Awed, confused, surprised.

Twitter Tuesday: Social or spammy?

I've noticed an annoying trend on Twitter: Tweeting lists of other people's Twitter handles. Sometimes they are Follow Friday -lists, sometimes just Tweets saying "Good morning" or "Thanks" and then the list of the handles.

I understand the point of these lists is to be social and perhaps generous. "Hey, I'm a nice dude to follow, I will @mention you in time to time and my followers may start to follow you as well." The goal is (somewhat) good, but the execution is lazy. False generosity.

Those @mentions aren't likely to stir interest. They seem spammy. Meaningless noise, filling the void. It's not a conversation. It's like you are entering a room and yelling the names of random people, while all or most of these people would be in the next room or outside of the whole building.

Photo by paul (dex) bica under Creative Commons license.

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Suomeksi (In Finnish):

Olen huomannut ärsyttävän trendin Twitterissä: Toisten Twitter-nimien listaaminen. Joskus kyse on Follow Friday listauksista, joskus viesteistä, jotka alkavat tyyliin "Huomenta" tai "Kiitos", jota seuraa tämä nimilista. Ymmärrän, että ideana on olla sosiaalinen ja jopa antelias (ainakin näennäisesti). "Seuraa minua, niin mainitsen (@mention) sinut silloin tällöin ja saat ehkä lisää seuraajia. Ajatus hyvä, toteutus laiska. Nämä maininnat eivät enimmäkseen herätä mielenkiintoa. Ne näyttävät suorastaan roskaviesteiltä, turhalta meteliltä. Kyse ei ole keskustelusta, vaan vähän niinkuin menisi huoneeseen ja huutaisi joukon satunnaisten henkilöiden nimiä. Henkilöiden, jotka olisivat samaan aikaan toisessa huoneessa tai ehkä jopa ulkona koko talosta.

5 replies | June 26, 2012 - 15:08 |

5 replies for "Twitter Tuesday: Social or spammy?"

Pingback from Made In Helmikuu and Weekly Wrapup | tasselflower on July 2, 2012 - 14:11

Pingback from Twitter Tuesday: 3 simple ways to get more followers | tasse on August 7, 2012 - 16:46

Pingback from Twitter Tuesday: Are you flooding your followers? | the tass on September 25, 2012 - 18:28

Pingback from Twitter Tuesday: How to identify a spammer | the tasselflowe on October 16, 2012 - 17:34

Pingback from Twitter Tuesday: Real ways to get ReTweeted | the tasselflow on October 30, 2012 - 17:18

Hello, my name is Mervi!

I’m a Digital Craftswoman, geek, cat person, dreamer, awesome, always right and quite boring. This is the tasselflower blog about web design, social media, life, marketing and business. Have some tea!

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