5 Reasons Why I’ll Block You on Twitter

I love Twitter. But there are a few things that happen on Twitter that really drive me up a wall. Here are the top 5 reasons I’ll block you, or at least unfollow you, on Twitter:

5. Games – No, I don’t want to be in your “Tribe.” A random DM asking me to be in your tribe, especially if i really have no clue who you are, just make me want to block you. Full disclosure: there was a time when I played Spymaster on Twitter. But then I realized how annoying it was for others so I stopped.

4. Unoriginality – I love retweeting. I love to retweet things that others have written if I find it interesting or useful. But if ALL you do is retweet other peoples blogs and content under the guise of being a marketing guru/ninja/expert, then I have no time for you. Especially if you just send it out as a link without crediting the source in your tweet.

3. Inappropriate Behavior – I’m no prude, but I don’t need to see you go postal on people. I don’t need a constant barrage of four-letter words. I don’t need to know every little detail of your private life, particularly if it involves other people on Twitter. I don’t want to hear too much messy information about your messy divorce or work situation. I’m not talking about the occasional outburst, but if you show a pattern of being tactless and less than discerning, then perhaps you should check out the chat rooms on AOL (do they even still exist?)

2. Using Twitter as an RSS Feed – There are a few exceptions to this rule, like some news sources (CNN, etc). If I want an RSS feed of your content, I’ll use Google reader. I follow a lot of people on Twitter and I’ve got lots of passive and active filters in place to help me skim through the massive amounts of tweets that come my way. But if you’re just a never-ending RSS feed of blog posts/songs/etc, I have no time for you.

and…the number thing that drives me nuts on Twitter….

1. Selling without a relationship – I recently began following a few people because they are locals. Immediately I was bombarded by auto DMs telling me how they wanted to build me a website/help me with marketing/help me make money. I don’t know these people. I don’t like door-to-door salesmen. Build a relationship with me first and THEN I might give you my business. Though if you did your homework you might think twice about trying to sell me the same services I provide for others. Sales requires a relationship first.

Tagged as: Social Media, Twitter

kmueller62

Paul, I agree somewhat with what you are saying. It's a double-edged sword. The same thing that makes Twitter (and Facebook, for that matter) such a great marketing tool, also can make it feel "spammy" at times.

I know people have criticized me for retweeting things because they thought I was retweeting myself, when in many cases I had nothing to do with the original tweet.

Anyone who uses Twitter or any form of social media for marketing a product or event has to be self-policing. And it's an experiment of sorts. We have to all learn what I would call the "annoyance threshold" of our followers. And of course that is different for anyone. How much is too much? If you do TOO much, you lose followers.

As a marketer, I guess I'm much more forgiving of this because I understand why they are doing it. And this is why our own personal filters (the ones inside our heads) are important as we skim through our Twitter feed. I certainly don't read every tweet that comes to me. I learn how to filter things out. And this can be further accomplished if you are using a Twitter app like Seesmic Desktop or Tweetdeck, with all of their filtering and column capabilities.

And remember, the way to get people OUTSIDE of the group to retweet (and provide the social proof you are looking for) is for the people IN the group to retweet it first. Perhaps it's merely a matter of having a much more conscious approach to spacing out the tweets and retweets.

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Paul Stoltzfus

Points well taken Ken.
4. Unoriginal is my pet peeve.

My addition to the list is when members of an organization RT their own peeps stuff, like when the organizers (or perceived organizers) of the CWL or CHL RT and "like" their associates thoughts. I am sure this is a struggle because each member has their own circle of followers and wants to spread the word. I just happen to be in every member's group and get the same message 5x's. I am much more likely to engage if someone outside of the organizers RT's the info and gives social proof.

The X campaign this week wasn't quite as annoying because members outside of the perceived organizers group where RT'ing and had X avatars.

The bottom line is self-promoting vs. self-gloating.
It's not bragging if you can.

Daniel Klotz

It's fascinating to me how many intelligent, philosophically consistent schools of thought on how to use Twitter have sprung up in just over a year's time.

It's also fascinating to me that you don't say you'll block or unfollow people who tweet all the time. Oops, I didn't mean "fascinating," I meant "unsurprising." Heh.