Choosing the right people for your network is important during a job search. If someone follows you, you’re not obligated to reciprocate. Indeed, every day more and more spammers and schemers are on Twitter. Some people @reply your username just to make sure your read their spam message or click their spam link. Others contact you directly with links you shouldn’t click unless you want to welcome a hijacker.
Here are some surefire signs you’re being harassed by spammers:
The person has a new Twitter account. Anyone with an account younger than 30 days is suspect.
The account doesn’t have an actual picture or uses a photo of some hot babe’s picture. Anyone who doesn’t have a picture is suspect, and if she’s too cute to be real, you’re probably right!
The tweep follows way more people than are following back. Other people aren’t following them back, meanwhile, they’re on a tirade of following other people, which is fishy behavior.
More than 90 percent of the tweets are links. These people are not good conversation partners.
The account doesn’t use @replies. Obviously, they aren’t interested in interacting, just broadcasting.
The same tweet is repeated over and over again. Actually, this repetition is in violation of Twitter’s user policy.
The tweep has tweeted only five times in the last 30 days. This person clearly isn’t contributing to the collective conversation and probably has an automated tool that has followed you based on a keyword you’ve used. Lame!
If anyone ever really bothers you on Twitter, you can either just unfollow that person or — if it’s really bad — you can block and report the tweep as spam. These people clutter up the Twitterverse and should be removed.