Don’t Be a Twitter Yo-Yo

I wrote this post a while ago and then decided to sit on it. That is until a few hours ago when inspired to go ahead and post due to my most recent and egregious encounter with a Twitter Yo-Yo.

We @eBizROI have been investing more in Twitter as part of our integrated social media strategy as we feel that Twitter offers marketing benefits for both b2b and b2c marketers using the Internet to generate leads and sales, both for our Internet marketing agency and the clients we service. Twitter is a great communication channel to engage and communicate with clients and suppliers, partners and pundits.

Part of the eBiz ROI community management ritual is to respond to Twitter follows and where appropriate follow them back, followed rapidly (our goal at least) by a custom, direct message that is reflective of the fact that we took the time to review the new followers Twitter profile page to get acquainted and determine if a follow back to their Twitter profile is relevant and appropriate.

There were two follows that were evaluated in this manner before 11 am this morning. Within 50 minutes of @insideview following us, we reviewed their profile and based on what we saw, decided to follow them back, then sent a custom direct message reflective of our review of their profile and follow back process.

The second follower, who with will power of steel I will not reveal, had done the @eBizROI Twitter follow/unfollow cycle (Twitter Yo-Yo) in under an hour. Really? Is that how your business, who claims to “help people and businesses generate income from Social Media including: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google + and Blogs” rolls? I feel bad for your clients assuming you have any. Don’t worry, you will only be outed by the readers who take the time to read this post and then take the extra effort to perform an the following long tail query on Google …

 “help people and businesses generate income from Social Media including: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Google + and Blogs” site:twitter.com

 … or so I thought. This search turned up 30 twitter profiles with the exact same profile description! Good for you for being in the top 4!! After reviewing the search results, I felt bad not only for you and your poor misguided soul as someone obviously sold you and the other 29 profile owners in the SERPs a steaming bag of dog pooh or maybe there is just one of you with 30 fake twitter profiles? Unclear if this Twitter Yo-Yo is the victim or the predator.

Here is the rest the previously created Twitter Yo-Yo post whose publishing today was inspired by you, the epitome of the Twitter Yo-Yo.

Put your hands together please for our next comedy act, the one, the many, the TWITTER YO-YO!

If you are a Twitter user with more than one tweet, you have no doubt encountered at least one and likely many Twitter Yo-Yos. This is how we, eBiz ROI have found is the most effective means to attract the Twitter Yo-Yo.

Step 1 Produce unique, quality content that fills an information need.

Step 2 Create a catchy headline well below the 140 character limit.

Step 3 Share that headline, link to quality content with perhaps a hash tag or two where appropriate.

Step 4 Watch as Twitter Yo-Yos begin to follow you for a day or so (the inspriation of this post was under 1 hr!) then unfollow to make the Twitter Yo-Yo follower/follows count look more balanced.

Like some Twitter users, eBiz ROI reviews individual follows and then decides on a case-by-case basis on whether or not the Twitter user that followed @eBizROI is relevant to follow back. The choice is not personal but based on interest and relevance to us and our non Yo-Yo followers.

There is no obligation to follow a Twitter user back solely in exchange for the follow received. In Google+ for instance, just because a user adds someone to a circle, it does not mean they will necessarily get added back. Why would it be any different on Twitter?

It seems that there is a high percentage of Twitter users follow only to fish for follow backs. Now say that ten times fast. The point here is that these Twitter users have no interest in actually following users regardless of the quality relevancy and timeliness of their tweets, retweets or to engage in any meaningful way, but are only interested in one thing: to build an artificially inflated Twitter following providing a false perception of their social media prowess, influence and reach (e.g. increase Klout Score).

These Twitter Yo-Yos will stop following within a day or two (or sooner!) whether or not you follow them back. They’re generally easy to spot as they have very few tweets and often times much less followers than they are following even though they change the users they follow quicker than you or I change our underwear (i.e. daily!)

It’s these Twitter Yo-Yo’s that devalue the Twitter ecosystem for individuals who want to engage and legitamite businesses marketing online while using Twitter in some case to provide customer service with the goal to genuinely connect, communicate and collaborate online.

Twitter Yo-Yos, however, on a quest for fame and fortune through amassing large numbers of Twitter followers, will never add value to the conversation or to followers they duped into following back, then dropped. The follow backs won’t be the influencers they long for as Twitter influencers won’t be fooled by the Twitter Yo-Yo tactics, at least not for long.

The Twitter Yo-Yo may be better served by simply purchasing fake Twitter users for pennies per user, who are likely other like minded Twitter Yo-Yos or bots. That will get them just as far as Twitter Yo-Yo tactics while leaving legitimate Twitter users to their Internet marketing, recruiting and customers service activities.

If you enjoyed this post, follow eBiz ROI on twitter at @eBizROI and we will likely follow you back, Twitter Yo-Yos aside 🙂

Note: Buying Twitter users violates the Twitter Terms of Service and can result in the suspension of the purchaser’s Twitter account, so don’t try this tactic unless willing to risk a Twitter profile and all investments to date in developing and promoting it.