This is not strictly a bookish writing post. Sorry. Normal service will resume next week … whatever normal is … but this is something writers may still be interested in.
I recently signed up to Crowdfire. Crowdfire is an app with a host of handy features that help you monitor your Twitter account. And it’s insanely useful.
You can turn off your Twitter email notifications so you don’t get a message when you get a new follower. Suddenly your inbox is so much clearer.
All you do is log in from time to time to check out who followed you, and decide whether you want to follow them back. And following them is as easy as clicking a button.
Awesome, right? 🙂
2. It also has a handy feature for finding accounts you might like to follow by searching similar accounts or even keywords which is great for building an online presence.
So cool 🙂
3. You can also monitor who unfollowed you and how many accounts you follow who don’t follow you back.
I never really thought about this before. In my naive little way, I assumed I’d done something to offend anyone who unfollowed me? That my tweets were not up to their high standards? They hated me tweeting about my books? And this is where I started to make some interesting discoveries.
- There are a lot of accounts out there trying to sell twitter followers. If I didn’t follow them, they struck me off their list.
This is fair enough. They weren’t reading my tweets anyhow.
2. There are folks without profile pictures and twitter handles they appear to have chosen by dropping their mouse on the keyboard. For example, @kiubydkgf. (Is this a language from Earth or a different galaxy?) These people haven’t posted one single tweet and yet they have thousands of followers.
Why is anyone following these peeps? Why?
I’m not sure what they are achieving with this strategy but they will not get a follow back.
3. And then there are the people who have a legitimate sounding profile, have made lots of tweets and have an epic amount of followers but who follow no-one. That’s right, no-one. And I’m not talking about some faceless corporation or some mega-famous person. I’m looking at you, author-I-never-heard-of.
It appears their game plan is: follow someone, wait until they follow back, then unfollow them immediately. Now maybe in the platform-building world this is a great strategy for … something???
There are a surprising amount of people using this method. But seriously, if you don’t want to read my tweets, I’m damned sure I’m not going to read yours.
Consider yourself unfollowed, weirdo.
To conclude, Crowdfire is a great app (and no, I wasn’t paid for this post) but it has thrown up some unexpected mysteries. If you can explain any of the strange behaviours I’ve described, please tell me in the comments below because I’m dying to know.
Suzie xx
P.S. Don’t forget my giveaway on Goodreads for Things Evie Eats is still open for entries until the 23rd August.