Categorizing Your Twitter Followers

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social network sites on the internet today. This particular social platform requires users to keep their post to fewer than 140 characters. Messages are intended to be nothing more than brief social exchanges however the online marketing community has still found a way to thrive on this site.

Members are generally 'drawn' to conversations that focus on topics in which they have an interest. In fact this is how you develop your list followers by attracting people to the comments you make or the information you may supply.

Social sites such as this are perfect for those who want to connect to others with similar interests but without a lot of effort. It is not all that unusual for a consistent user of this social networking site to develop quite a large list of followers. The issue now turns to the quality of the followers you actually attract.

Let's briefly examine the 5 types of followers that you may accumulate within your own social network on this site.

Shared Interest

These are the BEST types of followers to have. The point of any social networking site is to share comments, interests, and ideas with like minded people. By having followers who are genuinely attracted to your interests or ideas will only make any interactions more meaningful

Spam

These are marketers who literally troll social sites in search of people that can promote to. Their unsolicited advertising can be very annoying since once they found you they are usually relentless with their product pitches.

They are the junk mail of the online world.

It is recommended to report them to the help desk so that the site administrators can take the necessary corrective actions.

Phishers

Similar to spammers these people represent themselves as legitimate organizations. Their motives are to capture sensitive or personal information about you which obviously will be put to use in a detrimental way. 

It is recommended to ignore their solicitations and by no means click on any link they may send you. Once again report them to the site administrators.

Bots

These followers are really malicious programs that by and large are up to no good. Their intent is to take control of your computer in a way that is usually undetectable to you. Their intent is to use your computer as a tool for them to commit certain undesirable acts that could affect others while implicating you as the source.
 
Retweets

These types of followers are people who have been referred to a single tweet of yours that they may have found as interesting. Whether they have a genuine interest in you for what you represent is undetermined since a single tweet can't reflect that.

It is nice to get followers this way but as to whether there is a mutual interest in your basics interests or ideas can only be determined over time.

Having a large following on Twitter may be somewhat misleading once you realize the intent of some of those who follow you. This social platform is not immune to the shenanigans common to the rest of the internet. Online marketing companies are known to target anyone at social sites and this can result in spam. Even more of a concern are those whose intentions are more sinister in nature as they prey upon the innocent members of various social network sites. It is therefore wise to take notice of the types of followers you may have within your own social network of followers. Once they've been identified you have virtually neutralized them. At this point you can either block them or report them to site administrators.