There are any number of bots (i.e. robots) on Twitter. These are accounts that are programmed to tweet when they find a certain term. Send a tweet out about iPad and you will immediately see a bunch of spam tweets responding to yours.

I re-tweeted a post about the top WordPress plugins on 3/30, and a friend RT’d it. An account called @DesignEcho re-tweeted  that one and added the hashtag #Design. @DesignEcho is using Twitterfeed (a sure sign of a scheduled tweet). The first instance of the RT was at 6:45pm.

Unfortunately for it, the bot then continued RT’ing its own tweet at 7:16pm,  9:51pm, 11:21pm, and 11:52pm. It looked like this by the end:
evolutionfilesMar 30, 5:36pm via TweetDeck

RT @anitasearchguru @bkmacdaddy: Top 100 #WordPress Plugins – The Best Of The Rest goo.gl/Dvnxt

Design_EchoMar 30, 6:45pm via twitterfeed

RT @evolutionfiles RT @anitasearchguru @bkmacdaddy: Top 100 #WordPressPlugins – The Best Of The Rest ht…

Design_EchoMar 30, 7:16pm via twitterfeed

RT @Design_Echo RT @evolutionfiles RT @anitasearchguru @bkmacdaddy: Top 100 #WordPress Plugins – The Bes.

Design_EchoMar 30, 9:51pm via twitterfeed

Design_EchoMar 30, 10:21pm via twitterfeed

Design_EchoMar 30, 10:52pm via twitterfeed

RT @Design_Echo RT @Design_Echo RT @Design_Echo RT @Design_EchoRT @evolutionfiles RT @anitasearchguru @…

When Twitter first started, a lot of people thought that you could judge a person by the number of followers they had. In other words, a person would be considered popular if they has a large number of others following them.

As Twitter usage has grown, this has become less and less important. It is not the number of followers, but rather how much the person engages those followers.

Let me give you an example. A certain person on Twitter has 37,000 followers from using one of the many auto following programs. This software automatically follows people for him, waits until they follow back, and then unfollows them.  This results in a huge following, BUT none of these people really know who the main person is.

The person in question does not engage any of these followers. He tends to schedule his tweets in advance, and never stops to actually talk to anyone, nor does he RT other people’s posts. IMHO, he is little more than a robot here on Twitter, which does not make me want to follow him, nor to ask questions.

Twitter is all about engaging your followers, your prospects, and your customers. Why else would you want to be active here? Many of us share information, ask and answer questions, and even repost (ReTweet) other tweets. (Just don’t get me started on people who protect their updates! That is a whole ‘nother post.)

Many of us who have been on Twitter for longer than a year understand this. People like @ChrisBrogan, @iamkhayyam, @debng, and myself (@searchguru) have worked hard to build up their followers by talking and sharing with them.

Try it. Reach out and share information, or a pleasant thought with someone else. It doesn’t hurt.