This is part of a series on “Social Media and Farmers” (Twitter & LinkedIn – for bushies). I’ve written down the basic policy I figured out via trial & terror, as it contains points other social media users might like to think about too.<\/p>\n
Many of the people I follow grew up in the bush and\/or have a particular interest in the bush (people in touch with the practical realities of life)<\/p>\n
I regularly check out all new followers and recommend others do this weekly if not as soon as new Twitter followers appear.\u00a0 I check the name, bio, location, pic & tweets.\u00a0\u00a0 If further clarification is needed, I check who else the new follower is following & maybe also who is following them.\u00a0\u00a0 The latter is a good way of discovering fake and spam accounts, as they usually set up a web of accounts.\u00a0 Checking might sound tedious but it really does only take a few seconds.\u00a0 I follow anyone who follows me, if it looks like we’ll get along (see points up the top).\u00a0 But:<\/strong><\/p>\n Automatically preventing spam (computer\/robot) accounts from following your account:<\/strong><\/p>\n Some people like to use an app called ‘True Twit Validation Services’.<\/a>\u00a0 When anyone follows them, they receive a tweet with a link that must be clicked, to confirm they are a real person not an automated spam account.<\/p>\n Most people find it fairly irritating to have to do and I don’t recommend using follower approval services such as this. Simply check your followers regularly and block any that are really dodgy.\u00a0 Someone using True Twit Validation should be checking their followers regularly anyway.<\/p>\n Private (locked) twitter accounts:<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s possible to set up a twitter account that is private.\u00a0 If your twitter account is private, all followers have to be approved by you, and your tweets are not seen by others.<\/p>\n Personally I can’t see the point in having a private account on twitter. Because:<\/p>\n There is a joke that goes around twitter along the lines of…”private account? What are you tweeting, nuclear missile launch codes?”<\/p>\n If the messages you are writing are sensitive, then social media is not the place to be.<\/p>\n I might have checked your account when you first started out on twitter, and not followed you, due to insufficient information on your account and no track record to see.\u00a0 This is why it’s vital to include a pic, bio & location as soon as you set up your account.\u00a0 Most people will only check a new account, and decide whether or not to follow, once. No second chances, down the track!<\/p>\n Note: The majority of this blog post was written in February 2013. It has since been updated, and the above info is current as at August 2016.<\/p>\n This is part of a series on “Social Media and Farmers” (Twitter & LinkedIn – for bushies). I’ve written down the basic policy I figured out via trial & terror, as it contains points other social media users might like to think about too. My twitter policy regarding who I follow, and managing followers: I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[223],"tags":[224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2835"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5358,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions\/5358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
It’s always possible I missed following someone that I’d actually really like to, so if that’s you, don’t hesitate to sing out!<\/h3>\n
Summary of blog posts with tips on how to best use Twitter:<\/h3>\n
\n