Twitter rant

Melina · Mar 22, 2013

I'm relatively new to Twitter, and I have only a very few followers. I have fewer today, probably because of something I pointed out to one of them.

This woman is a "social media marketing expert", with a TON of followers, and she tweets just about once an hour. A lot of that is re-tweets of other people's blog posts.

Yesterday, she retweeted a blog post that was so poorly written that it gave me a headache. I commented, "I don't mean to be rude, but did you even read this before you retweeted it?" She never did answer my question, BTW, but that's kind of a secondary point to this rant. She responded back, thanking me for my honesty, and said the author was a member of her Triberr group. I replied to her that I hoped he would work on his writing, because that post wasn't ready for public dissemination, but that I wished him the best.

Curious, I looked at his profile, and he has OVER 150,000 FOLLOWERS! WTF?? He calls himself, "A Life Designer", and writes a blog which apparently has a ton of followers as well...how does this happen?

I'm severely annoyed now.

shadowwalker · Mar 22, 2013

I've never understood Twitter - this just underscores why.

Melina · Mar 22, 2013

Melina said:
I'm relatively new to Twitter, and I have only a very few followers. I have fewer today, probably because of something I pointed out to one of them.

This woman is a "social media marketing expert", with a TON of followers, and she tweets just about once an hour. A lot of that is re-tweets of other people's blog posts.

Yesterday, she retweeted a blog post that was so poorly written that it gave me a headache. I commented, "I don't mean to be rude, but did you even read this before you retweeted it?" She never did answer my question, BTW, but that's kind of a secondary point to this rant. She responded back, thanking me for my honesty, and said the author was a member of her Triberr group. I replied to her that I hoped he would work on his writing, because that post wasn't ready for public dissemination, but that I wished him the best.

Curious, I looked at his profile, and he has OVER 150,000 FOLLOWERS! WTF?? He calls himself, "A Life Designer", and writes a blog which apparently has a ton of followers as well...how does this happen?

I'm severely annoyed now.

ETA: oh--and something else about this that really has me fired up: The guy writes "How to write..." Articles! And people, apparently, are eating this crap up!

Shadow_Ferret · Mar 22, 2013

What underscores why?

veinglory · Mar 22, 2013

There are two broad types of twitterers with big followers. Some draw people in because of what they say, other swell with reciprocal tweeting. (in which case very few people are actually reading the tweets). The follower/followee ratio is often a clue.

Either way, "unfollow" is an easy answer to irritation.

Deleted member 42 · Mar 22, 2013

If you don't purge spam bots, you can easily have 100 new followers a week.

If you automatically Follow everyone who follows you, you can grow rapidly.

Melina · Mar 22, 2013

Ah. So, these are not necessarily real people, who think he's providing value? That's a relief!

As to unfollowing the retweeter: yes, I did that. It's obvious, she's just reciprocally tweeting people. I don't need my feed mucked up with that junk.

shadowwalker · Mar 22, 2013

Shadow_Ferret said:
What underscores why?

Someone who apparently doesn't write well and still has a ton of 'followers' underscores why I don't understand Twitter - as the OP says, how does this happen? And what use is it? People seem to follow just about anyone, and worry more about getting 'followed' than actually putting anything of substance up (but then again, how much substance can one put up when there's apparently a very small word limit on each 'tweet').

MacAllister · Mar 22, 2013

Heh. And for a couple hundred bucks, you can buy a hundred thousand followers or so, too.

Polenth · Mar 22, 2013

It's a waste of time trying to engage with people who don't get Twitter. Someone who retweets everything and follows everyone back for a big follower number doesn't get it. Most people who self-declare that they're experts, gurus or teachers of social media also don't get it.

You're better off following people who list shared interests in their profile. But still check their recent tweets obviously. A fair number of writers fall into the "buy my book" spam trap, and they're not worth following. But they do at least have a chance of realising their mistake and improving.

Melina · Mar 22, 2013

Polenth said:
It's a waste of time trying to engage with people who don't get Twitter. Someone who retweets everything and follows everyone back for a big follower number doesn't get it. Most people who self-declare that they're experts, gurus or teachers of social media also don't get it.

And here I thought I was the one who didn't get it! Thanks--I feel better!

Max Vaehling · Mar 23, 2013

Actually, you've fallen for a common rookie error. "Social media expert" is really Twitterian for "spammer".

Just steer clear of everybody who

- has far more followees than followers;
- tweets links at people, with or without a standardizerd text;
- promises to get you followers;
- only has a handful of tweets to their name, but thousands of followers;
- ends every tweet with a link.

You should be fine.

benbradley · Mar 23, 2013

Yeah, these are peeps it's not even worth engaging with.

Here's an article on buying Twitter followers:
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/12/15/fake-followers-an-easy-game-but-not-worth-the-risk/

Max Vaehling said:
Actually, you've fallen for a common rookie error. "Social media expert" is really Twitterian for "spammer".

Just steer clear of everybody who

- has far more followees than followers;

or has zero (or less than 10 or so, peeps who just followed and will follow ANYONE) followers, and follows zero, but communicates with @mentions - click the "report spam" on those immediately, as I do.

Bicyclefish · Mar 25, 2013

I've seen Twitter described as a "never ending social media cocktail party". You virtually mingle with a lot of people from different backgrounds and interests, listen in on conversations, then decide if you want to join in. Sometimes it's a good decision -- they're great, interesting people. Maybe you prefer to quietly listen and absorb information instead. Then there was that one fellow who he kept going on about himself ad nauseam; no one was paying him much attention, but didn't stop him from yammering on.

Paradise Squandered · Mar 26, 2013

Polenth said:
It's a waste of time trying to engage with people who don't get Twitter.

I completely agree with this statement.

I've only recently started to get Twitter. Years ago, I used to use Twitter to promote articles I had published as a freelancer. I'd tweet a headline or phrase followed by a link to the article, and that was about it. It didn't work very well for promoting my work. I didn't get Twitter at all. And I hated it.

I deleted that Twitter account a while back. I started a new account a couple months ago, and this time I'm using it much differently. I have gained an appreciation of Twitter's versatility. I've come to appreciate the fact that Twitter isn't just a soapbox but a versatile tool that can be utilized to connect with people with specific interests or affiliations.

dclary · Mar 26, 2013

I've learned to use twitter to connect to people and organizations that I previously thought were untouchable.

Which I happened to blog about a couple of weeks ago:

http://davidwclary.com/warren-ellis...-how-to-build-brand-loyalty-with-twitter.aspx

amergina · Mar 26, 2013

I abhor Triberr. It's turned people I used to enjoy following because they tweeted interesting stuff on occasion into accounts that just retweet crap.

Pearl · Mar 27, 2013

Other Twitter accounts to look out for are those who only tweet quotes, like words of wisdom. They never interact with anyone, and they sometimes tweet spam ads. When I see them follow me, I do not follow back.

There are plenty of worthy people to follow on Twitter, though. Sometimes the best place to find them is on the Twitter chats.

veinglory · Mar 27, 2013

The thing about twitter is that you have total control over who you follow. I only follow people who tweet stuff I have a really good chance of wanting to read. The second they annoy or bore me, I unfollow.

LFisher · Apr 5, 2013

I recently joined twitter too and got quite a few messages saying "wanna ----" with a link. Rather annoying!! Side note, I'm not sure I really understand Twitter. :/

U2Girl · Apr 7, 2013

I follow a couple of celebs, writers (and was floored when the wife of my favorite writer followed me - insert silly fan girl drooling here ), news sights and mainly friends.

The porn spam bots are annoying, but I guess it just comes with the territory.

ellewest · Apr 17, 2013

I also hate these twitter 'hookers' - people that follow you and then un-follow you the second you follow them back. They make me feel cheap!

Deleted member 42 · Apr 17, 2013

Use Twitter Lists.

benbradley · Apr 17, 2013

ellewest said:
I also hate these twitter 'hookers' - people that follow you and then un-follow you the second you follow them back. They make me feel cheap!

I don't think that's ever happened to me, but then, I don't follow someone just because they follow me. Also, I don't check who has unfollowed.

I follow people whose tweets I find interesting. I do look to see how many followers they have (wow, 4,000 followers!) and how many they're following (5,500 - oh, THAT's how they do it. Yawn. That's someone I'm not likely to follow).

milkweed · Apr 17, 2013

Pearl said:
There are plenty of worthy people to follow on Twitter, though. Sometimes the best place to find them is on the Twitter chats.

Twitter chats? That's a new on on me how does one find a Twitter chat?

As for the quality of one's writing, my writing sucks, so I'm guessing in some folks minds I have no business being on either twitter or blogger... too bad, I have gobs of real followers all interested in what I have to say about the topics I focus on, like natural dyeing.

It's not just about excellent writing skills, it's about whether or not you are interesting.

Twitter rant

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