During the months of May, June & July 2018, Twitter has been busy suspending fake or suspicious accounts – over 70 million of them so far. This is due to their decision to be more proactive in keeping their users safe from abuse and manipulation.
Many accounts with large followings have been affected by the latest Twitter Purge, including Katy Perry, Barack Obama, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. But, they aren’t the only ones. Regardless of how many followers you have, you quite possibly saw some sort of decrease over the last few months.
But, don’t freak out!
Even if you lost a substantial amount of followers, it’s not the end of the world. The latest Twitter purge actually good for your business! Here’s why:
Phony Followers Lessen Trust – Sadly, many people have resorted to using bots to amplify their social media follower count over the years in an effort to ‘prove’ how popular they are. For the typical user, though, these high followings can often be seen as a red flag. This is especially true for businesses that are not very well known, yet show an extremely high following. Of course, going from 500 to 500,000 followers overnight is also a dead giveaway.
When your followers suspect that you’ve been cushioning your follower count, they see it as the dishonest practice that it is. Don’t think for a second that your real followers aren’t smart enough to know about the use of fake followers to appear more influential. And if they can’t trust you to represent your influence honestly on social media, why should they trust any of your other claims?
Phony Followers Hurt Your Stats – Not only do they hurt your engagement rate, fake followers impact your other performance metrics, too. Fake accounts don’t interact genuinely with your social media campaigns. Bots leave annoying comments and can even get your social media account suspended.
Phony Followers Are Useless – These fake accounts simply provide numbers. They don’t increase positive engagement, spread brand awareness or make purchases. They’re simply sitting there, waiting to be discovered by real people researching your business to see if it is legit.
Phony Followers Ruin Your Reputation – In business, your reputation is of utmost importance and once you lose it on social media, it can be very difficult to get back. Being known as someone of integrity, who tells the truth and doesn’t participate in shady business practices should be your #1 priority when building your brand. It all comes back to the ‘Know, Like & Trust’ factor. While using phony accounts to boost your follower account may seem like a good idea, it’s really not.
What To Do Once The Latest Twitter Purge Is Over
Well, for one – Celebrate! All that worthless baggage is gone from your Twitter account. The accounts that are left should be active, legitimate users who made a conscious decision to follow you & see your content.
THOSE are the followers that actually mean something.
From here on out, focus on making their experience the best that it can be by providing exceptional content and following only the best practices on social media.
Make it a point to build an audience of real followers from now on. This, like any other worthwhile business endeavor, may take some time & effort, but the results will be more than worth it.
Some things you may want to try are:
- Find and follow other people and businesses that are influential in your niche. Sometimes they will follow you back, sometimes they won’t. But, either way, it gives you a nice baseline of accounts to interact with and be seen on social media.
- Make sure your profile shows substance. Having a completely filled out profile and regularly posted content gives potential followers a glimpse of what to expect from you and a reason to click the ‘like’ or ‘follow’ button.
- Comment on and share other people’s content. Self-promotion gets old and typically, post sharing is done on a quid pro quo basis. When you share other people’s posts and help them out, chances are better that they will share your content as well.
- Ask your email subscribers to follow you on social media. Chances are you don’t share the same exact content on social media as you do in your newsletter. Make them aware that they can find you in other places, too. They might not be following you there already. You won’t know until you ask.
While the Twitter Purge of 2018 has deleted a ton of fake & inactive accounts and brought the following down for some very popular people, the thing to remember is that losing phony followers is not a bad thing.
JVZoo only looks for those that have a genuine interest in who we are and what we do to follow us on any of our social media channels, including Twitter. That’s why we aren’t all that concerned about the latest Twitter purge and don’t think you should be, either. In the long run, the only followers that matter are the ones with whom you can build relationships with.
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