spam and eggs, spam and chips...

[julesjones]

Okay, pretty sure I've now got a "follower" on G+ who has added me to their circles for the sole purpose of getting me to read their profile and thus run off and buy their book/course/whatever. There have been a couple of earlier ones I was suspicious of, but this one I can see absolutely no connection whatsoever other than them working their way through a chain of authors and adding them in hopes of selling author promotion services.

I'm surprised it's taken this long.

Comments

[watervole]

Someone I don't know just 'shared' an article with me.

It was probably genuine (given it was Harry potter related - though I didn't follow the link), but she didn't need to share with her extended circles....

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I have a special circle called, "Who the Heck IS this?" That's where the bulk of my new followers end up because I suspect they're just using G+ to promote themselves. I never look at that group. (I also have a "Posts Way Too Much" circle that never gets looked at.)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

If I don't know them and they aren't posting anything interesting, I don't even add them back. :)

[julesjones]

That's pretty much my view. There are some borderline cases where it's clear from context that I probably do know them under some other name, or we at least have a common social grouping, but if it's not at least obvious that *they* probably know *me*, as opposed to simply clicking on an entire social network, they don't get added.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Of course you may get fans of your fiction adding you, which is a bit different and adding them back is the polite thing to do. But that doesn't apply to me so it's perhaps more obvious when I'm being followed solely in the hope I will automatically follow them back and thus receive all their promotional posts about whatever it is they're pushing.

I don't know whether this sort of promotion actually works because it certainly doesn't endear me to them and I will just ignore or even block them.

[julesjones]

Yes, I could do with a "Posts Way Too Much". I've been reminded of why I never friended certain people on LJ/DW. I'm very fond of them and/or I like their contributions in comments threads elsewhere, but I don't need a dozen posts a day from anyone other than James Nicoll (who manages to be genuinely entertaining even at a dozen posts a day).

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Yes...occasionally I move someone from "Friends" to that circle....I just don't need to see every bit of news that catches their eyes...

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of people I don't recognize at all. It puzzles me.