5 Tips to stop being a jerk on Twitter
You know the funny thing about jerks ? Its that, not a single guy you ask to will admit that he’s anything close to being a jerk, but he can show you ten guys around him, who’s one. I’m no different.
But the reality is that both you and me see a lot of them around, in real life mostly and on Twitter, even more frequently. The fact is that, while you and me agree that “that guy” is a jerk, he doesn’t understand. And this post might come to him as a surprise, if it does, I’m glad that it served the purpose.
So here are five of the things that will make you look like a jerk on Twitter. Obviously, stay away from them, or do anything similar.
1. Ask for ReTweets via DM to people whom you haven’t RTd at all.
Looks like people will do anything to get a ReTweet. After all, ReTweets are an over hyped thing on Twitter these days. Asking for ReTweets are fine, but some people ask for Re-Tweets via DM to people, while they themselves have not re-tweeted anything from the guy. While influential tweeters are the common prey for this, the “attacker” has anyone who follows him back as a potential target. In my opinion, this is completely lame. At least re-tweet the guy before asking him to re-tweet you.
2. Tweet the same thing to multiple users hoping for attention.
Things like “Hi, I am Mr.ABC trying to XYZ” to everyone you find interesting. If you check these people’s profile, you’ll see that the same message is tweeted as “mentions” to numerous people. Its all fine but the problem is, assuming that someone really got interested in your tweet and checked your profile, he’s consider himself lucky and back up asap. You end up being a spammer.
3. Sucking up to celebrities and influential guys.
The only reason why I’m not a big fan of celebrities on Twitter (except a few like @alyssa_milano) is for the fact that most of them are “preaching accounts”. I mean they’re here on Twitter as a part of the agenda, or because their PR agency insisted. They never reply, nor do they tweet anything meaningful other than their own “branding”. You may differ in opinion but I’m seriously not interested in that stuff on Twitter. And there are those guys who’ll do anything to grab their attention. You can se such guys whose profile will have nothing else than questions to Kim Kardashian and Ashton Kutcher. In fact, they’re here on Twitter for these celebrities, but I sincerely hope that they all succeed in their tries.
4. Placing TechCrunch and Mashable like sites on auto feeds.
Some guys out there are really smart, they automate stuff, so much that they’d tweet anything from a news website. We like breaking news but imagine, a bunch of guys tweeting the same tweet at one particular time (as soon as the story is published on a site). Worse, sometimes there would be a couple of stories, like a daily digest feed add some few text from the original story. Doesn’t make any sense, does it ? What I do is unfollow auto-tweeters and instead follow the website owner. He too would be tweeting breaking stories from his own website, but he does it selectively, and it makes sense.
5. Adding so many hashtags that its more than the original tweet.
I guess they do it to get more re-tweets. Like we know that there are bots and syndicators out there that picks up particular hashtags like #google, #wtf etc. And when you add these hashtags, they increase the possibility of getting re-tweeted. But come on, that doesn’t mean that you have to do anything like adding five hashtags to a tweet. #wtf #lol #rofl #lmao – that’s too much dude !
Summary
When I wrote this post, I did not have any particular person in mind but, honestly thought how one could screw up things on Twitter and luckily could find these examples popping up on my twitter stream. It was just easy job to pick them up. If any of them made sense, I’m just happy enough.
But what are your thoughts ?
Nice article.
Thank goodness, almost afraid to read and see myself. Luckily, I’m not a jerk – thanks
Good article — certainly retweetable! I do disagree with 1 celebrity (only one I know of) @craigyferg — he’s seems like he’s having fun and is responding to the twitter world.
Like I said, “most” of them
After reading your article, I read Twitter notes differently today. There may soon be an app to put #s every word automatically. You’re right! I hadn’t noticed so many before and they’re so frequent they are becoming distracting! And the string of @s with words between can be confusing and annoying, also.
Rightly said, I hate ppl keeping top blogs on autofeeds, who needs ? I can see more than 50 ppl tweeting the same mashable link when the post is pushed off. and yeah, they ask on DM and when RT’ed they don’t have the habit of thanking some1.
So true!!!
So damn true!
why am i not a jerk? i mean, i trolls!
Thanx, I almost being jerk to.
Thanks, great article, I’m putting you on auto feed. Could you go to my twitter page and retweet stuff from me, please? I’ll send you a DM about it later, you are awesome dude! #jerk, #twitterfuaxpaux,#twits,#twidiots…
An eye opener. Very basic stuff people usually forget.
Nice point mani specially Auto tweet thing. I was bound to unfollow atleast 20 people who are using the auto tweet thing.. Because I see the same tweet from mashable and techcrunch and followed by their profile. Sad part is I have to miss their interesting tweets as well…
HaHaHa. Very true. I just stop following people who dont have anything positive to say or who stuff keywords in every post.
Awesome Article Mani. Really appreciate what you have written there.
Very interesting. Luckily i try to stay professional on twitter.