Twitter is the fastest growing social network in the world by active users with over 135,000 new Twitter users signing up everyday. This makes it a compelling case to use as a tool to engage and interact with those interested in your brand. But before you start pumping dollars into outreach, you should first determine which of your followers is worth your time and money.

Having a large Twitter following has been commonly perceived as having influence and notoriety. However, in recent months many people with large followings have been put under a magnifying glass and accused of illegitimately bumping up their numbers. This has led to some bad press for both Twitter and the accused and has opened the door to scrutiny for everyone with a Twitter account. These fake users pose a problem for businesses that rely on advertising dollars, relevant content and a safe commerce environment, as they have been associated with degraded user experience and fraud. However, since inauthentic accounts are a reality on the social web and do not negate the significant value offered by Twitter, having the ability to weed them out allows you to capture a reliable view of your Twitter environment and mitigate the harm these accounts can do.

So what are your options?

1. Manual Moderation: There has been many studies done on the portrait of a fake Twitter account and once armed with this information it is possible to manually review your Twitter followers and distinguish the real from the fakes. The problem is that it is time consuming, expensive and only looks at the surface detection points available to the public.
2. SMS/Two-Factor Authentication: These methods can be effective however they are typically too expensive and high-friction for most small to mid-size businesses.

Trulioo: A REAL Solution

Trulioo’s TruDetect offers businesses the ability to vet their user base and determine whether or not the account is authentic, machine-generated or suspect.

This allows the business to flag accounts in a more cost effective way and moderate or apply additional vetting techniques only on those accounts, which require it. Because it takes a “deep” look into the profile it is able to not only identify individual fake accounts but also those created by sophisticated bot factories and click farms not easily recognizable to the “human eye”.

Once you know your followers better, you can:

• Remove or flag fake or suspect accounts
• Legitimately determine the effectiveness of your Twitter campaigns
• Make business decisions based on accurate Twitter information
• Connect and engage with those who have the best chance of increasing sales and brand                       awareness.
• Mitigate harmful activity that affects user experience and your bottom line.

To find out more about Trulioo’s TruDetect product visit www.trulioo.com #trulioo

Next week: Content Is King!