Five Tweeting Mistakes That Might Get You Blocked

Feb 19, 2010 by TheZargon    8 Comments    Posted under: Social Media

I take my tweeting very seriously, after all I have a reputation of being a #TwitterBadAss* that I have to live up to it  (*copyright Diana Adams). As you also might know, I really have strong opinions in what comes to the way that Twitter’s team is, sometimes, trying to tackle some of the troubles it has; what we all, as users, can make to improve the overall twitter experience and last, but not least, what I feel about Auto DMs.

More and more people are joining Twitter. This is a good thing, no doubt, but more and more I’m seeing mistakes being made on my timeline that sometimes get me upset. Some other times, when they occur more than once, those mistakes put an end to my relationship with that user: I stop following them and sometimes I even block them.

I have compiled a list of, what I consider, the most common and annoying mistakes made on Twitter. For that I’ve created a new Twitter account, since I didn’t want to point the finger to anyone

1. Putting words on my own tweet.

This one is more usual than you might think. In the same way that no one likes to have people putting words in their mouth, no one really likes to have their tweet adulterated. When you do that, like in the example above, it looks like just a normal RT, it looks like @fjfonseca said all that, and that was not the case.

Either make your comment BEFORE the RT or use a symbol like “|” or “/” at the end to make your own comment.

2. No matter what you have listened to, Twitter is not about speed typing!

I repeat: No matter what you have listened to, twitter really isn’t about speed typing. Check your tweet before you send it out. Double check it if you have to. There is no reason to miss a RT. For every RT you do improperly it is one more step down to your way to being blocked. Think about it, is it worth it?

3. Don’t throw my tweet back at me. I mean it!

Even if you don’t believe it, I know what I tweet and I don’t need anyone to send to my mentions column my own tweet, because I have just tweeted it. This is is like someone asking for directions to another person and, after receiving them, saying: “Ok, now I will tell you how to get there!”.

4. See that reply button? Use it!

I lots of replies to my tweets and usually I just click on the “in reply to” link and, with a glance I can know, what that tweet refers to. On the other hand, if you don’t click the reply button and send me a tweet saying whatever you think about something I just tweeted about, and you expect me to be reading your mind, I’m sorry to inform you that I still don’t have that software upgrade on my brain. Probably you will be ignored. And if you keep insisting on that, even if I ask you (politely) to use the reply button, you surely are going to be blocked. #justsayin (copyright Shelly Kramer)

5. Don’t Steal Tweets!

To steal a tweet is a twitter crime! Really! And if you really think you can get away with it well, think again. Many people track their tweets based on the urls they send out. So if you steal a tweet they will know. They will probably not say anything to you and suddenly, you don’t have them on your timeline anymore. As the song goes “That’s Life“.

Before you start flaming me: All of these situations have happened to me personally. Furthermore, in some cases, I tried to reason with those who made the same mistake over and over again only to be called a “Twiter Nazi”. I don’t consider myself one, and in reality was only trying to help. I hope that this post does exactly that. What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Picture Credits: Ben McLeod under a CC License

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