I'm irresistable to real estate agents.
July 10, 2010 6:25 PM Subscribe
Who else has gotten unexpected Twitter followers because of a misinterpreted tweet?
Today I had an odd experience on Twitter. I sent out a tweet about going to the Pitchfork Music Festival next week and stated that I was excited about seeing the band Beach House, among others.
Minutes later, I discovered that I had just been followed by a real estate operation in Palm Springs CA. I immediately surmised that they took the reference to the band to mean instead real estate and automatically followed me. There has been nothing in my Twitter stream ever that would indicate I was in the market for a home in the CA desert. I presume there is a script or bot involved.
I then followed this up with a couple of tweets about my surprise at this, in the process using the words "real estate" and "house hunting". In the next couple of hours, I found myself followed by four other Twitter accounts all having to do with residential real estate.
My question is what other similar experiences have people had acquiring unexpected followers due to tweet content somehow being misconstrued by whatever mechanism people use to select other users on Twitter to follow?
I'm not really interested in being followed by thousands, but if there are some methods I could use to make myself more attractive to others on Twitter with common interests, I'd like to know about it.
Today I had an odd experience on Twitter. I sent out a tweet about going to the Pitchfork Music Festival next week and stated that I was excited about seeing the band Beach House, among others.
Minutes later, I discovered that I had just been followed by a real estate operation in Palm Springs CA. I immediately surmised that they took the reference to the band to mean instead real estate and automatically followed me. There has been nothing in my Twitter stream ever that would indicate I was in the market for a home in the CA desert. I presume there is a script or bot involved.
I then followed this up with a couple of tweets about my surprise at this, in the process using the words "real estate" and "house hunting". In the next couple of hours, I found myself followed by four other Twitter accounts all having to do with residential real estate.
My question is what other similar experiences have people had acquiring unexpected followers due to tweet content somehow being misconstrued by whatever mechanism people use to select other users on Twitter to follow?
I'm not really interested in being followed by thousands, but if there are some methods I could use to make myself more attractive to others on Twitter with common interests, I'd like to know about it.
There are a bunch of twitter users who just follow all recent public tweeters in hopes of a follow back. Generally, these people will unfollow you if you show no signs of following them after a few days.
The best way for people to find you, I think, is if they use the search function for stuff you're interested in - eg, indie? Of course, you could do the same thing: search for phrases that you're interested in, and send an @ reply to the people who have similar interests in hopes of striking up a dialogue.
posted by estlin at 6:31 PM on July 10, 2010
The best way for people to find you, I think, is if they use the search function for stuff you're interested in - eg, indie? Of course, you could do the same thing: search for phrases that you're interested in, and send an @ reply to the people who have similar interests in hopes of striking up a dialogue.
posted by estlin at 6:31 PM on July 10, 2010
This happens to everyone. I'll tweet about having to laundry and I'll get followed by a dry cleaner. I whined about American Airlines and their customer service started following me, encouraging me to follow them and DM the deets of my problem (and I got 10,000 miles) . Same with ATT. I'd say about 10% of my tweets will result in people following me based on whatever keyword they're looking for. Or oil changes. Someone reads an article on how they have to be on twitter and voila. It only really works for them if you follow them back which I usually don't (except temporarily in the case of ATT and AA). I'll usually click on their twitter stream and if it is something interesting, I might join, but hasn't happened yet. (The drycleaner has a great offer for his twitter followers but it is 40 miles away).
Occasionally a real person starts following me and if they're interesting I'd follow back. I get "real people" followers when I tweet about interesting stuff. That's how you can meet likeminded people.
....and then there's the porn spam followers. If they're really spam, I'll report them to twitter.
posted by birdherder at 6:36 PM on July 10, 2010
Occasionally a real person starts following me and if they're interesting I'd follow back. I get "real people" followers when I tweet about interesting stuff. That's how you can meet likeminded people.
....and then there's the porn spam followers. If they're really spam, I'll report them to twitter.
posted by birdherder at 6:36 PM on July 10, 2010
The best is Fart Robot. I don't think he follows you but he retweets every tweet with "fart"
posted by wrnealis at 6:42 PM on July 10, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by wrnealis at 6:42 PM on July 10, 2010 [3 favorites]
If you're interested in connecting with those of similar interests as you, could you send private messages to those who use the same hashtags as you? A little friendly hello, perhaps?
You can't DM people who aren't following you for exactly this reason-- spammers would be all over it.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 6:48 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]
You can't DM people who aren't following you for exactly this reason-- spammers would be all over it.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 6:48 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]
Hi, yeah, I made a joke about Gaelic Hurling and was immediately followed by a very sincere enthusiast.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:32 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:32 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]
Used the hashtag #endtimes as a joke. Bad idea. Followed by people who showered me with bible quotes.
posted by scblackman at 8:15 PM on July 10, 2010
posted by scblackman at 8:15 PM on July 10, 2010
Yes, this happens to me daily. I also get followed by people who have zero connection to me and what I talk about, with high follower/following counts, that are clearly following me to try to inflate their counts.
I block all of those people. I'd have probably 10x more followers if I didn't do that, but they would be bogus.
If you mention seinfeld in your tweets you'll get a response from a bot. Same with the Spanish Inquisition. Those are kind of funny.
posted by micawber at 8:24 PM on July 10, 2010
I block all of those people. I'd have probably 10x more followers if I didn't do that, but they would be bogus.
If you mention seinfeld in your tweets you'll get a response from a bot. Same with the Spanish Inquisition. Those are kind of funny.
posted by micawber at 8:24 PM on July 10, 2010
"Forex, golf, porn, mommy blogger," and "#tcot" are probably your largest auto-follow words.
Try it.
Then block them.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:34 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]
Try it.
Then block them.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:34 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]
I've gotten unexpected Twitter followers due to my username, because part of it is apparently shorthand for some business specialty.
I got followed by one random guy, and added him back because he tweets interesting things. But then it got much easier for the rest of the community to assume that I was part of all that, and the follows snowballed.
I am going to guess the best way to get a good Twitter network going is to be part of the larger internet presence for your interests -- participate on forums, encourge people to follow you in your signature, etc.
posted by Several Unnamed Sources at 9:03 PM on July 10, 2010
I got followed by one random guy, and added him back because he tweets interesting things. But then it got much easier for the rest of the community to assume that I was part of all that, and the follows snowballed.
I am going to guess the best way to get a good Twitter network going is to be part of the larger internet presence for your interests -- participate on forums, encourge people to follow you in your signature, etc.
posted by Several Unnamed Sources at 9:03 PM on July 10, 2010
I signed up on twitter, can't even remember the reason why now. I've never tweeted anything...ever. And yet, every once in awhile, I get an email that "so and so is following you on twitter." 9 times out of 10, it's someone that I don't know. I have no idea how they found me. At least there is some logic in your scenario (Beach House = real estate).
posted by kaybdc at 9:08 PM on July 10, 2010
posted by kaybdc at 9:08 PM on July 10, 2010
My name is Kia and rather predictably I have car dealerships following me. I'm not pronounced like the cars so this makes me crazy.
Use your location, with a hashtag, and chat about local what-not if you are interested in connecting with local 'tweeps.' I got followers for snarking on a particular bus route.
posted by kmennie at 12:42 AM on July 11, 2010
Use your location, with a hashtag, and chat about local what-not if you are interested in connecting with local 'tweeps.' I got followers for snarking on a particular bus route.
posted by kmennie at 12:42 AM on July 11, 2010
I get added by legitimate strangers all the time - turns out my username is the name of an Asian restaurant chain. Now I feel bad for all the people who added me because they love their dim sum.
posted by Omnomnom at 6:37 AM on July 11, 2010
posted by Omnomnom at 6:37 AM on July 11, 2010
I posted about this awesome Cthulhu hand puppet and got followed by a hardcore metal band.
posted by Gortuk at 7:03 AM on July 11, 2010
posted by Gortuk at 7:03 AM on July 11, 2010
Tee hee! A friend and I recently made a game of doing this. You just tweet a list of random nouns, and see who you can get to follow you.
I also get amusement from the retweet bots. I mentioned cat farts once, and a farty bot retweeted me with something like "ErikaB just dropped a bomb." I'm juvenile enough to have thought that was pretty funny!
posted by ErikaB at 11:46 AM on July 11, 2010
I also get amusement from the retweet bots. I mentioned cat farts once, and a farty bot retweeted me with something like "ErikaB just dropped a bomb." I'm juvenile enough to have thought that was pretty funny!
posted by ErikaB at 11:46 AM on July 11, 2010
I made some snide comment about one of the more nutty toronto mayoral candidates and was followed by a ton of his supporters. Who apparently missed my point.
posted by custard heart at 5:19 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by custard heart at 5:19 PM on July 11, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
My question is what other similar experiences have people had acquiring unexpected followers due to tweet content somehow being misconstrued by whatever mechanism people use to select other users on Twitter to follow?
Happens all the time. People use software to auto-follow anyone that mentions a predefined set of keywords. Once I mentioned the band metric and they started following me. I mentioned tequila once and a distributor started following me. I usually unfollow and block such spammy followers. You'll know when non-marketing types follow you.
posted by special-k at 6:28 PM on July 10, 2010