How to Get Hundreds of New Twitter Followers Without Actually Wanting Them

Last week, I tweeted a link to a blog post I wrote called Deconstructing an MLM Pitch, which detailed one of the asinine ways multi-level marketers pitch their “opportunities.”  That link was retweeted by a few of my Twitter followers, and each of us then experienced what can only be referred to as “Tweeter’s regret.”

Why?

Because we were immediately followed, en masse, by MLM Twitter accounts.

I personally attracted 30 MLM followers in about half an hour, and every time I included the word “multi-level marketer” or “MLM” in a tweet, the process repeated itself.  While these numbers aren’t overwhelming, they are telling — and they obviously cheapen the usefulness of the “followers” metric when gauging a Twitter user’s “influence.”

The process itself makes sense: run a script that’s automated to follow anyone who mentions a key phrase on Twitter, and you’re guaranteed to bloat your numbers, because they’re doing the same thing.  It’s like an endlessly self-perpetuating cycle.  Therefore, if I can gain 30 “followers” without even wanting them, no wonder so many actual MLM Twitter accounts have followings in the 10,000+ range.

But what are all those followers good for?  Not much.  Considering most of them are robotic scripts, and considering most of those eventually get reported as spam and summarily deleted — at least half of my “new followers” were erased by Twitter the same day they were added — they don’t necessarily impact anyone’s Twitter experience.

They just clutter the tubes.

Which begs the question: if a million robotic followers are deleted from the system and nobody wants them around in the first place… how do they ever make any money for the multi-level marketers?

Tags: bullshit, Business, common sense, marketing douchebags, Social Media, Twitter