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Stop Saying ‘In These Troubled Times’: 5 Amateur Mistakes Content Marketers Keep Making

We’ve had years of practice, thousands of articles written on the rights and wrongs, and millions of social media “experts,” but we still have content marketers and copywriters making the same stupid, amateur mistakes they’ve been warned against.

Now everyone seems to think the current pandemic shutdown somehow changes all the rules, and everything they’ve been told not to do is now fair game.

Not at all. In fact, if anything, this crisis means you have to really buckle down and quit making them.

Here are five amateur mistakes that content marketers and copywriters need to quit making right now.

1. Stop saying “In these troubled times”

Good Lord, if I see “in these trying/terrible/troubled times” once more, I’m going to Hulk-smash my laptop!

They’re are all troubled times! This is nothing special. (Okay, maybe it’s a little different.) But we’ve always had trying times. Even during the good times, we’ve had trying times. “In these trying times” could be said about any time.

Twelve years ago, during the Great Recession, I had a freelance copywriter who used “in these trying times” or “in these economically troubled times” in every single article they handed in for the next four years, even when things were on the upswing.

Every. Single. One.

Bottom line, do not refer to “these troubled times” at all ever. It’s one of the most useless and overused writing clichés in the entire world.

2. Stop sending emails about what YOU’RE doing

Sign that says I Would Have Preferred a Blank Wall Rather Than This Great Piece of Shit. This applies to most marketing messages, especially the ones that say In these troubled times.I’ve seen plenty of emails explaining what a particular company’s response to COVID-19 has been. Some, like my favorite coffee shop or pizza place, are explaining what steps they’re taking to protect customers, because they know that we’re affected by the things they do and don’t do.

Other companies, like software companies I haven’t heard from since 2012, are telling me the steps they’re taking to shelter in place, practice social distancing, and blah blah blah.

Seriously, Chad? You’re just a software company. No one cares.

The only reason you should send an email about your COVID-19 response is if your response directly affects your customers.

For example, if you have a web hosting company, I want to know what steps you’re taking to keep my servers up and running. If you have a rental car company, I only want to know if you’re going to be open or if I can cancel my reservations. I don’t care how closely you’re monitoring the government’s guidance. Don’t give me a 500-word piece of bullshit that doesn’t tell me anything until the last paragraph. (Read Josh Bernoff’s cutting analysis of Hert’z corporate email.)

And, clean out your email list. If you haven’t heard from certain people in more than four years, maybe you should just remove them.

3. Don’t say anything unless you have something to say

This piggybacks off point #2, but it’s a much broader message. As content marketers, we’re already used to filling up people’s inboxes and social streams. And people are 1) ignoring it and 2) tired of it.

So maybe we should instead shut up and do something useful. People are frightened, anxious, and just trying to take care of themselves and their loved ones. So no one needs more marketing clutter to get people to pay attention to us.

If you want to get people’s attention, do something useful. Offer them something to make their lives easier. Accounting software companies, teach people how to become entrepreneurs, because a lot of people are losing their jobs. Personal finance coaches, create videos, blog articles, and podcasts about how to lower our costs and trim our budgets. Restaurants can offer cooking classes or “ask me anything” sessions.

Some companies are already doing this. My gym, like a lot of gyms, are offering workout-at-home video sessions. My friend the yoga instructor is doing Monday night yoga sessions on Facebook Live. Blaze Pizza hosted a virtual pizza party with their executive chef, Brad, where people could ask him questions and get real-time answers.

But other companies are still sending me emails about booking trips, buying electronics, or buying men’s clothing.

I realize you have to find a way to stay in business, but try being useful before you start being commercial.

4. Update your old messages

For some of you, it’s business as usual. For most everyone else, they’re not buying anything. And yes, it’s hurting the economy. And yes, businesses are suffering and they need a way to stay in business. I’m not saying you shouldn’t.

What you should be doing right now is revamping your old messages and updating them to reflect the new reality we’re going to be facing for the next several weeks.

Case in point, a friend from Indiana posted that she saw a commercial from one of the local TV stations reminding people to check in with them for the local traffic report. That’s fine, except there is no traffic because Indiana is on a statewide stay-at-home order.

While the ad may be a good reminder for people once the order is lifted, it’s still a wasted opportunity. Check your upcoming messages and see if any of them have now aged out or ring a little tone deaf in light of the shutdown.

If you have scheduled your messages days and weeks in advance (which is a bad idea), hit Pause on your drip campaign until you can be sure that everything is still valid, true, and necessary. Take that opportunity to update your messages to better reflect your new approaches (see #2) and any new offers you might have.

5. Never, EVER refer to the “China virus”

We all know what this virus family is called — coronavirus — and what this particular strain is called — COVID-19. Those are the two most widely accepted terms that everyone knows and uses. The media is using them, the CDC and the World Health Organization are using them. It’s only certain government officials who are calling it the “China virus,” and it’s causing a lot of problems for Asian Americans.

They’re being threatened, verbally harassed, and in some cases, physically assaulted, all because some mouth-breathing halfwit thinks Chinese people are perpetuating the virus on our country. These are the same mouth-breathing halfwits who think you can also catch it by drinking Corona beer.

Which is made in Mexico. Which is not near China.

So if you use the term China virus, you’re just buying into the same racist dogwhistling nonsense as those other mouth-breathing halfwits. So don’t do it.

Good content marketers are always learning, always improving, always trying to do better. But there are times where we get lazy and settle into old habits and easy cliches just to get through the next assignment. But now is not the time to fall prey to that kind of thinking.

Your customers are counting on you in these troubled times.

Photo credit: Urban Artefakte (Flickr, Creative Commons)

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How to Use Storytelling on Your Social Media Campaigns to Increase Your Engagement

Every so often, I will feature guest posts from writers who actually have important and interesting things to say. Patrick Bailey is a professional freelance writer, working mainly in the fields of mental health, addiction, and living in recovery. He wanted to write about storytelling and social media, so I let him take a crack at it. At 1500+ words, I think he knocked it out of the park.

Patrick Bailey, a writer who specializes in mental health, addiction, and living in recovery. He wrote this piece on storytelling in social media.Even before civilization came to be and nothing was in print, humans were hard-wired to listen and tell stories. Stories became the backbone of many ancient cultures because they were passed on from generation to generation through verbal means. Traditions were built through sharing stories. Stories were written as books, and they became the time-enduring classics.

Now, we have the capacity to share and record stories in the digital world. With the use of the Internet, blogging became an avenue for ordinary people to share their stories whether it was something personal or related to their business. After blogging, social media became a tool for people to share the mini-stories of their lives.

That is just one side of the coin — in fact, there are many facets of storytelling that shows how much power it holds to influence others. In marketing, storytelling plays a big role in capturing the minds and hearts of readers and viewers.

What is storytelling in social media?

Storytelling in social media is quite different when it comes to those found in books, magazines, or even blogs. Since people have a shorter attention span when browsing through their social media feeds, it is important that our stories are concise yet captivating. Here are some of the characteristics of an engaging story in social media:

  • Stories should start with an attention-grabbing headline or first statement. The stories you post in social media should be interesting from the beginning. This is the hook that makes readers or viewers stay engaged.
  • Stories should be concise. Unlike blogs, people don’t have the patience to read page-long stories about you or your brand. It is important to be concise and only state important details in your story.
  • Stories should be accompanied with other multimedia forms. Although text can be engaging in itself, it is proven that multi-sensory experiences in the digital world can help users retain far more information: Include images or videos with your story.
  • Stories should have a strong call-to-action at the end. Before even creating a captivating story in social media, you need to think of your primary goal why you are setting up the campaign in the first place. Do you want people to visit your website? Do you want more email subscribers? Do you want them to purchase your product? Think about your goal and start making your story from there.

Now that we understand the characteristics of an engaging story in social media, how can we create one from start to finish? Here are some steps you can take.

Think about your audience persona.
Some stories may be interesting for a particular group, and yet some wouldn’t really bat an eye on the same topic. When formulating your story, think about the type of audience that your platform or business serves. This is called your audience persona, which means personifying the archetype of audience that you may have. Think of your audience persona based on the following characteristics:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Socioeconomic status
  • Cultural background
  • Where they live
  • What they do
  • What their problems are
  • What they look like
  • What things do they need

These considerations can help you create a story that will be interesting to your target audience. Without building an audience persona, you may end up formulating a story with full effort and no engagement.

Remember the rules of capturing attention.
One of the most popular copywriting formulas called AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. These four pillars of effective copy can also be incorporated into storytelling. Now that you have established your audience persona, it is important to place yourself in their shoes. What would be a story that can capture their attention?

Many marketers would go for the first-person story technique. They can talk about their personal struggles which make them relatable to their target audience. This is very effective because people want to know others’ story and how they have succeeded.

For example a company called Mountain Springs Recovery focuses on addiction rehabilitation. They use storytelling campaigns through testimonials of others’ struggles in rehabilitation and how they have succeeded through the help of the company. This is a great way to tug to your audience’s heartstrings and make them read the rest of your story. Other attention-grabbing techniques include:

  • Sharing a short case study of your previous client. Ask permission from a previous client to tell their background and how they have achieved success through your business.
  • A story about someone who benefited from your business’ advocacy. If your business supports an advocacy (e.g., helping cancer patients, providing scholarships, etc.), share a short story of how these people have benefited from your business, and how others can support them by supporting your business as well.
  • Your own before and after story. If you are a professional who has experienced the same problems as your target audience, you can use your own story as a marketing tool. For example, a fitness coach can post his or her before and after results while sharing a story of their struggles and triumphs in the weight loss journey.

Remember what your teacher taught you.
Do you remember in literature class when your teacher would remind you of the parts of the story? Mostly, an engaging story or a narrative would include the characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution. You don’t have to elaborate too much when creating your social media posts. All you have to do is to keep them present when thinking about your story. Make it clear by introducing the main characters of your story (Is it you? Your client? A person you know?), where and when it happened, the premise, what the problem is and how the problem is solved.

Remembering these elements can help you create a formula that would always be engaging to your target audience in mind.

Experiment with multimedia.
Engagement is not just about using one form of media. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter have different tools to help create engaging stories.

This is where you can start experimenting. If you already have a small audience you can work on, try to create different types of content. Start by crafting your story accompanied by a photo, and in some instances you would want to shoot a video.

When you create social media accounts, engagement is counted as the amount of views, likes, shares, and comments in your content. If you notice that one form of media is more effective than the other, you already know what format of stories you would want to post in the future.

Essentially, focusing on the story format that your audience wants is the key to gaining engagement and social proof. As other people see that you have likes, shares, and comments in your stories, the more that they will be curious to see what your business is about.

Build trust — don’t rely on click bait.
Unless your ultimate goal is to get views for your business merely in your website or social media accounts, don’t exploit people’s attention through click bait. Clickbait is when writers over-sensationalize stories in order to get views.

It is best not to rely on this technique as it may cause people to lose trust in your business — resulting in bad comments, poor feedback, and eventually dwindling attention. Make sure your stories are genuine, and if you do promise something, be sure you can deliver. Do not simply make up stories in order to get future clients to sign up, then setting them for disappointment.

Utilize call-to-action buttons.
As mentioned earlier, an engaging story in social media must be built with a goal in mind. This goal is realized by creating a call-to-action. For blogs and websites, a call-to-action is usually done by posting a link or a sign-up form. However, social media is a little different because you can use buttons when you make sponsored posts for your stories.

A clear example would be Facebook sponsored posts. When you boost a Facebook post, you’ll notice that they will give you an option to place a button at the bottom of your sponsored post. Below your story, you can create a button that can make the users:

  • Message your Facebook page
  • Contact your business number
  • Visit your website
  • Shop in your built-in store

Whatever your call-to-action is, make sure that it is clear to your audience and they can easily access it through these buttons.

Create stories, engage your audience.
With so many businesses vying for people’s attention is social media, you can stand out by following these actionable tips in creating engaging stories.

Author Bio: Patrick Bailey is a professional writer mainly in the fields of mental health, addiction, and living in recovery. He attempts to stay on top of the latest news in the addiction and the mental health world and enjoy writing about these topics to break the stigma associated with them. Find him on Twitter at @Pat_Bailey80.

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Social Media for Seniors: Find The News You Want

Every so often, I will feature guest posts from writers who actually have important and interesting things to say. My friend, Daniel Bell, is an up-and-coming copywriter based in Orlando and has written a few blog articles I’ll include on this site.

You can do a lot of things on the Internet. Play games with strangers around the world, check e-mail, take an online class, laugh at funny videos. But most seniors do not want t get wrapped in all of that. They’re keeping up with family on Facebook, but that’s about it.

So what if you wanted to get your favorite news, whenever and wherever you chose, in the places you want it?

Here are a few tips on how to make that happen:

1. Open A Social Media Account

The first thing is to learn is what a social network is: It’s basically a site where you can share, read and search public information. You can also interact with people both privately and publicly. You’ll have the ability to do this once you have created your own profile with your own information about yourself.

According to Elise Moreau, a social media expert and contributor to Lifewire.com, the top 5 social networks that people use are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Every one of these can be accessed through a laptop or a mobile device. You can use a website or even the network’s own mobile application.

Every site is easy to join and they have help right there to help you get started. Just follow along and you’ll be fine.

2. Follow Your Favorite News Stations

News stations are constantly sharing breaking and slower news online. And because people love to use social media, news stations have created their own profiles that people can follow. It’s a great way for people to see what news they have first before anything else. And you can build your entire social media stream to contain nothing but news.

For example, let’s say you wanted to follow your favorite news station on Facebook. I live in Orlando so I might want to look for the local FOX station.

On Facebook, you would need to search in the Facebook search bar, like this:

Social media for seniors: Facebook search bar, looking for WOFL Fox 35
Facebook search bar, looking for WOFL Fox 35

After you press enter, you will see the top results. More than likely, the top one will be the news station you’re looking for, like this:

Fox 35's Facebook results
To actually get the content the station posts on their Facebook page, you need to click on the “Like” button.

Repeat this for as many news sites as you would like to receive the news from, and any time they post news stories, you’ll see them.

You can do the same thing on Twitter, although you would click the Follow button instead of the Like button. Search for your terms in the Twitter search bar, and visit the profiles that come up.

Social Media for Seniors: The WOFL FOX 35 Twitter account.

Understand What Trends Are

A trend is something that is widely mentioned or discussed on the Internet, especially in posts on social networks. Basically, a trend is a topic that is popular on the Internet at the present time. It could be a sporting event like March Madness or the World Series, or a particular political event or current event.

Breaking news is a good trend to follow, because random stations will post their own #BreakingNews hashtags. You can get news from all over, and you don’t have to follow any particular stations to do it.

If you put #breakingnews (don’t forget the #) in the search bar of your favorite social media sites, different profiles that post breaking news with that hashtag will appear. You can search for it occasionally and see what new news is coming up, and it’s like having your own 24-hour breaking news newspaper at your fingertips.

There’s a lot more to the Internet than just searching for news, but this is a good way to get started, to keep up with what’s happening in the world, and to learn how you’re going to use it all so you can navigate it and see what it has to offer.

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Stop Selling to Me on LinkedIn

Are you married? When you first met, did you walk up to your prospective spouse and just pop the question?

Or are you in a long-term relationship? How did you start it? Did you say, “How would you like to form a long-term relationship? My strengths are that I have good manners, love my mother, and am kind to dogs?” And then did you follow that up with a list of past significant others who can vouch for your good character?

Of course not! That’s clearly no way to enter into any kind of relationship.

But when people connect with me on LinkedIn, it turns me off when the very first thing they do is ask if I need their web services, followed by a 500 word explanation of everything they can do, the companies and projects they’ve worked on, and a request to hop on the phone for a 15 – 30 minute conversation about what they just sent me.

(Not to mention that every message looks nearly identical. They’re either all copy-pasting each other’s sales pitch, or it’s just one company creating thousands of profiles with the same message.)

Oh, I know, I know. Some of you are saying: “Hey, it works. We get clients this way.”

Can of Spam. This is what you're sending people on LinkedIn if you pitch them without starting a relationship.I’m sure you do. And there are stories where people agreed to get married after just one date. In fact, there’s a TV show where people agree to get married the moment they meet. That doesn’t make it a sound strategy for building a long-term relationship.

And neither does you hitting me up about your services the very instant I accept your connection request. It’s rude, presumptuous, and desperate. I ignore the people who send me those messages. Maybe I’ll tell them “no thanks,” but usually only if they insist on repeating the same request a couple weeks later — you know, in case I missed it the first time.

The practice is so pervasive that I get at least two of these a week with the same copy-pasted sales pitch all asking for my hand in business marriage.

Part of my problem is that I can’t just refuse to accept people’s connection requests. I’ve written a few social media books, and people often connect with me after reading them. So I don’t want to be a jerk and snub a reader, but it’s getting harder to accept a request because I just know I’m going to get burned.

I can usually spot most LinkedIn spammers though. They tend to have a title that says “Business Development.” They live in a city or country that I have never been to or rarely visit, and yet they’re connected to 5 – 30 of my friends. And they usually work for some sort of web, SEO, or marketing agency.

I stopped accepting connection requests from people who fit that profile because I know what will be cluttering up my inbox 24 hours later.

More importantly, I’ve begun disconnecting from people who spammed me with their first message.

LinkedIn is for serious business connections, not a way for lazy salespeople to spam other people they’ve never met. And that’s what you’re doing: spamming people.

The only difference is you’re calling it business development and you’re (hopefully) doing it by clicking on the mouse yourself, instead of using the automation software that’s infected Twitter. I don’t care if you think it’s not spamming, or you tell yourself that you’re special and you’re not doing what those other people are doing, because you totally are.

You’re sending the same unwanted, unasked-for crap we get in our email inboxes. The only difference is you’re doing it on LinkedIn as if that somehow makes it okay.

Not only do I disconnect with these people, I will also occasionally report them to LinkedIn by clicking the “I don’t know this person” link or marking them as spam. If enough people do it, their account will be suspended or even terminated. And then maybe they’ll get the hint that this isn’t acceptable.

If you’re one of those people who uses LinkedIn instead of the phone to place your unwanted cold calls, why don’t you try some relationship building first? Start a conversation with people. Find out about them first. Don’t try to close the deal on the first date, don’t try to propose entering into a business relationship the moment you meet someone.

And I’ll make you another deal. If you buy a copy of my book and email me a photo of you holding it, I’ll agree to a 15-minute phone call with you about your company. Because if you’re going to make demands of my time without actually investing anything into the relationship, then I’m going to make a demand of my own.

Put your money where your mouth is. Invest in the relationship first, and then we’ll talk about what your company does.

(And then read the book. Maybe you’ll learn a better alternative to the “Married At First Sight” strategy.)

Photo credit: Qwertyxp2000 (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 4.0)

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Twitter Verified Self-Proclaimed White Supremacist

Twitter verified a Nazi yesterday.

You know those little blue checkmarks some people have next to their Twitter handles? That basically “verifies” that yes, this person is at least semi-famous. Or is someone of “public interest.”

A few years ago, when the Verified symbol first showed up, only celebrities had them. Movie stars had them. Rock stars had them. Professional athletes had them. Big-time authors had them.

Basically if you had a little blue checkmark next to your name, it meant you were someone famous.

Then, less famous people started getting them. Journalists of national publications got them. Radio DJs got them. Local TV anchors got them.

And soon after that, not-really-famous-but-you’ve-maybe-kind-of-heard-of-them people started getting them. Scott Monty (@ScottMonty) got one, partly because he’s been a big name in social media for years, partly because he’s a well-known Sherlock Holmes podcaster, but mostly because he was in the public eye as Ford’s social media manager for years. Other local journalists got them, novel authors, and small business owners.

Even people who have over 100,000 followers (that they most likely got through cheating) but haven’t even published 10,000 tweets are Verified. (I know, because one of them followed me yesterday.)

I, however, am not.

I’ve struggled with whether I even want the little blue checkmark. On the one hand, it seems rather needy and high school-ish, like jumping on the latest fashion trends because all the cool kids are wearing them. On the other hand, I never did what the so-called “cool kids” did in high school because I thought they were morons.

My good friend and book co-author Jason Falls (@JasonFalls) is not Verified. He thinks it’s stupid. And I mostly agree. It just seems so needy and insecure to try to fit in with the cool kids, because the cool kids are by and large insufferable asshats.

Still, it would be nice to have. There’s still a small part of me that wants that little blue checkmark, because it would be so validating. Like what I did was important. And in the public interest.

But I don’t have it.

Twitter verified this white supremacistOh, it’s not for lack of trying. I applied for it a few weeks ago. I cited the four books I co-authored — including Branding Yourself (which has a whole chapter on Twitter), No Bullshit Social Media (which mentions Twitter constantly, and was a groundbreaking social media book in 2011), The Owned Media Doctrine, and of course, Twitter Marketing for Dummies (which I “ghost co-authored” in 2009).

I also mentioned my newspaper humor column, which I have written every week for the last 21+ years.

And I mentioned that I was the 2016 Jack Kerouac House writer-in-residence.

But it wasn’t good enough. I received a rejection email that didn’t actually explain why I didn’t get it. That’s fine. I can deal with that. Maybe my books aren’t famous enough. Or they were all written more than four years ago (although the third edition of Branding Yourself dropped this month). Or that nearly all the 10 Indiana newspapers that publish my column are weeklies.

Or maybe it’s because I’m not a white supremacist.

Because Twitter verified Jason Kessler, the self-professed white supremacist who organized the Charlottesville white supremacist rally that left one protestor dead.

They verified him, and Twitter went nuts and started tweeting to Twitter’s CEO @Jack Dorsey in protest.

Am I bitter that I wasn’t verified? No. Am I angry? No. Am I annoyed that a Nazi was verified before I was?

Sure, a little bit.

I write books that help people find jobs. I write books that help businesses be more successful. I write newspaper columns that make people laugh. I don’t try to oppress people, denigrate minority groups, organize violent rallies, or joke about the death of a protestor and call her “a fat, disgusting Communist.”

I mean, if you were to ask people who should be verified I would hope “four-time non-fiction book author” would rank somewhere above “white supremacist Nazi dirtbag.”

Doesn’t that make sense? That someone who contributes to the betterment of society would be slightly more worthy of verification than someone who calls for the wholesale genocide of an entire race of people?

I mean, I know I’m old-fashioned, but I figured helping people succeed was more noble than joking about their deaths.

At the very least, Twitter, don’t verify this guy. Remove the verification. I don’t have to have it. In fact, I don’t think I want it anymore. If you’ve granted it to something you find on the bottom of your shoe, I don’t want it.

But for God’s sake, don’t give it to someone who promotes hate and genocide. I thought you were better than that.

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Why I’m Decimating My Twitter Account

Last year, my friend and co-author, Kyle Lacy, pissed off thousands of people when he blew up his entire Twitter account, unfollowed nearly everyone he was following, and then slowly started following back the essential people.

I never noticed.

My Twitter was so full of junk and noise that I never noticed that he re-followed me. (He did! I checked. Shut up.)

Kyle’s problem, he told me, was that he was following so many people — close to 60,000 — who weren’t saying anything useful, it was clogging up his Twitter feed. He also admitted — reluctantly — that he hadn’t properly used Twitter lists to keep track of different groups of people.

So his only option was the nuclear one.

Thousands of people unfollowed him, upset that he unfollowed them, and he’s only following 1,500+ people right now. But he’s got a better handle on his Twitter feed than he’s had since he joined in 2008. He had over 50,000 followers, and he’s now down to 36,000+.

I’ve been thinking about Kyle’s nuclear option lately, especially as I’ve been looking at my general Twitter feed each morning, and it’s filled with noise, chatter, and completely useless garbage.

It’s motivational quotes, reminders to download a new ebook, more motivational quotes, invitations to webinars, articles about how high achievers who are not me achieve greatness, a #hashtag #filled #tweet, the latest Mashable article, and more motivational quotes.

The signal-to-noise ratio on Twitter is terrible. It’s like trying to find a radio station in the middle of the desert. There’s a lot of static, but no music.

It’s gotten worse as Twitter changed its algorithm, expanding on their “While You Were Away” feature. They want you to see the tweets they think you will appreciate.

I don’t. These new tweets are all terrible. All of them. (Except for @VeryLonelyLuke. That guy’s hilarious.)

So how can I reduce the noise? How can I restore some semblance of usefulness to my general Twitter stream?

Checking under the hood: I think I see your problem

I plugged my Twitter account into ManageFlitter to see if I could figure out the problem.

The problem was a whole bunch of people with between 50,0000 – 1 million followers, evenly split between people who were following me and not following me. There were about 3,000 people out of the 14,000 people I was following.

I even hid verified accounts from the mix, so I wasn’t including celebrities or news organizations.

What I was left with were the self-published authors and social media “experts” who yo-yo follow others to artificially inflate their accounts.

“Filthy rotten spammers” (FRS), as I like to call them.

FRSes will follow thousands of people, get a few thousand follow-backs, then unfollow everyone, and start all over. They do this to get past Twitter’s follower limit and grow their accounts by leaps and bounds.

You can easily spot an FRS: they have 50,000+ followers and have written a surprisingly small number of tweets.

This is how you can spot a Filthy Rotten Spammer on Twitter.
This is how you can spot a Filthy Rotten Spammer on Twitter.

The worst are the ones with more than 100,000 followers, and 150,000 tweets. These are the people who spend a few hours every day retweeting all the crap they find in their own Twitter feeds.

Seriously, some of these people send nearly 100 tweets in a day! When I checked their stream, it was retweet after retweet, with the occasional “You’re welcome!” sent to someone who thanked them for the RT. As if the FRS had done them a huge favor.

Pruning and trimming: Seeing some progress

With ManageFlitter’s help, I started unfollowing the people in the 50K-1M range who weren’t following me back.

I realized I had followed those people because they followed me first. I could tell, because as I moused over each name on ManageFlitter, their bio popped up, and I could see they weren’t someone I would normally reach out to first.

(Trust me, I don’t eagerly follow people offering yoga and vegetarian-eating tips unless we’re already friends.)

I unfollowed nearly 1200 people in an hour. I could have gone faster, but I did want to make sure I wasn’t unfollowing people I actually found interesting.

However, this wasn’t all the FRSes. I checked my Twitter feed again, and there was still a lot of crap in my stream. It was better, but not great.

I showed all the people who were following me, sorted by number of followers in descending order, and excluded all the verified accounts. This hid accounts for CNN, the New York Times, and Alyssa Milano er, I mean, Colts punter Pat McAfee. (Alyssa Milano loves baseball. Shut up.)

You can use these filters on ManageFlitter to hide people you may actually want to keep.
You can use these filters on ManageFlitter to hide people you may actually want to keep.

With this new list, I found another 500 or so people I could eliminate. Problem is, I hit ManageFlitter’s 1700-unfollowers-in-a-day limit, and have to wait for 24 hours to finish the job.

For $12/month, I get unlimited following, plus all kinds of other features, including creating white lists of high-value accounts, integrate and manage my Twitter lists, and various analytics capabilities. But I’m going finish this experiment first before I commit to it.

Initial results: Prognosis good

After my initial pruning, which took about 90 minutes, I could already see a difference in my Twitter stream. I rediscovered some old Twitter accounts that I hadn’t seen in months, including Doug Bursch, Cathy Day, and a few others.

While I’m not exploding my Twitter feed like Kyle did last year, I am going after large chunks of it and pruning off a lot of deadwood in the hopes that my network will yield a whole lot more signal than noise.

While Twitter will no longer be the conversational tool that it once was — thanks a lot, marketers and filthy rotten spammers! — it will at least be a whole lot more useful to me than it was just a few days ago.