Why I Unfollowed You on Twitter

My Biggest Social Media Pet Peeve: The Anti-Social Twitter User

My Unfollow button has been getting a lot of action lately, because I’ve noticed a new trend on Twitter. The worst offenders are usually CEOS and business professionals, but college students are guilty, too.

While posting interesting and relevant links on Twitter (along with at least a short description) is a great addition to your micro-blogging feed, it should not be the exclusive purpose for your account.

My biggest pet peeve is when a Twitter user RT’s or just retweets a dozen articles at a time. Okay, one or two a day would be fine, but this user is anti-social (and annoying). I often check my Twitter feed on my iPhone. The last thing I want to do is scroll through a bunch of links to news articles that are unrelated to my interests. The worst part is, the anti- social user doesn’t even comment on the links. Don’t do this! It makes you look like a spammer. It also means me and others like me will unfollow you. If you’re going to tweet a bunch of random news articles, at least have a reason. Share your opinion. Comment on the story. Something! It is also great to interact with the people you follow by responding to their tweets or directing them to relevant content. I think this is a challenge for professionals on Twitter, because they don’t have time for monitoring Twitter activity. Same goes for college students who want to establish themselves online using a strictly “professional” Twitter account. I have been much more successful focusing my energy on one handle; I used to have two. One private, one professional, but I’ve decided both sides of the story are part of my personal brand.

Not engaging with others takes the value out of social networking sites.

When I started this blog, one of my goals was to become a part of the conversation. Most of the information that is out there is not original content. That cannot be changed. We can adapt, though, so that the information we share on social media adds to the conversation in some way.

I can’t stand the anti-social Twitter users, because it seems they’ve forgotten their followers. They don’t tailor their content to a specific audience and they aren’t thoughtful about what they do/do not share.

I’d love to know what you think. Do you have a social media pet peeve?

Comment below to share or say hello to me on Twitter @AESmith03. I also found a similar post on WordPress, “The #1 Reason I’ll Unfollow You on Twitter.”