Changes to Twitter set to expose spammers and charlatans
From Newbury in West Berkshire to New York, Twitter is changing for the better. The new look to Twitter profiles is going to make it much easier to spot spammers and those so-called Twitter experts who have spotted a bandwagon and are keen to exploit those finding their way on social media.
Twitter’s creative director, Doug Bowman has revealed a limited preview of how Twitter is going to look in the future and crucially it shows how long someone has been Tweeting and what their average number of daily tweets is – and what percentage of those are recent.
This automatically rewards longevity and those who were early adopters, but more importantly, in a stroke this will help spot those has recently joined and sent the trademark huge volumes of spammers or multilevel marketers. It will also identify dormant accounts and those claiming to be Twitter or social media experts who want to help new users while being exposed as inexperienced themselves. Almost daily we see these chancers emerging and have picked up the pieces with companies who have been fleeced by these types.
We operate three main accounts @nigel_morgan, @MorganPR and @DailyPRTips and while we cannot yet know the algorithm that will show what percentage of tweets are ‘recent’, we can look at how it might appear with those accounts right now, before I tweet again!
Now @nigel_morgan joined Twitter 839 days ago and with 6,579 tweets that would give me an average of 7.8 tweets per day. I tend to average more than that today compared with when I joined Twitter in 2007, which I guess it where the percentage of replies recently comes into play.
@MorganPR has been on Twitter 390 days and with 2,882 tweets. An average of 7.4 tweets per day. This is reassuringly similar to @nigel_morgan even though it is a more recent account, which reflects good consistency.
@DailyPRTips has been on Twitter 353 days ago with 298 tweets. An average of 0.8 tweets a day. Before you claim that should sure me an average of one tweet per day, it hasn’t always tweeted, it does retweet and reply, but absolutely could do better! Actually, this is a good example of how the new look Twitter would help me identify an issue with one of my own accounts.
The encouraging aspect for new users, especially businesses who venture on to Twitter, will be how this new approach will reward consistent and genuine use of the platform, something we help our social media clients achieve. But as ever, abandoning your Twitter feed will expose your brand to atrophy on this important social media platform. Contact Morgan PR today if you want to know how social media from a company that has been blogging since 2006, on Twitter since 2007... you get the idea!
Incidentally, if you want to know how long you have been on Twitter before these changes are implemented, check out the appropriately named website: When did you join Twitter?