The current limit for the number of accounts you are allowed to follow is 5000. If you are just on Twitter for fun, you’re probably not following over 5,000 people, so those limits don’t mean much to you. You can follow up to ten percent more accounts than people who follow you. So, if 6000 people follow you, you can follow 6600 accounts. There are several tools available for helping you to effectively clear your Twitter followers of those who are inactive, don’t follow you back, or send out vast amounts of tweets each day and clutter your Twitter feed. The best tools will help you quickly and easily do the following:
Identify the people you are following who don’t follow you back Point out the people who have gone inactive Give you a list of people you might like to follow to improve your reach
Here are four tools to eliminate the Twitter clutter.
1. Circleboom
Circleboom is a popular app for Twitter management. It identifies all those you are following who are not following you and those who have gone missing. It also finds other clutter-causing accounts such as fake accounts, spammers, blasters, and eggheads (you know, those with no picture).
This tool helps you build your Twitter list after purging all those unwanted accounts by giving you access to other people’s followers. You can check the list and look for those who may help you with your Twitter goals. It also offers to search for hashtags or keywords to help you find others in your niche. The cost of Circleboom seems middle-of-the-road in comparison with other tools offering unfollowing options. There are free, pro, and multi-pack versions. The pro lists at $11 per month, and the multi-pack plan is $33. However, these two levels have enormous discounts for paying yearly, up to 60%.
2. Unfollower Stats
Unfollower Stats is a basic tool designed specifically for identifying those you follow who are inactive or not following you back. It doesn’t mention those other accounts like spammers and eggheads, nor could I find it on the dashboard. It offers one way to try and build your list: a list of trending Twitter topics. Find some relevant issues and tweet about them to find other like-minded people for your list. You have to scroll down a bit on the dashboard to see them, but they are there.
The tool is decidedly less robust than the others on this list, but that may not matter when you check the price. This tool is always free. There are ads on the site, but if you make a one-time donation to them of $5, they will remove the ads from your account forever.
3. Tweepi
Tweepi goes after all of those unnecessary Twitter accounts on your list, including spammers, blasters, and eggheads. It is AI driven and monitors Twitter for active users that will likely want to interact with your brand. It also tracks hashtags and mentions of your account to offer other accounts you may want to follow.
As far as the cost, this one costs a bit more. There is a relatively robust free version, but if you want more, it is $12.99 per month for the silver ($129 annually) or $24.99 per month ($249 annually) for the Platinum.
4. Audiense
This tool used to be called SocialBro but is now part of Audiense Connect. It allows for mass unfollowing of Twitter nonfollowers and inactive accounts. It doesn’t mention the other types of accounts you may want to remove. The program does help you build up your list by searching for relevant potential followers and analyzing your competitors and others in the field.
The pricing was a little challenging to nail down. I saw several different pricing plans in various places on the Internet. They do have a free model and some plans ranging up to several hundred dollars a month. If Twitter is an integral part of your social networking or business marketing plan, you should look into one of these tools. If you are nearing the magic number of 5000 accounts you are following, these will help you get started with keeping your followers list neat and clean.
