10 Signs You're Using Twitter Wrong
1. The “Sign-off”
Yes, Twitter is a conversation platform but that doesn’t mean you need to sign-off every time you are leaving. It isn’t AIM. Seriously, if you are going to bed then go, we won’t be worried if we don’t hear from you for 8 or 10 or even 12 hours. We’ll start getting worried around the 24 hour mark though.
2. The Welcome DM
Words cannot describe how much I loathe this one. I hate it so much, I will actually unfollow you if you use one of these welcome direct messages. I followed you because I found you interesting, obviously, if I find you interesting I’ve read at least a few of your tweets and most likely even checked out your bio and website if you list one, therefore, anything you could possibly say in a 140 character direct message is 1.) unnecessary and 2.) annoying and spammy.
3. The (Accidental) Flash Flood
I’m not sure how this one happens honestly, but when it does it’s an absolute annoyance. Suddenly a flash flood of tweets from one user will enter your Twitter feed, taking up the entire (or most of the) page or client. If you configure RSS feeds into your account, make sure they work properly before enabling them and flooding all of your followers.
4. The Over Zealous Retweeter
Another big one. For some reason or another they find it impossible not to retweet every tweet they see. Why? I don’t know, but I followed them for their tweets — not someone else’s.
5. Beating A Trending Topic to Death
These people will find a trending topic they like and will just bombard their feed with tweets revolving around the trending topic. Like literally bombard — think like a blitzkrieg of tweets. I think this one happens because people tend to think they are really funny when in reality, that may not be the case. The magnitude of this annoyance can be even worse if you do this while retweeting others who are participating in the same trending topic as you are.
6. The Megaphone
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALK IN ALL CAPS TO BE NOTICED. Sorry, I had to.
7. The One Way Conversationalist
As I mentioned earlier, Twitter is a conversation platform. If your feed is just you spouting off things and there is not a foreseeable single reply to someone, well then, you’re doing it wrong.
8. The Bathroom Check-in Guy (or Girl)
Pretty self-explanatory. It falls along the lines of too much info and we don’t care — take care of your business and get back to tweeting.
9. The Double-Tweet
I don’t mind if people re-tweet or re-share a link from hours or days earlier, but if you tweet the same content more than once in a short period of time (a few minutes or even an hour) that’s annoying. Plus, if you are doing it to try to get more clicks it will be of little help because the same people who saw the tweet the first time and skipped over it will do the same the second and third time. If you want to increase the possibility of the link being clicked wait a few hours or days because chances are a different set of your followers will be on Twitter.
10. The Actually Legitimate No Profile Picture Account
Everyone who wants to be recognized as a legitimate Twitter account needs a profile picture. If you’re a girl, try not to make it too sexy because then you will still be seen as a spammer. Bottom line: get a profile picture.