As a business owner learning about social media, it was very hard for me to separate the hype from reality.   For instance, I wondered how some people ended up having 50,000 followers.   A person with that many followers would have to be a wonderful resource for information, or at least entertainment.    In turns out, like so often on the internet,  that’s not always the case.   Many “popular” people on Twitter are just marketers who built their list using various tricks.

There are many secrets that you don’t learn about until it’s too late.   Twitter has a lot of accounts that are fake or automatic programs.   One insider told me that about 60-70% of Twitter accounts are bots (auto program).

What turns off a lot of business owners and professionals is the sheer amount of hype and self promotions that goes on within Twitter.   The spam is just overwhelming.   The only way to deal with it sanely is to regard Twitter as a giant swap meet.   Everyone is there to sell information of some sort.   You will get the hucksters, the professionals, the well-meaning but clueless new user, and a variety of other types.    Marketers and spammers are going to be the loudest and most vocal.

If you walk into the Twitter swap meet with the expectation that everyone is there to sell you something, you won’t be as annoyed.   You will then be prepared to sift through the trash and find the nuggets of gold.  It took me a while to figure out how to deal with the information overload but once I did so, I did manage to find useful information that expanded my knowledge.   I would encourage you to be open about who you follow on Twitter.  You never know what you may learn.

Here’s what I see about marketers and Twitter:

Readers, how do you handle the marketers who follow you?

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