Thursday Thirteen: Twitter Fouls

I started writing this after having one of them happen to me last week. I know there are a lot of opinions for how to use Twitter, and it works on different levels for lots of people. Here are thirteen twitter fouls that will get me to unfollow and/or block your booty! I’ll go ahead and warn you, I’m not very nice about some of these…

  1. Twitter Verification – There was a brief time during which this was really useful, about two years ago. The idea is that when you follow someone, you are then encouraged to varify that you’re a real person and not a spam bot. Good idea? Well, not so much. It doesn’t really do anything. I haven’t had myself removed as a follower for not verifying myself, but I do us both a favor since I refuse to tell the world I’m really me, and just unfollow those unfortunate people who still use this service.
  2. Mass "Thank You" reply @’s – This is when someone, a friend of yours, lists a bunch of people for a Follow Friday type of twitter mem, and one person out of that group chooses to Reply All and say, "Thanks!" While there are some people who are doing it just to be nice, I’ve also heard it given as advice to do this so that the other people all know to follow you. Honestly, I don’t click on anyone included in a Follow Friday message.
  3. Guilt Trips – I don’t get these as much anymore, but when I first started using twitter, I got a lot of people who were following me that wanted me to reciprocate. Only problem was that I really Did Not want to follow them. So they would message me with a message about how they noticed I wasn’t following them, and they were sure it was an honest mistake and I could fix that now. Um, no, not a mistake. Really uninterested in what you’re saying.
  4. ReTweeting is your LIFE! – If someone’s entire twitter stream is nothing but retweets, notifications from Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube, Pinterest and Tumblr, I’m going to unfollow. While I use many of these services as well, Twitter is more like a cocktail party rather than a cork board. I don’t want to only see what you find interesting, I want to hear what you have to say.
  5. Angry Amy or Debbie Downers – I get having an emotional day. Lord knows I’ve had enough this last year! But if your twitter stream is all angry rants about something, or if you’re always depressed, I can’t take it.
  6. Buy My Book! – I might not even follow these people. They’re pretty much an Insta Block from me. You know the ones. They twitter you like this, "@Sidney_Bristol Hey! Check out my latest book about Toe Jam! linkherewhatever" Honestly? I don’t know these people. I have no interest in their book, or learning more about it. I block you!
  7. Creepy McCreeperson – There’s no tangible way to identify these people. They’re creepy. They probably respond to everything you say, and not in a fun conversational way. You’ll know them when they tweet you! I still haven’t found a way to handle these except just ignore and never follow back. Then again, they could get to be a #3 and blocking becomes acceptable.
  8. Marketing Marty – This is probably someone that a person you already follow retweeted and you thought they looked funny and worth following so you blindly took a leap and clicked that button. Almost instantly you get a spammy Direct Message thanking you for the follow and how you should check out their latest book on Smashwords! *head desk* aanndd unfollow.
  9. Promo Whore – This one could be included with Marketing Marty, but not everyone who does one, does the other so I’m listing them seperately. If you’re just using twitter as a medium by which to list where you’re blogging, posting and were reviewed, I’m going to unfollow.
  10. Retweet is not Reply – This is something I’ve noticed recently, people replying to tweets using the retweet feature. What’s the point of this? To show others you’re having a fun conversation with me? There’s a difference between retweeting with a comment for your followers to see and respond to, and replying. I’m not fond of the current trend. Yes, I’ll do it when someone says something I think is funny, and respond to it, but in casual twitter conversation, I don’t retweet it to everyone.
  11. Text Speak – I know that Twitter limits youto 140 characters and it’s difficult to edit yourself down to fit those limits, but don’t get creative with your spelling to cram it in there. L33T speak should be dead. We have QWERTY keyboards on phones, learn to use all of the keys.
  12. Extended Tweet – This is something that third party tweeting services like TweetDeck have made avalible. A person can tweet something more than 140 characters, have a snippet of the tweet included and then a link to the rest of it. I never click these.
  13. Boring People – This sounds mean. I don’t intend for it to be, but several Twitter Mavens backed me up on this. If you’re boring, we’re unfollowing.

I think next week I’m going to tackle thirteen things you should do when you tweet…

7 thoughts on “Thursday Thirteen: Twitter Fouls

  1. Karla Doyle says:

    What about people who blurt out what’s going to happen on The Voice because the TV channel they’re watching is a few minutes ahead of your feed? 😉

    I think #4 is my biggest peeve.

    Another one that kinda bugs me…excessive use of hashtags. Like, putting six of them in one tweet. #hot #funny #sexy #erotic #mancandy #sextoys #yougettheidea…
    Karla Doyle recently posted..Release Day for Game Plan!My Profile

    • Sidney says:

      LoL!! I don’t mind getting shows spoiled as much as some people. I get that there are different time zones and that by being “in a public place” I run that risk. Plus, I’m guilty of that one so I can’t be too unhappy with others.

      Oooh, the excessive hashtags. I’ll do that, but only when tweeting my friends and intentionally being silly. I didn’t include it because I didn’t want to look like a hypocrite. Tagging a random tweet that much just has me rolling my eyes and scrolling on!
      Sidney recently posted..Thursday Thirteen: Twitter FoulsMy Profile

  2. Fedora says:

    LOL! See, I often wonder that anyone wants to follow me at all! I am admittedly boring, and I rarely tweet except most likely to retweet or pimp authors’ books/contests/etc. I do admit to sometimes “eavesdropping” on people’s convos, but it’s Twitter, so it’s all public, right? I don’t know, sometimes I think I’m extremely ill-suited to all this “newfangled technology”! 😉

  3. David F says:

    #8 (number 8 not hashtag 8) happened to me yesterday. I thought, because someone I respect, is following a certain organization that it might be worth a blind follow. Then the DM came. Unfollow.
    I’m most guilty of, not several hashtags, but the occasional long hashtag. When doing so I try to capitalize each word in the tag to make it somewhat easier to read. Those that know me know I’ve got a dry sense of humor, a dirty mind, and am quite sarcastic. I worry that some of the things I tweet are seen as serious when I don’t mean them to be.
    David F recently posted..David7118: @amberdemure By worlds you mean bottles? 😉My Profile

  4. Anjasa says:

    The people that most get me are the repetitive ones that post the same thing every single day. Like clockwork.

    I really should unfollow them. I’m still new enough to twitter that I kinda feel bad about it.

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