On July 2nd, 2013, Twitter changed their rules and outlawed automatic following-back of new people who follow you, but is it a bad thing?
If you have been using any Auto-follow tool for Twitter, it's all over. At first I was like "Oh-No", because I have used an auto-follow tool for years. However, after researching it a bit more, I realize it's probably a good thing because the solution to the Auto-Following Ban by Twitter isn't that bad!
What I liked about the Twitter Auto-follow was the obvious, it auto-followed people that followed me. What I did not like about the Twitter Auto-follow was there was some Tweeters I really did not want to follow and I had to go back every so often to clean up who I did not want to follow and then un-follow them.
So in reality, Auto-following was not a time saver, it almost took me more time to go back and then un-follow the ones I did not want follow.
The Twitter Auto-Follow Solution!
The solution that SocialOomph has come up with is pretty darn cool because in a matter of minutes you can decide who you want to follow with a couple clicks, but more importantly, they give you stats on everyone that has followed you so you can make the right choices easily as far as who you want to follow back.
How SocialOomph Has Changed Choosing How You Follow Your Followers
First, login to your SocialOomph account and goto "Followers/Friends" -> "Vet Followers/Friends"
Once there, you will see everyone that has followed you and much, much more!
- A) A complete Profile of your new Twitter followers
- B) Their last Tweets
- C) When they Joined, Followers, Approval Percentage, Ignored Percentage, Blocked Percentage
- D) If you have created lists, what list to optionally add them to
- E) Approve, Ignore, Block, Spam
So this way, in a glance, you can see who you should follow and not to follow. In this example below, check out their ignored rate and approval rate. Would you wanted to have Auto-followed them?
So really, I am not that upset that Twitter changed their policy regarding Auto-following… In fact, I am actually glad they did because the alternative to Auto-following has made sites like SocialOomph (whom comply with Twitter Policies) create a pretty cool new feature!
A couple times a week, login to your SocialOomph account and choose from who has followed you who you would like to follow back! So simple!
About the Author:
The SEO-Alien is a project started in 2009 regarding all things online marketing. The site started out more of a diary of predictions, suggestions and references to things I frequently used for online marketing... before social media marketing was even an option.
I hope you find the information and tools presented here useful and something worth sharing with others.
If there is anything else about online marketing or any online advertising strategy you think would be helpful, please let me know.
