Written by ContentPowered.com
Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with people and keep abreast of the latest developments and news from around the world. However, just like your email inbox, Twitter is prone to nuisance messages and spam posts. This not only makes it harder to find the things you actually want to hear about, but can be extremely frustrating on days when you are looking for something specific. Here are six ways to cut spam posts out of your Twitter feed without losing the things you really need to know about!
1) Be Careful Who You Follow
Some people view social media as a game, with the object being to collect the most followers. The question is, how many of these followers add real value to your feed? Before following anyone on Twitter, take a look at the following facts.
Do you know this person, at least on line? Knowing them means, have you actually interacted with them before?
Does this person have a disproportionate number of people they’re following to the number following them? Do they have a reasonable number of Tweets for the length of time their account has been open? Check out their recent Tweets and see if they all seem to have the same links or if they offer a good mix of personal insight, business, and general fun or valuable content. A reputable Twitter account may be link-heavy, but there are a number of clues that will tell you whether these are links you actually want to click or not.
If the answers to these questions aren’t in line with your expectations, don’t follow them.
2) TrueTwit
TrueTwit automatically vets and verifies your followers, so you get less spam accounts linked to your own. This is important because by using TrueTwit, you and the people you follow know that you’re only adding legitimate accounts, which can help minimize spamming and help keep unnecessary garbage out of your feed. A spam account generally won’t bother to verify themselves with TrueTwit or any other service, meaning they’re probably not worth your time.
3) Unfollow
The unfollow feature may be your best friend when it comes to purging spam from your account. If you’re getting a lot of spam from a friend, there’s a good chance their account has been hacked. Let them know about this first and see what they do to fix it. If they take care of it, there’s no need for more radical action. If they don’t or are unwilling to, clicking the button will at least cut them and their spam out of your feed.
4) Don’t ever click an unfamiliar link. 
There is, of course, a caveat to this. If you know and trust the person who’s putting up the link, or if the link appears legitimate (i.e. reasonable for what the person usually does, such as an Amazon.com link for authors or a YouTube link for up-and-coming musicians, then it’s probably okay. However, you should never click links indiscriminately, because many of these links lead to phishing sites that can automatically obtain your login information and subscribe you to yet more spam sites.
5) Clean Tweets
Clean Tweets is a Firefox-based browser extension that parses your Twitter feed and wipes out spam by monitoring accounts that are less than one day old or mention three or more trending topics and deleting their posts before they ever reach your feed. Many spam Twitter accounts rely on these trending topics to disguise spam posts or links, which in turn leads to more spam and phishing risks because users think they’re clicking on links that lead to legitimate sites based on the trending topics mentioned.
6) Report Spam Accounts
In addition to unfollowing spam accounts, you can also report them to Twitter. Twitter’s ongoing anti-spam campaign is intended to reduce spamming activity across the service. By unfollowing accounts whose primary activity is spam and reporting them, you can help ensure other users don’t have to deal with spam from these accounts either. While it may not keep the spammers away for long, because of the ease of setting up a new account under a different email, it can help Twitter monitor IP addresses and more effectively suppress spam accounts.
Fighting spam can be a pain, but it’s better than finding your account flooded with useless links. Even worse, if you accidentally retweet something that turns out to have a spam link in it, you could find yourself being marked as a spammer even though your intentions were totally innocent. By using the tips and tricks above, you can help keep spam in your feed to a minimum and make sure you get more of the news and information you care about. Managing your Twitter account should never take more than ten minutes a day. If yours is taking you longer because of all the spam you receive, it is time to stop and review your following practices. Eliminating Twitter spam is a community effort, and doing your part means less spam for everyone!
