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Dave Charest

Speaker | Host | Content Creator | Marketer

Can You Solve This Twitter Mystery?

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Would you be happy or concerned if you uncovered this Twitter mystery?

What would you do if you found out someone was promoting your project via Twitter?

Normally, you’d think, “cool!” Isn’t that the goal, anyway? Don’t you want people to be promoting your stuff?

But what if the way they’re doing it isn’t exactly on the up and up? And better still what if you can’t even figure out why? Or who’s behind it all?

And so the plot thickens…

Let’s start at the beginning shall we?

As you already know, if you’ve read my free beginner’s guide to Twitter, one of the most helpful tools is Twitter search.

And I recommend you start a search for any projects you’re working on so you can monitor any chatter. And of course, jump into the conversation if necessary.

And so I began a search for The Human Comedy our upcoming musical production at Astoria Performing Arts Center.

That’s when things started to get weird

Take look at what I found…

This is just the first page of results. WTF?

Really? That many people talking (and saying the exact same thing) about a little musical you’ve probably never heard of?

And so I began to dig a little

As you might imagine, after deeper inspection it’s easy to see that these are actually bogus accounts. They each share the same type of tweets with some variation. They’re not real people. And now I’m left scratching my head.

What the heck is the point of all this?

It’s not like these tweets contain a link and they’re driving traffic to the APAC website. It’s not like they come up in a normal Google search. Sure, they show up in Twitter but who is going to be searching for “The Human Comedy” other than me? Color. Me. Confused.

Here’s the only explanation I can come up with

Someone hired a consultancy to do “social media” and said consultancy is taking advantage big time with this stupid tactic. That’s really all I can fathom.

NOTE: If anyone ever tells you this is their strategy to spread the word about your project, RUN! They’re trying to dupe you!

Now I’m also wondering, “Who would have hired someone to do this?”

It’s not anyone in our camp. So who would benefit from this? What possible reason do these tweets exist?

Any ideas how to solve this Twitter mystery? Tell me in the comments.

UPDATE: Thanks to David J. Loehr, who located the original source content of the tweet being spammed. (Scroll down to Thursday, February 17th.)

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If by chance you’re in NY and interested in seeing The Human Comedy on May 5th through May 7th, you should click here for a special discount from me to you. 🙂

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Comments

  1. I’ve noticed spambots getting more sophisticated lately, posting a large number of legitimate looking tweets first before following tons of people so when slightly more savvy twitter users check the spambot’s timeline it looks like a real profile. My guess is somewhere back far enough, somebody legit tweeted that statement and then a spammer copied & pasted that into all the spambots…

  2. Hi Dave,
    What a mystery, indeed. I’m constantly frustrated by the spammers who do this sort of thing. Not only does it clutter up the timeline, muddle search results and waste my time but it also enhances newbies’ perception that this is an acceptable Twitter practice. Aargh! And sigh…
    ~ Angela

    • Thanks Angela. So it looks like we’re leaning towards this is just a coincidence that someone’s original “The Human Comedy” tweet was pick up by the spammer. And now they’re just repeating it. Lame.

  3. The ‘Galt’ makes me wonder if it isn’t somehow linked to movie studio promo-f*cknuttery related to the upcoming Ayn Rand movie? ‘Who is John Galt?’

    Those guys are fully level eleven media manipulators. I bet some bot picked up on the name and sent it to a bunch of fakey accounts thinking it was promo related ‘grass roots’ stuff. I wonder what the rest of the tweets on those accounts are about?

    • That’s interesting. Those accounts don’t mention that movie at all. There are tweets about Black Eye Peas parody videos, Flight of the Conchords and Saturday Night Live.

      • Yes – but who does PR for these artists (ifyoucancallthemthatwiththepossibleexceptionoftheConchords)?

        More and more it sounds like PR spambot, and no mistake. JUST the kind of sleezy ‘momentum architecting’ type of thing they (PR companies ‘leveraging social media’) need to do to show measurable results. The main way to ‘influence conversions’ these days is via ‘peer referral’ – if it looks like a guy who likes what you like, also likes this new thing – chances are you’ll buy into the idea you will like this thing also.

        Plus, these ‘bots mostly pick up on keywords, not entire phrases. Atlas Shrugged, and the book’s main viral theme ‘who is John Galt?’ is perfect for this type of thing. Upcoming film, alternative promotion ‘streams’.

        And what is more mainstream, non-offensive than the flipping BlackEyed Peas (them Peas Got to go) and SNL?

        Maybe I’m evil minded, but I think it’s a strong possibility. Moreso than some small audience show picking up odd promo from fake accounts. It’s got to be an automated mistake.

        Any SEO guys out there agree?

        • I’m think you’ve nailed it here Replica.

          I’m always intrigued by these tactics because I just can’t imagine them working and yet spammers keep spamming so…

          Seems like a case of wrong place, wrong time.

  4. The point about them getting more clever is valid. I look at the Listed:Follower ratio, which if it is below 1:20, then the person is either a bot or spammer, or just doesn’t get twitter. Good conversationalists will have much better ratios, because people listen to them.

    Great post.

    • Thanks Brian.

      Good point about followers and it’s good to recognize that as a real person trying to build up their followers.

      I also recommend people go slowly so the following to follower ratio is way heavier on the following side.

      Even if you’re not a spammer perception kicks in when people look at that ratio.

  5. Dave,
    Spam, spam, and more spam. Arrrgggg!
    I think this is the next wave of uncontrollable spam on Twitter.
    But, like graffiti painted wherever in public/private spaces all over the world.
    A good way to step on it is to paint it out right away, and, keep doing this until the message is delivered.
    Painting over graffiti right away has worked for years.
    So has changing to positive graffiti art!
    My thoughts.
    Great post.

    • Thanks for the comment Susan.

      I’m sure we’ll never stomp them out completely but I agree it’s best to block and report whenever you can.

      Every little bit helps!

  7. Most of the accounts listed have been suspended. I’m finding even more via Google that have also been suspended.

    The content of the tweet originated as an item here at Jonathan’s site: http://is.gd/PL1wrn (scroll down)

    I’ve seen similar instances where a random sentence is picked up & tweeted by these spam accounts–you can tell because the account name often ends in digits. They’re almost immediately caught and suspended by Twitter, especially in cases like this where it’s a random sentence repeated over and over. I suspect it’s a spammer testing the water, not a consultant.

    If it were PR for the movie, it would have been done more effectively, because it would use more than a single word from the film, and it would show up more often where people might actually see it. Without the “Who is John…” part, there’s no connection to the film, nothing to link it even tangentially in someone’s mind. It could just as easily be advertising the Galt House in Louisville, a hair replacement system, a business in Astoria, a movie with Dylan McDermott, et cetera. And because these tweets are simply out there in the ether–they’re not @ anyone, and the not-yet-suspended accounts have no or almost no followers–no one is seeing them unless they search for one of the terms.

    So I think it’s pretty innocuous, just a random spammer spawning accounts and filling them with random lines found online. By using similar or identical lines across many accounts, the idea is that they look real, it’s not just links to ads and scams; more to the point, it looks like a mini network of friends with similar tastes.