By making the mistake of following someone on Twitter and thinking they were legitimate, I was stung by a serial spammer.  I’ve listed some characteristics to look for from your followers who could be potential spammers.  Some people use a combination of these tricks, while others will use only one.  So put on your private investigator hat and I.D. your follower stream:

1.    Be wary of followers who use a common Twitter icon instead of a photo.

2.    You have cause to worry if many of your followers have the same icon.

3.    Make sure your follower has a legitimate website – if it leads to doom, get out and run an anti-virus program immediately.

4.    If your follower has a -0- tweets beware – especially if they have hundreds of following them.

5.    Here are a few scenarios to beware of:
a.    2,000 following / 1,403 followers / 0 tweets
b.    1,229 following / 452 followers / 2 tweets

6.    Spammers like to misspell parts of their name – like “antiviraus”.

7.    Beware of web pages from followers that begin with cli. Or bit.ly.

8.    If the location of your follower is USA or not available at all – look out.

9.    If there is no bio information or if the bio sounds a little too good to be true.

10.    A red flag should go up if you start receiving direct messages with strange requests from a follower.

11.    I’m still hoping we will be able to delete tweets that pop up with our name in the middle from spammers and p*o*r*n  tweeters.

12.    The best thing about Twitter is the “Block” feature. When you don’t want someone to be following you or don’t want them to be found in your list, use block and use it often.

It’s always good to be cautious, but try not to be suspicious of everyone, and do recall the day you first joined Twitter.  Let’s be sure to reach out and welcome the newbie’s.