Twitter Tools, to control your Follows.

Struggling for control, of Twitter? Try my {TongueInCheek} review of three tools bit.ly/WGhu2G No sales pitch, I promise!

— C.G.Ayling (@CGAyling) October 18, 2012

Disclaimer: If you’re in search of pretty pictures, worth my thousand words – you’re in the wrong place, but if you enjoy reading words arrayed with care, if not artistry – read on. If you simply want to cut to the chase, scroll down to the heading JustUnfollow, where my reviews start.

I joined twitter in June 2011, and completely misunderstood what it could do. I never had the time to figure it out until very recently {last week, if you must know}. If you’re interested, you can read about that here.

Barely a week into actively using Twitter, and I’m already losing control and beginning to feel overwhelmed – this is not a good look on me. I know what I want Twitter for {nefarious, insidious dissemination of disinformation, followed by total global domination – oh, what, you don’t?}, unfortunately it seems Twitter is doing a much better job of using me, than I am of using it. I can’t tolerate that, thus my quest for self-improvement.

We humans are funny creatures, we have a massively over-sized tool {no, no! the brain, you wicked individual!}. That special organ allows us to develop implements to make our lives easier. The particularly smart among us simply use implements developed by others {my wife is one of those eggheads, I constantly steal ideas from her, including this one – naturally, I claim complete credit for them all}.

To accomplish my secret plan the first thing I needed was to seed the right audience. I figured out a way to do that here.

With my group of co-conspirators growing nicely, I soon ran into my first stumbling block, namely spam {aka the voice of revolutionary dissent, which had to be silenced!}. Obviously, one of the first tools I’d need would be one capable of identifying and eliminating these disembodied “voices”, I noted that and moved on. Then, just yesterday, I hit Twitter’s glass ceiling – discovering there are limits to how many people I can lure into my web, specifically a meager 2000 at a time! The answer to that seemed trivial, just unfollow people who don’t follow you back – after all, if they’re not going to listen to me, why should I listen to them?

With my initial Twitter problems identified, namely spam {aka, the murmuring voices of distraction} and Non-Followers {the exceptionally few able to resist my rhetoric}, I set out in search of tools to tackle them.

Bingo! {or Google-Oh as I prefero, take your pick} and I uncovered a tool named JustUnfollow. {“This is going to be easier than I thought”, I thought. Wrong, again.} Since I seldom accept the first thing I see, I did a little more research {aka asking my daughter} and found three tools that seemed interesting. {Actually I found twice that number, but I’m nothing if not lazy, and the others wouldn’t work – simply, which it has to be for me.}
Thus, my final list of initial Twitter tools is:- TwitCleaner, Contaxio, and JustUnfollow.

{For my initial list of final tools, click here***, hehe, got you again!}

The descriptions have been taken direct from their manufacturer’s page, in the registered add-ons section of Twitter.

JustUnfollow

Description: Unfollow Twitter users who do not follow you.

Immediately after authorizing JustUnfollow something intriguing grabbed my eye – an option to see “Who unfollowed me”. I’d love to know this, since identifying those not interested in what I’m saying might well cause me to refine my rhetoric {Who am I kidding? It would provide fodder for my “one strike and you’re out” policy!}
My curiosity piqued, I clicked “Who unfollowed me”, only to be told I have to tweet about using the feature in order to unlock it. {“They want me to endorse them, before I know they’re any good?”} I refused. I’m funny like that – I’m unwilling to spend money if I don’t see value, and even more reluctant to endorse products until I’m comfortable with them. {Strike One!}

I frowned, and continued. {Like most politicians, hard and fast policies only apply when they suit me.}

Next, I tried “Non Followers”, again JustUnfollow presented me with a ready-made tweet endorsing them – but they didn’t compel me to tweet it, I relaxed a little {after vocalizing loud disbelief so many could care so little as to not follow me}. I looked at the sort options, Oldest or Newest. That’s all? What about number of followers, or “klout” {just between you and me, I don’t even know what klout is, but it sounds like a nasty knobkerrie, used to beat sense into your opposition. I like it!} I chose Oldest, deriving enormous satisfaction as I mashed the “unfollow” button repeatedly. Sadly, my joy was short lived… JustUnfollow interrupted me with a rude and obnoxious message demanding I endorse them – again! The alternative to singing their praises was to “Upgrade”. Being the inquisitive sort, I clicked upgrade, only to gasp in shock. Whatever else they might be, these guys aren’t shy! They want me to pay how much! and that is every month!? {Though tempted, a rare wave of guilt overcame me. Feeding my kids, won the toss – it wasn’t a close call.} I backed away from the keyboard, hand firmly on my billfold.

Having been hit by severe sticker shock dis-heartened me, and though I’ve looked at the other features it was with a jaundiced eye, I won’t relate further thoughts.

The bottom line. In all, less than ten minutes with JustUnfollow told me it wasn’t the tool I wanted. Perhaps I’m being unfair, but that’s the way I feel – it just isn’t a good fit for my philosophy. First, I’m not interested in big numbers {unless the big number is five trillion}. What interests me is building relationships. Numbers seem to be JustUnfollow’s primary focus, that’s important stuff to many people, but I’m just not one of them. Second, I don’t like pushy salesmen, which is how their repeated insistence I tweet before I used their tool struck me. Third, severe sticker shock – perhaps for an outright purchase, but on a monthly basis?

I’d have been happy to tweet about their product (as I did for TwitCleaner), but only after I’d used JustUnfollow and found it to be worthwhile – I never got there. {Overcome as I was by my tight-fisted nature, or by my philosophy, of possibly even a bad day at work – you choose which.}

I’m not saying JustUnfollow doesn’t do what it advertises – indeed, I’m sure it does. They’re very responsive to tweets bearing their name – which shows they’re on top of things and concerned, which in turn is likely to translate into good technical support. JustUnfollow might be just what you’re looking for – it’s definitely worth giving them a try, and making up your own mind.

TwitCleaner

Description: Analyses your friends list, identifies the spammers, absent, non-interacting, boring & the bots. Easily trim your following of them & radically improve the quality of your Twitter experience.

Before I say anything, let me say this. TwitCleaner is a fantastic product, and it’s free. Kudos to its developer.

Unlike JustUnfollow, TwitCleaner is focused on analyzing the people you follow to help you decide who to unfollow. It gives you sound data to help you reach a good decision about every tweeter unlucky enough to make its “potentially garbage” lists.

It takes a few minutes to run, but you don’t have to wait on it. TwitCleaner will send you a DM with a link to your personal report as soon as it’s done, leaving you free to do the important stuff while you wait { tweet your heart out in whatever way gives your satisfaction, we’re all there for you}. As a measure of my esteem, TwitCleaner is literally the only reason I read Direct Messages.

Once alerted TwitCleaner has processed your leaders {those you “follow”, did I mention I hate that term?} you’ll find it has a simple to use interface. It groups people you follow into easy to identify categories. Every category is clearly described and bunched for side-by-side, person-to-person comparison. – to me this is incredibly useful as it helps me make {un}informed decisions about who I want to hear.

Hover your mouse over anyone’s avatar, and a tooltip pops up with TwitCleaner generated statistics about them. This includes an array of crucial data, including their tweet frequency, follow ratio, re-tweet percentage, link percentage {a bit of pure gold}, and other stats. Don’t like anything you see? Click their avatar, and they’re gone.

Examples of the grouping breakdown are:-

• Multiple @’s – people, or auto-responders, who tweet their thanks to multiple people at a time for following them. These are repeat offenders, to get into the group over 50% of their tweets are this type.
• Nothing But Links – repeat offenders who include links in too many of their tweets. The hover tooltips shows you the worst offenders and this group is automatically sorted with worst offenders at the top.
• Repeating the same URLs – these have something to push, and they’re relentless about it. Me, I don’t like being pushed.

There are other groupings, all of them insightful, and filled with worthwhile information. Speaking from a personal perspective, the most telling of the data on the TwitCleaner’s tooltip were the line marked “No interaction at all”, and “App spam” {They’re letting a program talk for them. Since I work with computers all day, I know they have nothing to say – literally}. Either of those lines on anyone’s avatar, no matter how cute their name or picture, and down goes the axe {“Thwack, and I don’t think he’s going to get up again this time!”}. Anyone fortunate enough to fall into TwitCleaner’s “Hardly Follow Anyone”, group also gets the axe – this is where I use the drag a box over them all and axe them in a heartbeat function with glee. I really, really don’t like snobs {except my favorite middle daughter…}.

Beneath every avatar is a tiny little link {this link should be a bit more prominent IMO} which takes you straight to their horse’s mouth {or is it their horse’s ass?} where you can make a truly informed decision.

Another nice touch is that if you’re in a hurry, or impatient, you can simply drag a box over any group of “offenders” and bam, they’re unfollowed. Please use that power with care, it’s more than a little like machine gunning your victims {personally, I prefer sniping them one at a time…}. If you find yourself doing this often, then perhaps JustUnfollow might be a better fit for you.

The bottom line. TwitCleaner is invaluable to me, I’ll gladly endorse it, and be only too happy to tweet about it regularly, though probably not every time and never with the canned messages offered – which you are free to edit by the way. Frankly I believe every Tweeter should be using TwitCleaner, it does a fantastic job of letting you get rid of the garbage for {imho} the right reasons. TwitCleaner isn’t about numbers. It’s about selecting content – if you’re following people who have nothing of value to say, or are saying nothing too often, or aren’t talking to their followers but at them, or are spamming links not soul… the list goes on, but TwitCleaner helps you decide according to the things important to you.

My only complaints about TwitCleaner? {you knew I’d have some didn’t you?} The link beneath the avatar needs to be a little bigger – since it takes you right to the potential offenders Twitter page it doesn’t need to have their twitter handle, just the word “Link” would be suffice. Some kind of white and black listing feature would be great, and save me the embarrassment of re-following my daughter… and those are my only complaints.
So, to Si {I’ve been desperate to say something smooth, and that really flows off the tongue}, the author of TwitCleaner, though this is not cash {expecting that from a starving author, well…} accept this post as tribute for a particularly fine tool. Well done.

Contaxio

Description: Quickly answer the question, “Should I follow back?” Manage your followers and following with easy-to-use, comprehensive views.

An amazingly sophisticated piece of software, with support for multiple social media platforms, including twitter. Contaxio is free to use for the vast majority of tweeters. It has a much more sophisticated interface than either JustUnfollow or TwitCleaner, naturally this makes its learning curve a little steeper – but it’s definitely worth the effort. Not only does Contaxio let you make informed decisions about those you follow, and who follow you, by presenting you with similar data to TwitCleaner, but it lets you sort the data, look at in multiple formats, export it to your computer, and build lists of follows to which to apply any of these operations. It also allows you to enter your own custom data about every follow.

All I’ve managed to do with Contaxio so far, is stuff similar to that which I’ve done with TwitCleaner. I’ve barely touched the surface of this product and already know it’ll have a permanent place in my Twitter Toolbox. I’m using Contaxio often and highly recommend it – if you have a need to manage your followers and those you follow {anyone that doesn’t must be a lot smarter than me, which is a lot of you, maybe even five trillion…} then Contaxio deserves a spot in your toolbox. Oh, and if you like it, Contaxio won’t break your piggy bank should you decide to subscribe – again, it’s worth mentioning that for most users subscribing won’t be necessary.

I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t done Contaxio justice in this review, so I’ll be dedicating a post to it sometime in the future, no promise as to when.

The Bottom, Bottom line.

Should you unfollow people that don’t follow you? That’s your choice, they might have something so compelling to say that you are, well… compelled to follow them. Me? I don’t like compulsion, and I don’t like people talking at me, as opposed to with me. I consider Twitter to be a place of dialog, dialog takes more than one. I’m very unlikely to continue following people who show they don’t have any interest in talking to me {they don’t follow me back}, but I’ll have logical reasons for unfollowing them – reasons that have virtually nothing to do with numbers. Because of that, the tools I’m sticking with, and recommending, are both TwitCleaner, and Contaxio – they complement each other well.

Regarding JustUnfollow. I might look at it again sometime in the future, should I ever arrive at the lofty height in the Twitterverse where I simply have to kill follows that don’t follow back. I don’t aspire to that, but for those to whom numbers are the most important thing – try JustUnfollow, it might be exactly what you’re looking for.

PS. These are my views, my truths, and my unpaid words. I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed them and that they’ve served your needs. If you did, since you’re already here… browse around, who knows – you might even find something you’d like {hint, I hear there are some exceedingly fine books hiding somewhere here – and I’m completely biased, and unanimous (Are you Being Served?) in that opinion:)}

PPS. I’d love to hear from you about any feedback you have on this post. Please post your comments to me on Twitter, you can reach me via this tweet or its hyperlink.

Struggling for control, of Twitter? Try my {TongueInCheek} review of three tools bit.ly/WGhu2G No sales pitch, I promise!

— C.G.Ayling (@CGAyling) October 18, 2012