Beware Of Fake Twitter Addicts!

As Twitter has hit the mainstream, everyone from Actors such as Ashton Kutcher to TV personalities with only first names such as Oprah and Ellen to Politicians such as the Governator and his lovely wife Maria Shriver have all now become good Twittizens. They have joined the ranks of Shaq and Scoble, to smell like a Kevin Rose and whine like a Vaynerchuk, 140 characters at a time. All these characters are welcome additions to the social networking community, and should any of them fall prey to the siren song of constant status updates and find themselves "addicted" to Twitter, they will not have to worry as we have recently launched a celebrity wing at INVITATIONS, the nation's premiere Social Networking Rehab Facility.

NOT ALL TWEEPLE ARE CREATED EQUAL

While there are some celebrity Twittizens who are legitimately in need of Social Networking Rehab, the staff at INVITATIONS has been inundated with a rash of applications from some more dubious tweeters, claiming to be in need of help dealing with the pressures of maintaining their tens of thousands of followers, while at the same time engaging in, shall we say, less than sincere social networking practices. This behavior is not unlike someone "admitting" to having used marijuana, and then saying they never inhaled. Who would ever make such ridiculous claims???

The mission of INVITATIONS is to help those truly in need, and we have no patience to accept patients who are actually bot-bearing, auto-following, link-baiting, self-proclaimed "gurus." With that in mind, we have prepared a simple checklist to help you avoid inadvertently aiding a false addict:

TOP 10 WAYS TO IDENTIFY A FAKE TWITTER ADDICT

10. The words "SEO", "MONEY", "CASH", "PROFITS" or "WEIGHTLOSS" are part of their Twitter name...

9. You receive an immediate DM when you follow them back.

8. The DM you receive links to their SCAM, er, blog or website.

7. They follow thousands, have thousands of suckers, er, folks following them back, and they have posted 0 updates.

6. If they have posted updates, 99.9% of them contain a link to the same website or blog.

5. The only @replies they have are to other accounts they own ("self tweetillation" or "masturbatory tweeting.")

4. They NEVER Re-Tweet.

3. They Tweet about gaining 1,000's of followers "overnight" (and will show YOU how!)

2. Their profile image is a Dollar $ign.

And the number one way to identify a Fake Twitter Addict:

1. You end up HERE when you look for their Twitter profile!

How about you? Have you encountered any "fake" twitter addicts? If so, please tell us how you identified them in the comments!

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