How To Keep People from Replying to Tweets

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This is another one of those posts where I lure you in with a strange title and then dash your hopes. Why? Because someone actually found my website by Googling

“How to keep people from replying to tweets”

So I figured since they found me, I better answer their question!

And I’m sure they were disappointed when they discovered that their search brought them to 18 Mistakes Businesses Make on Twitter. Because not getting any replies is NOT a mistake. It’s a calculated business strategy!

Now, I have to say up front, it absolutely perplexes me and makes me scratch my head and go, “Hmmmmmm” just knowing that someone actually Googled that. Why would you even want to know that? What makes you seek out that information?

I can only think of a few scenarios:

1. You’re antisocial and confused – You’re antisocial because you don’t want people replying to your tweets. And you’re confused because, well…you’re using Twitter. Twitter is one of those Social Media platforms. You know…SOCIAL media. Not ANTIsocial media.

2. You don’t understand Twitter – For you, Twitter is merely an RSS feed. All you want to do is spit out information. You don’t want any sort of engagement. After all, Twitter is just another type of broadcast media like radio or television, right? Spit it out and keep spitting it out.

3. You’re being sneaky and/or lazy – Sure, you can have engagement on Twitter, but here’s the deal. You’ve automated everything. You post the same thing across all social platforms but don’t monitor any of them. If someone actually replies to you, they’ll catch on to this fact because you won’t reply to them. It’s all about you, after all. They should be thankful that you even let them follow you, and there’s little chance that you’ll follow them back. I mean, if you start getting into following…and monitoring…well…then…you might actually have to do some work!

4. You’re looking for a major tax write-off – Let’s see, I think it works like this: Don’t engage, and perhaps your competitors will engage. That means they’ll get the business, and you won’t. You’ll lose money, while they succeed. You get the benefit of writing off your business losses. Crazy? Like a fox…

But, just in case that person was serious in their search, and they REALLY do want to find out how to keep people from replying to their tweets, here are a few suggestions:

1. Don’t tweet – that’s right: if you don’t tweet, people can’t reply to you. Oh, go ahead and create a profile, but don’t use it.

2. Protect your tweets – If you protect your tweets, you can control who can and cannot follow you. Be picky about who you allow as followers and you’ll probably do a good job of avoiding replies. Or, better yet…

3. Don’t follow or be followed – If you have no followers, people can’t really respond to you. They won’t even know you are tweeting.

4. Tweet stupid stuff – there are a few options here, but whatever you choose to tweet, just do the same thing over and over again:

a. inspirational quotes – tell us all how wonderful we are and how we can have better lives

b. make unbelievable promises – “I got 20,000 new followers and made $50k in one month”. Yeah, we LOVE that.

Oh, I’m sure there are more, but you get the picture.

What are your favorite ways of making sure that no one replies to you on Twitter? How do you avoid engagement and dialogue?

Related articles

• Who Sees @ Replies on Twitter? (marijeanjaggers.com)
• 18 Mistakes Businesses Make on Twitter (inklingmedia.net)
• WTF? Friday: The Five People Who Make Me Nuts on Twitter (marijeanjaggers.com)
• Twitter’s Context Problem (inklingmedia.net)

Tagged as: engagement, Twitter, twitter best practices