his own account, but leaving it for assistants to do.

Now, to be honest, i do retweet my blog or things i think are insanely important. But i say “for those who missed it earlier” or “this is a re-retweet” or words to that effect. With my blog, I quote a little bit, in case they forget they’ve read it – “the post with bacon and sharks“. But what GK doesn’t get, as he justifies himself with saying CNN does it – is that CNN is boring – they repeat nothing, over and over. It’s news taken to the level of “sad”. I don’t get why GK thinks boring us the way CNN do is okay.

Guy Kawasaki says (on the post he/minions sent me to)….

“if you hate the repeat tweets because you are online a lot (could the problem be that you’re on Twitter too much and not that I repeat tweets?) or you don’t follow a lot of people, I have several solutions for you:…”

Ah yes, way to go, Guy, blame the messenger. Let’s have a good swipe at the people who are saying, “Oi, Kawasaki, why are u repeating each tweet at least 3 times with no warning? I click on all of them, because i trust you to send me good stuff to click on!” Note the italics, they’re to highlight that part.

That’s the subtext of their complaints, and mine, (you betrayed my trust!) and telling us that we don’t have enough friends, that we’re twitter junkies or sad internet shut-ins, isn’t really the way to address that. (Funny, that post seems to be by Guy himself, and wow, am i glad i unfollowed that person.)

Me, i am not on Twitter 24:7, but i have a memory – if i click on the same story repeated, i will eventually unfollow that person. GK’s also ignoring that people scroll back in his tweet stream, looking for articles, hoping that some of his moneymaking ability will rub off on them. His twitter is basically like a feed, not like following a real person.

Of course, Guy doesn’t care, he’s rich and really only has to be nice to other rich people who can afford to invest in him and his businesses. Twitter is just to show them he is hip, and has a public. Fans. Look at me, i have fans. *facepalm*

Let’s face it, if people like Britney, Michael Jackson, and OJ Simpson still have loyal fans despite their behaviour, then who in their right mind wants fans – or cares what they say? Guy Kawasaki does suggest one stops following him and follows @alltop – another of his accounts – so you only get one of each tweet.

Me, i just unfollowed. Enough people RT everything GK says, if it’s good, it will get to me – i have excellent people i follow on Twitter. I decided (with help from GK and others) that i was only interested in people who were (a) real and (b) likely to tweet back.

It’s why i stopped following @guykawasaki, @stephenfry, @mrskutcher, (Demi Moore) @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), and even @eddieizzard. I am not on Twitter to be their fan. To be honest, i don’t do ‘fan’ very well at all. Especially, no matter how much i like your work, I can’t help thinking that if you behave like a twat, i don’t want anything to do with you.

Now, I don’t mind if i follow you and you’re not my best bud, but if i go to the trouble to answer a question, the least you can do (even if you got a thousand tweets on the subject), is to say a group thanks (no names required, just ‘thanks everyone’), but some celebrities don’t even manage that. Guy Kawasaki doesn’t even manage his own tweets, his are minion-tweeted.

Guy Kawasaki may be one of the Twitterati, (he has 200,000+ followers) but I see people every day with tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers, who are just spammers. Some of them are known spam criminals -here’s a convicted Australian spammer with 71,000 followers on Twitter.

Follower numbers on Twitter mean nothing - any bint with a cleavage showing can get 2,000 followers inside a few days, even when the pic is obviously fake. Then “she” hands it over (for a fee) to some sucker of an online marketer who thinks the people attracted by cleavage will be good people to sell to. Erm. Twitter fail.

Don’t assume that because someone is a Twitter celebrity, because others sycophantically retweet everything they say, that they’ll be good to follow. Guy Kawasaki isn’t a good follow. To be honest, if i was going to pick a celeb to follow, i’d go for someone like @Alyssa_Milano – 400,000+ followers, and she tweets her own tweets – not because i’m into her, i’m not – but she tweets at her fans and engages them.

Even with thousands of people saying “Alyssa, Alyssa, look at me, look at me!” she finds time to say things to people, just to be a nice person. One of her favourite games seems to be tweeting at someone who really doesn’t expect her to notice them, and wow, Twitter win, Alyssa. She gets her followers and she keeps them.

I still have two celebrities. Celeb One, she followed me, (I didn’t know she was a celeb, as she is a US one, but i googled her), though she does amuse me, she’s on the edge of the Unfollow Chasm of Doom, because i’ve tweeted several things to her and not got a reply. However, i checked, (search for the person’s @name, you can see what’s being said to them, you may be shocked at how many are tweeting) and several people tweeted at her, at the same time, so fair enough, she gets some more rope.

Celeb Number Two, i followed him. Yes, I’m still following @RealBillBailey (you might know him as Manny, the long-haired bookshop assistant in “Black Books”). Why? I dumped Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard, fellow funnymen, after all. Well, it’s like this. Bill tweeted back. It was a deep convo about pollution, i commented, he commented back, i nearly died and didn’t know what to say! (Yes, i went all “fan-ny” for a while.) But it meant i’m loyal to him. He’s not even following me, but because he once, months ago, bothered to tweet back, i’m going to give him a lot of time. Besides, he’s funny, interesting, and gives good twitter.

Stephen Fry’s Twitter Fail was covered previously in this blog,  but i must say, i was very disappointed in his behaviour. I’d unfollowed him ages ago, tired of being one of a quarter of a million people nodding and smiling at his every move. He’s now got around 1.2 million followers.  However, I unfollowed him because he was boring- like @brumplum did.

Nobody is allowed to say say that on Twitter, not with Mr Fry’s followers and some of his friends waiting to twitterbash anyone who dares to criticise. It’s the same with Guy Kawasaki. So many people trying to suck up to him, they don’t even see when he’s being a pillock.

So, Guy Kawasaki – Twitter FAIL, mate. Read the tweet before you respond – basic Twittiquette. Don’t bash people who say they don’t like the way you tweet, when it’s your inability to do something simple, like let them know it’s a repeat, that is the problem. Don’t take it personally and then have a spiteful dig back at them. Don’t do a @StephenFry.

Basic common sense really – @guykawasaki’s minions could learn about reading content before one responds.

Funnily, like GK says in his post, i reckon anyone who says they don’t like my tweets can unfollow me – but then i tweet originals, let people know when i’m repeating, and don’t tweet the same thing day after day, so me saying it doesn’t make me sound like a pillock.

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Now that you’ve finished reading this awesome post, follow stinginthetail on twitter, and read her blog. But before you go, please say something nice to her in the comments. Comments are like crack to bloggers. We always want more. And she deserves them.

Twitter is an awesome place. Once you’ve made a few friends, your timeline gets filled with all kinds of interesting conversations as you make connections, brainstorm creative themes, and post cool links to share with others. It’s easy to get stressed if you try to keep up as your timeline refreshes with hundreds of tweets every minute.

Some people find this overwhelming, especially when seeing tweets from people that rather not talk to.

If only twitter had tools to deal with problems like this. It could be something as easy as allowing users to not follow people they don’t like. Or, maybe, if twitter is working correctly (and that is the key), they could put in some kind of button to block the offender, so they never have to hear from them again. That would be sweet.

Now that we think about it, it probably wouldn’t work. Some people wouldn’t find clicking a block button to be final enough. Luckily for them, they can still get satisfaction from having the last word.

No, you shut up.