How Awesome is ManageFlitter?

ManageFlitter

One of the tools mentioned in the article, “59 Free Twitter Tools and Apps to Fit Any Need,” describes

this app as something you can use to

… segment your followers according to a number of factors: last tweet, follower count, location, language

and whether or not they follow you back.

You can search accounts by various fields to include a user’s bio, latest tweet, name, username, website,

and/or location (click on the “refine” hyperlink to the right of the search field you’re initially presented

with). You’ll see that results can be limited to “verified,” “popular” and/or “active” accounts. You can

even set thresholds for numbers of followers, following, and tweets.

Clicking on the refine button next to the search field on the main page will take you to a screen that looks like the image above.

To experiment with what ManageFlitter could do, I typed in “Latin America” into the Bio field to find all

those with an interest in that area and then clicked the button “Find People” to the right. This app let

me know that 2,286 people have “Latin America” in their bio.1 It then gives you the option of clicking on

“overview” which displays the profile picture for each user.

If your search takes more than half a second, it entertains you with phrases while you’re waiting.

Though I never had to wait very long for my results to display, on one occasion I was entertained with

phrases like “Searching for results on the moon …” and “Searching for results in the White House …”

Speaking of entertainment, this site even has what it calls “Entertainment Mode” and if you select it, it

1 By the way, this is real time, so accounts that match your search criteria may continue to populate as you sort

your lists, which refreshes your results. I don’t’ know how many people are joining Twitter each day, for real. I’ve seen a number of different answers to that question, but according to #numbers by Twitter, Twitter adds 460,000 new accounts per day.

will begin playing a video. If memory serves me correctly, you have up to five different videos to choose

from. But my search experiences have been so fast, I’ve never really felt much of a need to look at a

video while waiting.

The default display on ManageFlitter will give you a column for the person’s profile picture, username,

date the account was created, as well as number of followers. If you hover your mouse over the far

right column (where the number of followers is displayed) you’ll also see number of tweets sent per day,

when the account was created, total tweets, followings, followers/following ratio, and times the person

was listed.

Before I go much further, I should tell you about the options you have in displaying your information.

On the search page, near the top, you’ll see a button labeled “Overview” that can be toggled on or off.

Clicking on it will show you all the avatars of the accounts that match your search criteria. Depending on

how broad or refined your search was, you may have more than one page.

Clicking on the “Display” button will show you what you see below – options for how you view your

results:

Be very careful with this screen here. It isn’t going to give you one of those “Are you sure you want to

unfollow these people warnings.” In my attempt to provide you with a decent-sized screen shot, I

accidentally unfollowed 100 people and there was no way to undo it. (Fortunately, it may have just

been a bout of technical difficulty because when I logged back into ManageFlitter, I discovered I hadn’t

lost any of those who I was following. Still, it’s good to be careful.)

Another problem with ManageFlitter? I often get the following message from them:

I appreciate the fact that ManageFlitter is courteous enough to let me know that it is temporarily

unavailable, but it makes it difficult to write about an app when you don’t have consistent access to it.

Unfortunately, I got this message right after I accidentally unfollowed the last 100 people I followed.

Unfortunate especially, because at least a couple of those were to private accounts that I had to be

granted permission to follow, but no worries because the mass unfollow action I thought I had taken did

not take effect.

A lot of these social media apps want to start charging you money as soon as they can convince you to

do so, but buyer beware. It is becoming increasingly evident to me that many of these apps that think

they’re ready for the prime time of paying customers are still very much in their beta stages. If you

don’t think you’re getting a good return on your investment, contact the developers or customer service

section for the app and let them know. If they’re true professionals, they’ll listen to your grievances

seriously and take appropriate action.

But let’s move on to other features of ManageFlitter. On ManageFlitter’s “Manage” tab, with just a click

of the mouse I can find out …

With an upgrade to the Pro version, you can create lists of people you never want to unfollow and lists

of people you never want to follow.

This must be the ManageFlitter crew. They seem pretty talented (and awesome). I hope the effort they put into making

ManageFlitter a success pays off for them.

Now let’s see how my list sorts using ManageFlitter’s Influence rating. As I learned from reading

“ManageFlitter’s Influence Measure,” this rating is based on a number of factors. I really couldn’t say it

better than Chelcie Plowright, who wrote the article, so I’ve simply pasted it below for you. Factors

making up ManageFlitter’s“ Influence” rating are as follow:

•The number of followers the account has.

•The number of times the account has been placed on other peoples' Twitter lists –

(added to a Twitter list)

•The number of tweets the account posted and how often the tweets have been re-

tweeted or received a response.

•The people the account are following and their followers.

I especially like the fact that this rating includes the number of times a person puts someone on a list.

Granted, you don’t know exactly what list a person has been put on. And in fact, a person really doesn’t

have that much control over what lists people put them on. For example, I came across an account from

someone who put up tweets that clearly had a sarcastic tone to them. They amused me, so I added that

person to a list I created called “Sarcasm/Humor.” I didn’t have to ask for his permission. I didn’t have

to ask for Twitter’s permission. I just did it. That said, I kept the list private, but I didn’t have to.

Along those same lines, I once was curious to see if I had been added to any lists and discovered that

someone had added me to “Early Adopters 7” a list by Trimlink and “Early adopters 7” by LazeeEye. On

another account I created for myself, one geared more toward the outdoors, sports, health, and fitness,

and, dare I admit this, celebrities, I noticed that someone had added me to a list called “My Twitter

Faves :) (yes, the list actually uses an emoticon) by Benjamin Castaneda and another called “Our Favorite

Dancers! By INNOVATE. I do not know any of these people who created these lists.

I wish Twitter would add a feature that notified you when you had been added to a list and give you the

option of opting out. I’m really not crazy about being on a list called “Our Favorite Dancers!” and unless

you’re a competitor on “So You Think You Can Dance,” I don’t know too many people who would. Then

again, I can think of a lot of other types of lists I would be even less crazy about being a part of.

For example, did you know that someone on Twitter created a list called “Porn”? (It’s true, and there’s

more than one. Shocking, isn’t it.) Other lists I wouldn’t want to be on include “Erotic,” ”XXX

Videotape,” or “Hardcore-all kind.” During my research for this, I came across even more crudely

named lists, and though I am averse to censorship for the most part, my common sense told me that

they would be too vulgar for the audience I expect to read this, but if curiosity is killing you, check out

the lists “Brazzers Porn Nudes” has created and you’ll see some that I chose to omit.

Incidentally, I’m going to have to bring this wild, wild West of list creation to Twitter’s attention. I would

like to think they are already aware of it and are working on a solution to it.2 Who knows, maybe

someone will create an app for it! But I’ve digressed … truly. The point I’m trying to make is that the

mere fact someone has added you to a list doesn’t necessarily imply that it corresponds with the type of

influence you might have been thinking of. Fortunately, ManageFlitter does take into consideration

other factors to make this rating something a bit more reliable, but we don’t live in a perfect world and

influence and social authority scales aren’t a perfect science despite efforts to make it one. Social media

analysts, beware!

Getting back to my example, I didn’t really see anybody at the top of my influence scale that I wanted to

add. Then again, I’ve already done a pretty good job of scouring Twitter to find the accounts most

related to my interests (after all, I’m following 1,803 accounts). The good thing about ManageFlitter is

that it doesn’t list people you already follow.

I selected the R*I tab next. This led me to something called SecDefSolutions, somebody I hadn’t been

following, but based off of its bio:

Helping companies identify the right distribution

strategy and channel partners in Latin-America.

Provides Strategic Consulting services to Security

Industry.

it looks as if it would post tweets related to my interests, and it does, so now I am following it.

2 Until Twitter does deal with this, I highly recommend that you know how to check whether or not you may be on

someone’s “list.” To do this, check on your “Me” tab, then click on the drop down arrow next to “More.” You should see two choices – “Favorites” and “Lists.” Click on “Lists.” You will then see “Subscribed to” and “Member of.” Click on “Member of” to see if anyone has added you to a list.

You can also select the “Spam” tab. I think most can figure out what this might reveal – relative

likelihood that an account is a spam account. But, I checked it out and saw some accounts that looked

legitimate. For example, my list produced TNW Latin America. It joined in April 2011 and has 2,742

followers. I can’t be exactly sure why it was near the top of my Spam list because other factors may go

into the calculations for it, but I do notice that it only follows one account. Recent tweets include:

Apple removes Secret from the App Store in Brazil because it breaches local free speech law

http://tnw.to/h4saA by @jonrussell

How Rocket Internet’s Dafiti is helping to shape the future of e-commerce in Latin America

http://tnw.to/a4gS4 by @abracarioca

July in Latin America: All the tech news you shouldn’t miss from the past month

http://tnw.to/f4s6A by @abracarioca

Its bio reads:

TNW Latin America is part of @thenextweb

family. We cover Latin American technology

news, business and culture.

Overall, it looks pretty legit to me. After all, the LatAm Herald Tribune follows it, but do I really want to

take the risk that this might be a spam account? In this case, I think I’m willing to take my chances.

Ditto for an account called the NACLA Report, whose bio tells me that it is

The North American Congress on Latin America

publishes the award-winning quarterly NACLA

Report on the Americas.

Its recent tweets are a bit more politicized than those for TNW Latin America, but it doesn’t hurt to be

exposed to a variety of perspectives on issues. After all, nobody’s forcing any of us to adopt a certain

position on any particular issue … at least not here in the United States of America (although I am sure

some would be willing to debate on that).

Suffice it to say that ManageFlitter’s “Spam” tab is a tool like any other – if it works for you, that’s great,

but nobody is using it to force you into restricting your follow choices. When it comes to deciding who

to follow, I think most would encourage Twitter users to do your research and make your own decisions.

By the way, ManageFlitter’s “Spam” tab may point you toward accounts who are just getting off the

ground and haven’t fully established a following yet. Case in point? An account called TradeNews

LATAM. It started just 35 days ago, but the quality and type of tweets it is producing definitely make me

want to follow it.

All of that said, spam is a serious issue and I respect anyone who makes efforts to reduce or eliminate it.

I can’t speak with much authority because I started my Twitter account less than a year ago, but from

what I can see, Twitter does a really good job of keeping it at bay and does a better job with it than

some other social media platforms. For a good article on Twitter and spam, read “Twitter is Drowning in

Spam – Why Their Current Approach Won’t Save Us and What Will,” by James Peter. The title is a bit

alarming, but he brings up some good points in it. If he had his way, he wouldn’t allow a person like me

to follow 1,803 people, but still a good read if you’re interested in the subject.

ManageFlitter also allows you to sort by following, followers, and by something that looks rather

promising called “Followers/Following Ratio.” Using it to sort through my list, it led me to a couple of

news accounts I hadn’t been following – MercoPress and Pulsamerica – as well as a contributor to the

Economist Intelligence Unit’s Latin America section. (Shhh! Don’t tell Mr. James Peter that I’ve added

even more people to follow!)

ManageFlitter offers other features as well, but you’ll have to buy into a plan to see what they can do

for you. That said, plans start as low as $12 (a month?).

ManageFlitter is not without a sense of humor, though I’m not sure if they intended this to be

humorous, but I did LOL when I checked out its “Dashboard” page. If you’ve signed in with your Twitter

account, it lets you know how many followers you have and how many you are following. It also lists

your account type and in my case, I’m listed as having the “Freebie” account.

But the humor doesn’t end there. If you scroll to the bottom you’ll see a section that enables you to

post a tweet about ManageFlitter. It reads:

Do you enjoy using ManageFlitter? Invite your followers to join you with a Tweet!

Then it shows you the prepared message it has for your tweet:

But that is just one option. It has dots underneath, indicating you have more to choose from. Would

you prefer …

How about this one?

Yes, it really uses the word “awesome” and the word “catch.” Don’t get me wrong. “Awesome”

reminds me of the 80s and I love using it, too, but realize it doesn’t appeal to everyone. “Catch” on the

other hand reminds me of Big Brother or the Stasi. Hell hath no fury like a Tweeter scorned.

Their most reasonable and appealing one (even though it is missing a word) is

Why they don’t use that as the default, I don’t know. Maybe it just isn’t “awesome” enough.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ManageFlitter