I love Twitter. I love reading articles others share, seeing what people are up to, and generally the no-boundaries community that exists on the micro-blogging site. I follow and am followed by people in other states, countries, continents. In a sense, Twitter connects the world!
But there is a downside to Twitter: the people who don’t use Twitter wisely. These people can ruin the experience, until you block them. These people are the reason for my top-ten list of Twitter pet peeves:
- Following and unfollowing and following again. This tactic is meant to getting followers but if I didn’t follow you the first time, or the second, chances are I AM NOT INTERESTED.
- Excessive self-promotion. Tweets that always start with I or include the word me. Being on Twitter exclusively to promote self and not offering any value.
- Lurking. People who follow you and never engage or retweet. They are just watching you. Why?
- Not giving credit. If I tweeted something that you think is so worthwhile that you re-tweeted it, just credit me, please?
- Follow Friday. I hate this. It makes Twitter into a popularity contest, and makes you ripe for spamming. Thanks for the shout-out but don’t add me to your list.
- Being super selective. You have thousands of followers, yet you start your mornings saying hi to five of your favorite friends. I remind you: Twitter is not high school and all of us can see you didn’t single us out. If you want to say hi to just a few people, might I recommend DM or (gasp) EMAIL?
- Spammers. People who send you @messages that have nothing to do with anything except what they are trying to get you to buy. There is a special place in hell for you.
- Incomplete profiles. If you don’t have a bio, or a website, or preferably both, on what should I base my decision to follow you? Your inability to fill out your profile? This also goes for not posting a picture.
- Cursing. I curse all the time in real life, but I don’t want to read obscenities on my Twitter stream. It generally is not necessary to put that out to the world.
- Never acknowledging retweets or @messages. Sure I understand that reporters or celebrities with tens of thousands of followers can’t possibly respond to all these messages, but if you have under 500 followers, most likely you can spend a couple minutes each day responding. Remember you are on Twitter to create community!!!
Of course, these are MY pet Twitter peeves. You may not agree. Which is why you can feel free to leave your top Twitter peeves on the comments! (Or hey, write your own blog!)
About Deborah Brody
Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.
I am guilty of a couple of these. Sometimes I click on a link, read the article later and then send out the link – I can’t retweet it because I don’t remember who originally posted it. And I try to acknowledge everything that is said to me or retweeted for me but occasionally I can’t keep up. The article I posted on Monday got retweeted a lot and after a point all of the thank you’s became too much. But, like you, I get a little annoyed when I comment or talk to someone and they don’t reply …
And I have some soccer twitter friends and I’m sure we can be annoying on the weekends when we are watching matches together through twitter.
I completely agree about the swearing. I swear a lot in real life but I don’t want to read it in my stream either.
And I would have to add auto-dms. They are one my most hated things about Twitter.
Hi Kim,
Auto DMs are a good one to add–I hate those too!
And, I hear you regarding the acknowledging. Sometimes you just can’t but some people don’t even try (or care).
Thanks for the comments!
Hi Deborah,
Interesting list. As you know, several of these are high on my “what not to do” list as well. But I have to disagree about Follow Friday. While too many people use it to broadcast lists, it can be worthwhile.
Done right, Follow Friday is a good way to both thank someone who you find valuable AND point people to others that might be worth checking out. I’d add that this is even more important now that seeing @ replies are limited to conversations where you’re already following both people.
Hi Daria,
Yes–some of these are fairly universal. Follow Friday has devolved, in my opinion, to being just lists of people. And all spammers have to do is look for the #FF hashtag and boom, you get spammed. There is little point to it now. But I agree, at some point, they were useful. And if you were on the list, it was flattering!
Deborah
Pingback: (Anti) Social Lists 5/2/10 | (Anti) Social Development