Twitter Tips: The #FF Faux Pas
On Wednesday, I talked about some Facebook pet peeves. Today it’s time for another little talk about Twitter.
If you’re on Twitter, you’re probably familiar with the #FF (Follow Friday) trend. The idea is that you use the hashtag to give a shout-out to someone you think other people should follow. Here’s what a lot of the #FF tweets in my feed look like:
#FF @ThatOneGuy @TheOtherDude @ACoolChick @MyBFF @SuperAwesomeLady @BoyITweetedOnce
Um … I have to confess. I’ve never once followed anyone who showed up in a list like that.
A slight improvement might look like this:
#FF some cool writers @WritesALot @WritesAndReads @AnotherAuthor @FictionaholicsAnonymous
At least I know they’re writers, but … I already follow a lot of cool writers. I get random writers following me because they found “writer” in my profile, and I already have to decide whether to follow them back. I’m not in the camp of trying to follow every writer on Twitter.
What would an effective #FF look like (in my opinion)? It’d take a little more effort and require spreading a little less love, but that love would be more apparently sincere. For example:
#FF @SaraMegibow for her #10queriesin10tweets every Thurs. Great stuff!
Or …
#FF @bigblackcat97 for no-nonsense YA, rural-life hilarity, and general randomosity.
Like I said the last time I talked about Twitter, tweet like you mean it.
As a corollary, the “reply all” style thank-yous for #FF mentions. Here’s my thinking. If I’m already mentioned in the #FF, I saw it. Why do I need to see that someone else in the list thanked the initial tweeter?
Of course, that leads to a bigger question: Is our goal in thanking someone to show gratitude, or to be seen to show gratitude?
And have I been guilty of all of the above at one time or another? Absolutely. But I’m going to try to do better.
What are your thoughts on #FF? Do you find them effective? How so? Please share your tips and tricks.
Speak up:
Comments Off on Twitter Tips: The #FF Faux PasHey, Whiners, Cut It Out! (But Not Too Much)
During my tenure in social media (particularly Twitter and Facebook), I’ve observed a lot of whining, complaining, and overall negativity. I confess, I’ve been known to gripe now and then. Everyone needs to vent sometimes. But I try to keep the public venting reasonable and infrequent, while the more everyday venting gets handled in private by my friends. (Love you, friends!)
There are mega-extremes, of course. Those people who reply to agents’ form rejections with F-bombs and C-words. Most of us aren’t that far gone. (And those who are kind of scare me.)
But there are the little things, consistently and constantly griping, that actually annoy me more. The expletive-spouting writers I can assume are crazy. Others are just negative to the point it affects the image they portray to the world at large—especially the professional image for my fellow aspiring writers.
People with spouses, boyfriends, etc. who never do anything but complain about them. (Ladies, I have to say, I’ve yet to see a guy trash-talk his wife on Twitter. Husband-bashing, however, is rampant.) People with children and/or jobs who whine about those, too.
I’m pretty sure there are people out there who wish they could find a romantic partner, who wish they had kids, who wish they could earn enough money to make a living. Can we have a little gratitude for what we have?
But wait…
Going to the other extreme annoys me, too. People who never stop gushing about how they have the best. Husband. EVER. Or how adorable and wonderful their kids are. Ugh.
I don’t believe we need to be sunshine and happiness all the time. Let’s keep it real. When we don’t approve of something, it’s okay to speak negatively of it. When we’re excited, there’s nothing wrong with showing enthusiasm. But real people have both highs and lows, likes and dislikes, good days and Mondays.
Share the whole spectrum. Keep it balanced. If you find your tweet-stream (or timeline, or whatever) is full of negativity, take a minute to evaluate. What can you do to get yourself to a more emotionally healthy place? Maybe some things are better shared privately with those who will help you get over life’s speed bumps. That’s not the same as putting “Pity me!” attention-seekers out on social media.
On the other hand, if you’re constantly raving about how thoroughly awesome your life is … stop rubbing it in to the rest of us poor saps. 😉
Speak up:
1 commentTweet Me Like You Mean It
Everyone has their list of Twitter pet-peeves, right? So I figured I’d add mine, knowing that the offenders are little-likely to see it.
Of course, this is all just my opinion. What bugs me may be fine for another person.
The Bait-and-Switch Follow. Have any of you caught people at this? You get a notification that someone’s followed you. You take a look at their feed and decide sure, you’ll follow back. A day or so later, you get another notification that they’ve followed you. So they followed you, unfollowed, and waited to see if you would follow back before committing to following you. (Do you follow?) The new Twitter interface shows “Follows You” prominently on people’s profiles, so it seems that practice has trailed off for me, but it still happened the other day. Maybe there’s a lag?
The Super “Welcoming” Auto-Tweet. I think this one is pretty specialized to people like writers who are trying to sell something. You follow someone and immediately get a tweet—usually a direct message—with something along the lines of, “Thanks for following! Check out my blog/book/butterific-bacon-buns (insert link).” I’ve limited my reaction to rolling my eyes at such tactics (and have never once clicked the link), but it’s happening so much now, I think I’m going to automatically unfollow anyone who does it.
The Feed-Flooder. First of all, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have enough free time to tweet upwards of 100 times a day. (I know it doesn’t always mean the tweeter is actually tweeting … see below.) I only have so much time to devote to checking in with Twitter. I like to find relevant industry links/news, interesting conversations, and a little silliness with tweeps I know fairly well. If someone is filling my feed by retweeting everything in sight, pushing the Tweet This! button on every blog in the universe, and otherwise just making noise, I have to make it go away. Remember, when everything is special, nothing is.
The Robo-Tweet. I haven’t confirmed this—it’s just a suspicion. There are a lot of tweeting utilities out there to manage your social media experience. Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, I don’t even know how many others. I think I’ve spotted at least one that will auto-tweet random “ice-breaker question” tweets from your account on a scheduled basis … like every half-hour. Does this actually work for people? What happened to authentic engagement?
The Deja-Tweet. Another one that’s particularly prevalent in the writer-world. Send out a little promo-blurb tweet when your book comes out, or when some particular milestone is reached. That’s fine. I’m even okay with you doing it twice that day—once for the morning crowd, then later for the evening. But when I see the same blurb (or even a small rotating set of them) day after day after day … yeah, even among all the tweets in my feed, I spot ’em.
You know what I like best? Stumbling across people through mutual Twitter-acquaintances, having a little interaction, and then following.
I could probably come up with more nuisances if I tried, but I’m sure I’ve whined enough for now. It’s your turn! What Twitter behavior drives you up the wall? Am I out of line on any of those I’ve listed above?