No, he's still not on Twitter but we are.
Over the past week we’ve been pretty active drumming up interest in the Roll ‘Bama Roll twitter feed due to the ongoing SB Nation competition. We’ve managed to claw our way up to 16th place and currently have the largest following among SEC blogs.But we’re still way behind CornNation and hippies over at The Ralphie Report.
Earlier today we were well into the 800s but have fallen considerably in number of followers as I went on a jihad against Twitter spam. As nifty as Twitter is, it’s reached the point that it’s become inundated with folks trying to divest you of your hard-earned cash. And we feel your money needs to be spent feeding your Alabama Football habit.
The idea here is to provide an outreach to the Crimson Tide community on Twitter and the internet at large. We are not a vehicle for free advertising. So from now on, we are going to be pretty stringent on whom we follow.
That means anyone with the word "marketing" or "money" or "profits" in their twitter name or profile pic will be blocked. If there is a link to your website in every tweet - you are gone. if you are foisting any kind of "training" or "self-improvement" or "dieting" scheme - blockamundo.
I’m personally not really fond of tweeters who post a billion and one links to news stories I get anyway via GoogleNews. So unless your location says AL or unless there is a "Roll Tide!" somewhere on your profile page, there might be a block in your future.
On the other hand, if you feel we are worth following we think the same of you. And, yes, we keep tabs on the postings of folks who we follow. The watchword is "inclusion" and when it comes to who we choose to block or follow, we will always err on the side of it.
The result of these changes is that we are likely to advance a bit more slowly now in the 5K competition. But that’s fine. The idea is that if you are a Crimson Tide fan and on Twitter you can look at who's following us and get a sense of the folks out there using the service that share your interest in Alabama.
(We even welcome spies from other teams - because there's a good chance you'll learn the error of your ways, renounce your prior allegiance and become part of the Alabama Nation.)
In return we not only want to provide immediate links to new items on Roll 'Bama Roll as well as pointing you to interesting Alabama-related items out there on the interwebs. What we don't want to do is post links to the same AP or al.com item everyone else out there is
By far the best way to build a quality following on Twitter is word of mouth. So what we want is for folks who follow us and like what we do to suggest following us to other fans. Ideally what we'd like is for people to look at who follows us and see a vibrant community of people whose common interest is Alabama football.
And we want your input as well. Please use the comments below to make suggestions, criticisms and weigh in on what you want our twitter feed to do. My goal is to use the off season to figure out all these issues so we are primed and ready to go when September rolls around.
So give us a follow if you like what we do and Roll Tide!