How to deal with Twitter spam

It was time to act when an email appeared titled “making money w/mlm is now following you on Twitter!”

That’s one follower I certainly won’t follow back. This spammer did little to hide his or her intent. Other Twitter spam merchants are more stealthy.

I weed them out this way:

How to spot a Twitter spam account

• Giveaway names
  ‘Making money w/mlm’ is a dead giveaway. Real names can be more obtuse or lyrical, but be warned, spammers also hide behind real-sounding names
• Glamorous photographs
  Let’s face it, attractive young blond women who look vaguely like supermodels or Playboy pin-ups are unlikely followers. Of course there are good-looking people among my genuine followers, you included, but spammers use over-glamorous photographs as a lure.
• Number following
  Nobody, but nobody, has 3000 friends. So people who are following large numbers of Twitter accounts are automatically suspect. The exception to this rule are people in roles such as tech support.
• Following follower ratio
  Someone who follows many people but only has a few followers in return is automatically suspect. You can find tools to help automate the process of purging these from your follower list.
• Location
  I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I  don’t know anyone in India or the Philippines. Of course that doesn’t make everyone from those places a spammer.
• Bio
  If the bio includes a phrase like “Entrepreneurial marketing leader – passionate about brands marketing technology” the person behind it is almost certainly a spammer. Incidentally this bio is a real one from someone who followed me yesterday. And the word "passionate" appearing anywhere is a red flag.
• Links
  Web links with terms like erasedebt.com, richness.com and so on are dead giveaways.

If a new follower arrives and I can tick the boxes on more than two of these bullet points, I’m going to block them.

Update: if you haven’t seen Twitter spam, this explains it: Something’s Going Down @Twitter