Is there a way to do this on Twitter?

by Dana_W
15 replies
A few days ago I decided to join the Twitter revolution. I know, I'm such an early adopter. I wanted to get an audience of internet marketers following me, and I also want to find other internet marketers to follow.

So, I found a big-name internet marketer on Twitter and just started signing up to follow every single person who was following him, on the theory that the vast majority of people who are following him would also be interested in IM.

(By the way, Twitter stopped me at 2000. They have secret pre-built limits.)

The good news - when you do this, a good percentage of people will follow you back, and also will visit your website/blog. I got hundreds of website visits this way. So within days, I got something like 345 people following me, and honestly I suspect I could have gotten even more if my profile and website were better optimized.

The bad news - I have close to 2000 people who I am now following. I only want to follow people who are following me back. My plan is to give everyone on the list a week to sign up to follow me, and then un-follow everyone who is not following me. Otherwise, I'll just have pages and pages of Tweets and it gets too time consuming.

So - is there a way to go through the list of people who I am following, and see which ones are following me? I can't see any way to do this.

And if not, can one of you geniuses please invent some software that does this? I'd be first in line to buy! What about Big Mike, the Greek God of Useful Software?
#twitter #twitter followers
  • Profile picture of the author Tim Franklin
    Hi, the twitter service is constantly evolving, I did some basic research into the Twitter API, which I found to be less than informative.

    I keep up with the developments of the twitter service hoping that soon it will become stable enough to begin creating software without having to spend hours updating programming when a change is made to the development process.

    I gave up on twitter, for a number of reasons, at least in the sense of creating a stable software interface.

    You can check the google groups on the twitter API, and you will see just how many problems they currently have, including the most outdated authentication service on the planet.

    There are limits, but they are published on the group.

    I suspect that twitter is build on top of Amazon AWS, ( incredible I know )

    They are using SQS, (simple que service) ( a guess on my part but it makes sense because they have these limits, because SQS has limits)

    Just take a look at some of the posts by developers on the google groups, many are now bald from trying to work it all out.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dana_W
      Interesting insight! I'm not very tech-y. I just finished an HTML 101 and a Java 101 type class. But I gather that what you are saying is that Twitter is constantly evolving so developing any software that works with it is an exercise in frustration.

      Bummer.

      I may have to go manually compare the list of close to 2000 people who I'm following...to the list of 345 people who are following me.

      I'm hoping not, though! Any Warriors have a solution for this dilemma?
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      • Profile picture of the author Tim Franklin
        Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

        Interesting insight! I'm not very tech-y. I just finished an HTML 101 and a Java 101 type class. But I gather that what you are saying is that Twitter is constantly evolving so developing any software that works with it is an exercise in frustration.

        Bummer.

        I may have to go manually compare the list of close to 2000 people who I'm following...to the list of 345 people who are following me.

        I'm hoping not, though! Any Warriors have a solution for this dilemma?
        Well there are some methods, here is an excerpt, from the API,

        followers

        Code:
        Returns the authenticating user's followers, each with current status inline.  They are ordered by the order in which they joined Twitter (this is going to be changed).
         
        URL: http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.format
        Formats: xml, json
        Method(s): GET  
        Parameters: 
        id.  Optional.  The ID or screen name of the user for whom to request a list of followers.  Ex: http://twitter.com/statuses/followers/12345.json or http://twitter.com/statuses/followers/bob.xml
        page.  Optional. Retrieves the next 100 followers.  Ex: http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.xml?page=2
        lite. Optional.  Prevents the inline inclusion of current status.  
        Must be set to a value of true.  Ex: http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.xml?lite=true
        As you can see, they dont go out of their way, to really provide a more exploitive, format,

        If you have curl, you could devise a method, however, the system works using basic auth for browser use,

        If you had a list of followers you wanted to leave,

        http://twitter.com/notifications/leave/12345.xml

        where 12345 is the id of the person you no longer want to follow, I would do this using curl, it would still require some work, copy paste, execute.
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        • Profile picture of the author Dana_W
          Interesting, Tim! I appreciate the tips. I'm not sure if I'm capable of taking advantage of that, due to being somewhat technologically impaired, but I'll look over it and see what I can figure out.
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  • Profile picture of the author o_brient
    Hi Dana,

    Doesn't look to be any obvious way.

    I'm sure a script could be created to extract the ids of following Vs followers and there is a Twitter API available.

    If there isn't an app out there, there soon will be ;-)

    Tom
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    • Profile picture of the author Dana_W
      Oh well. I'll probably have to spend a couple of hours just doing it manually.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tim Franklin
        Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

        Oh well. I'll probably have to spend a couple of hours just doing it manually.
        Sadly, that is about the size of the situation, it is easier to do manually than to create xml programming to do it for you, more so when you consider that what works today may not work tomorrow.

        From a developers standpoint, twitter is doomed, since they are planning on using Oauth, in the future, which is something that will never work for a wide methodology, or platform use.

        Unless twitter changes the service will not last, over the long run.
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  • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
    Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

    A few days ago I decided to join the Twitter revolution. I know, I'm such an early adopter. I wanted to get an audience of internet marketers following me, and I also want to find other internet marketers to follow.

    So, I found a big-name internet marketer on Twitter and just started signing up to follow every single person who was following him, on the theory that the vast majority of people who are following him would also be interested in IM.

    (By the way, Twitter stopped me at 2000. They have secret pre-built limits.)

    The good news - when you do this, a good percentage of people will follow you back, and also will visit your website/blog. I got hundreds of website visits this way. So within days, I got something like 345 people following me, and honestly I suspect I could have gotten even more if my profile and website were better optimized.

    The bad news - I have close to 2000 people who I am now following. I only want to follow people who are following me back. My plan is to give everyone on the list a week to sign up to follow me, and then un-follow everyone who is not following me. Otherwise, I'll just have pages and pages of Tweets and it gets too time consuming.

    So - is there a way to go through the list of people who I am following, and see which ones are following me? I can't see any way to do this.

    And if not, can one of you geniuses please invent some software that does this? I'd be first in line to buy! What about Big Mike, the Greek God of Useful Software?
    hi!

    I'd like to add some similar experience that i have had. I was frustrated and stopped following any more people. And that is exactly what I did for three weeks. but strangely, a lot of people that I was following started following me back in this extended period.

    And I saw around 35 people following me in the third week as well.

    So, I infer that it is best to actually give some people some more time to follow you back than a week!
    ..
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    • Profile picture of the author Dana_W
      You know, I do notice that a few more people are following me every day on Twitter so I should probably be a little more patient.

      I did un-follow some people who write in languages other than English, and a few people that I checked on and realized they hadn't been on Twitter in a month or so.
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      • Profile picture of the author mlevenhagen
        I use Tweetdeck to organize those I'm following.. I'm not following people like crazy like you; I'm just letting it build naturally, but still I have some Tweeters I'm following that post dozens of times a day.. there are specific people and friends I want to follow more closely and it's easy for them to get lost in the noise of all the other tweets..

        TweetDeck allows you to create groups.. so you can choose who you follow more closely or by topic or whatever..

        I think there are a couple apps that help in this department..
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  • Profile picture of the author IM-software
    Hi Dana,

    it took time. However, from now on, "yes we can"
    Just perform a quick search with "Following vs followers" +"software"
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  • Profile picture of the author Marty S
    Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

    A few days ago I decided to join the Twitter revolution. I know, I'm such an early adopter. I wanted to get an audience of internet marketers following me, and I also want to find other internet marketers to follow.
    Hi Dana. I am not sure why you are choosing to follow IMers because honestly, as a segment, they are the toughest to sell anything to, have the poorest quality traffic and generally avoid social engagement due to automation. In fact, of those accounts which are so eager to follow you (a new account) they will generally (99%) be shoving useless clickbank links down your Twitter stream.

    Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

    So, I found a big-name internet marketer on Twitter and just started signing up to follow every single person who was following him, on the theory that the vast majority of people who are following him would also be interested in IM.

    (By the way, Twitter stopped me at 2000. They have secret pre-built limits.)

    The good news - when you do this, a good percentage of people will follow you back, and also will visit your website/blog. I got hundreds of website visits this way. So within days, I got something like 345 people following me, and honestly I suspect I could have gotten even more if my profile and website were better optimized.
    This is really not good news at all Dana. Firstly, any quality Twitter user will immediately recognize you as just another ClickBank IMer. Why else would you be following 2,000 people in such a short time, with so few Tweets? Secondly, your quality score (Tweets-Followers-Following-StartDate) is tantamount to a SPATTERER, even though I know YOU are not.

    The problem is, anyone choosing to follow a Twitter user with stats like yours, will gladly be sending you automated crap all day long, and not engaging with you in the social spirit Twitter was meant to be.

    Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

    The bad news - I have close to 2000 people who I am now following. I only want to follow people who are following me back. My plan is to give everyone on the list a week to sign up to follow me, and then un-follow everyone who is not following me. Otherwise, I'll just have pages and pages of Tweets and it gets too time consuming.

    So - is there a way to go through the list of people who I am following, and see which ones are following me? I can't see any way to do this.
    I actually use a program called BirdBrain on my iPhone for this. Now since I follow only select Tweeps, this is an easy way to manage and check for the quality of Tweep that has just followed me. I can also protect them from being deleted accidentally, like for example Lance Armstrong who I follow, but will never follow me. I want his tweets during the Tour de France.

    Originally Posted by Dana_W View Post

    And if not, can one of you geniuses please invent some software that does this? I'd be first in line to buy! What about Big Mike, the Greek God of Useful Software?
    IMHO, there is a fundamental flaw in seeking out mass-unfollow software for Twitter. I am sure there be will those (40,000+ IMer Social Media Experts) that will disagree here, but using such software also means that you are unlikely to have any success with Twitter.

    The best way to get followers on Twitter is to start Tweeting about your topics, seeking others who do the same - and engaging them on an individual basis. Yes, this is very slow, but you have to start looking at Twitter as a social venue, and not purely a numbers game. If you Tweet quality and engage with others, Tweeps will be seeking you out, and then you can choose if you want to follow them back. I follow maybe 1 of 10 Tweeps that follow me. That's how lame (poor quality score) most Tweeps are these days. They only serve to reduce the quality of my own stream and quality score so I ignore their request, and if their quality score is really low, I also block and report them.

    Being much more selective and methodical (yes, slow) will result in a much higher quality score for you and Twitter will only then become a quality resource for you that proves it's worth in time well spent.


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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
    She has probably figured this out by now.

    This thread was 2 years old.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
    Marty, actually Im-software is the one that brought it back with 1 post to promote their software.

    These old threads are easy to miss sometimes but when I saw Dana asking this question a red flag went up because I know she is one of the Twitter experts now.

    But it does suck to write an essay for an answer only to find out it's for nothing
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