How To Cheat Twitter And Get More Followers – Game The System

December 27, 2009 By Jeremiah Staes 2 Comments

I’m going to save you at least $20-$200 today. I’m going to tell you the “secret” that so many websites with extremely long copy and bogus “complete online marketing strategies” will charge you for, with, shall we say, notes.

Many, but not all, of the “Social Media Experts” (see an interesting post that’s all the buzz by Mashable on the fact there’s over 15,000 of them) as well as other online pitch people will have tens of thousands of followers – and yet Tweet inane crap and rarely if ever conversate – or they use this technique, stop it once they’ve hit critical mass (5k, 10k followers), then play dumb and change their stripes.

We don’t use this procedure, have not used this, but I’ve seen it done and we’ve been asked by former clients to do it. To be clear, if we can’t set them on the right path, we fire them at that point. This is what many social media agencies assign to their interns to do, or you can do at home yourself.

Here’s how to get your useless Twitter followers:

Step 1: Follow People, 30-50 At A Time

Start following lots of people. But only so many in a day – 30, 40, 50, depending on how finnicky Twitter’s spam bots are – and then wait for a day or three. Many times, you can use keywords to semi-focus yourself (though they rarely work well because of context) or use the cover of the #FollowFriday or one of the top trending hashtags for this. Sometimes, people push it and go into the hundreds – I’ve seen it work, but to Twitters’ credit, they’re getting better at stopping this.

For instance, I had a friend today followed by a fishing company serving Texas (even though they live in Michigan). Beyond the geographic irrelevance, the last place I think this woman would be is in a bass fishing competition. I’ve never even seen her tweet about fishing.

This is just numbers for numbers sake – not actual engagement, not what actually drives sales. But the numbers sound cool to a culture of people who are used to buying big audiences.

Step 2: Unfollow The Ungrateful Saps Who Didn’t Follow You Back

If the people you’ve followed have not followed you back, unfollow them and find some more useless people. If someone unfollows you, promptly unfollow them.

Why useless? You’re playing a silly popularity game and not building any relationships. Relationships drive the sale in social media.

On a technical note, the unfollowing of the people who unfollow you keeps your balance of following/followers good in the eyes of the Twitter Gods.

The culture of “it’s rude to not follow back” I personally believe was created by these folks. I feel no obligation to follow you back, just like you should feel none to follow me unless you’re interested in what I have to say. It’s not rude. You’re not a bad person. I may just not find your tweets that interesting (whatever “interesting” is to ME).

Step 2a: Auto-DM Your New-Found “Friends” (Optional Jerk Move)

DM your new “friends,” thanking them for their follow with a link to click your junk (fan on a fan page, subscribe to blog, etc)

I haven’t mentioned it on here before, but having been involved in forums, online and digital media now for ten years, I HATE AUTO DMs. There’s few things that are more of a red flag than someone who gives you an automatic DM thanking you that they don’t get this space; if they got it, they’d realize that a thank-you DM (usually with a pitch to click some junk) is the last thing the mainstream Twitter user wants to see and is many times a turn-off. For real users of Twitter (non-marketing types who’d actually buy from you), that DM can appear in their text message stream and feels like crossing the personal line.

For Extra Punch: Set Up Your Own Personal Echo Chamber

Get yourself twenty or thirty (as few as ten will do) other faux Twitter handles, and Retweet/Reply yourself along with some other filler content to make it look like your links are important when people search you. It helps fool those “influencer” systems that rate Twitter users based on how often they’re referred to or linked to. Of course, only do the razzle dazzle until which point you might get a fire started – then promptly stop.

That’s just smarmy and part of the reason why so many normal users of social networks hate marketing types. If you saw the amount of comments around people who refuse to follow marketers – there’s a reason. And this easily implementable charade is one of them.

Summary

So there you go. There’s more finesse and technique possible, but that’s the basic outline. There’s services who will do all of this or parts of it for you either automatically via a script, or with a smarmy army of low-paid workers depending on your budget. To be fair, Twitter’s trying to stop this stuff – but the reality is, there’s so much monetary incentive they’re never going to plug all the holes.

In an upcoming post, I’m going to talk about some strategies on how to do it the right way. I’m looking forward to talking about happier things!

Filed Under: Business, Rant, Social Media, Tips Tagged With: cheat twitter, game twitter, get more followers, Social Media, Twitter

What The Heck Is A HuffDuffer?

December 21, 2009 By Jeremiah Staes 2 Comments

huffduffer-largeWhat is Huffduffer?

Shortcut for illicitly inhaling (huffing) toxic chemicals? Nope.

New version of Duff Beer featured on the Simpsons? Not quite.

As a longtime fan of podcasts, there’s something that podcasting definitely hasn’t had – an easy way of sharing or having a fun discovery tool. It’s always been a difficult process as well as social aspects have been lacking. Unless you’re lucky enough to have an aficionado tweet or status their favourites on a constant basis, it can be hard to find new stuff.

Here’s where Huffduffer comes in. It’s a silly name, but it actually means something, unlike most cutesy names of the Web 2.0 ilk – it’s the pronounceable way of saying HF/DF, which is an actual term which is a triangulation method that uses two or more radio receivers to find the location of a radio transmitter. Very apropos for it’s task – finding podcasts.

So of course, I’ve signed up. What does it do? It makes your very own personal podcast feed. That’s right. No muss, no fuss, you drop the MP3 file links in, and voila. People can subscribe and find the newest stuff you’re interested in (a tip – if the link has tracking code on it by someone like podtrac, leave it in – it’s important so that the creators know how many people are downloading and how).

I’m not thinking this is for “cardinal” feeds – which are the basis of the content – but great as “adjuncts” for fans or maybe if you’re a network highlighting the best clips or shows in your network. You can add tags, a description, and see others who are HuffDuffing (Either one of the key sounds, huff or duff, when shortened, are going to be unfortunate shortened terms – “I Huffed That?” Either you’re doing something that kills brain cells or referring to The Hoff, David Hasselhoff. And I’m not sure what “I Hoffed It” would mean. Feel free to expound in comments).

The power is in taking audio content – in podcast form or not – and creating something useful, a soundscape of the things you like or you think others would – and then using the ubiquitous RSS format to distribute that information.

I must admit, as someone who likes good user experience, I really appreciated their signup process. that alone should be copied by others. It’s got a great screen that I had to share below that speaks in.. *gasp* human speak. You can click the image for a larger version.

huffduffersignupSharing integration is not complete with other services such as Facebook or Twitter as of this writing but there is the ability to link and embed, and there is a Firefox plugin and the iTouch mobile experience works well (haven’t had a chance to look at it on a Blackberry, but it’s a well done mobile site – you’ll be using cut and paste for this one so far until there’s a better way – and frankly, on the iPhone with it’s walled gardens, Huffduffer being a mobile site experience might just be the best way to go).

The ability to add in-depth with the notes is really valuable, too. It gives the potential for much more context and content usually only found in blog posts, or it also can be a short blast. I’d suggest being a bit descriptive if you like something and want to turn others on to it.

As to the traditional podcast feeds, it creates an iTunes-acceptable (not submitted to store but able to subscribe to anyway) feed as well as your standard RSS feed for iTunes, Google Reader, Firefox, or whatever else. Then, you can subscribe to the feeds of your friends and find the new stuff that they like.

In short, it’s a simple site that I could see in the future having a lot of potential for sharing, comments, etc. Simple disqus integration might be nice in the future, to make podcasts a much more social experience with commenting in easier ways as many podcast sites and blogs have very poor comment support.

It’s not perfect, it’s obviously new, but I think it’s a good step in the right direction to make podcasting more social.

Check it out at http://www.huffduffer.com and subscribe to my HuffDuff here.

Filed Under: Podcasting, Social Media, Tips Tagged With: huffduffer, Podcasting, podcasts, sharing podcasts, Social Media

Questioning God

December 4, 2009 By Jeremiah Staes 1 Comment

in-garyv-we-trustThere’s groupthink in any industry, but I think ours in Social Media is full of it to an extreme extent.

Because it’s so relatively new (although some of us has been interacting socially on the web for 15 years before the tools got nifty pastel gradients and friendly icons reminiscent of songbirds) people are busy looking for any validation of their beliefs due to either their inexperience, their need to be like others, or simply professionally being able to point to someone else.

Unlike any other marketing/PR/customer service/etc. function, social media crosses so many barriers and traditional silos that it literally scares people. We who live “in the biz” forget that this isn’t second nature and intimidating to most not just because of the tools but the impending culture shift, contradicting what years of B-school and hierarchies reinforced.

And what do people do when they’re scared? Come together. At times through religion. Add into the mix it’s digital and many people over 40 don’t have much value for bits and bytes and/or culturally don’t understand their significance, you have a flock of converts under attack looking for leadership.

The Universal Law (Benefit) of Social Media

However, in order for our industry to grow, and for the real, universal benefit of social media – connecting people to make things happen, whatever that “thing” is to you – true progress is going to be made not by parroting the current leaders of the social media industry, but by taking their experience and trying new things. Working it. I say this with the utmost respect, but the only real difference between them and everyone else is the willingness to try something and do the hustle to make it work, and being willing to fail (which by the way, is much easier said than done, and one of many reasons to respect thought leaders).

After all, there is no formula when dealing with people; and this is dealing with people to the largest extent. Every situation you’re going to want to draw on yours and others experiences, real data, ask hard questions and be willing to listen to the answers, even if they don’t match your initial thought.

You need to be willing to act quickly, decisively, and comport to the needs of your community, not necessarily your needs.

So go out, be fruitful, be an evangelist for your brand, love your users, love your community, and charge on. We might have different sized caravans – or lone riders on a trusty steed. But if you want to make things happen – be that trailblazer with your own ideas.

Filed Under: Business, Industry News, Love Your User, Online Marketing Fundamentals, Social Media, Social Media Fundamentals, blogging Tagged With: questioning, Social Media, social media benefits, trailblazing, universal law of social media