The Definition of a Twitter Snob

by jtcote on January 23, 2009

in Twitter

Twitter Snob Defined Someone who:

  1. ‘intends’ to be social, has a million followers, but never follows others
  2. follows you back and then immediately un-follows you just to get you on their list
  3. direct messages you and then doesn’t allow you to direct message them
  4. is just there to bash other twitters
  5. is only concerned about their twitter rank
  6. only promotes themselves and their products
  7. never @replies or answers your questions
  8. uses an automated twitter posting service and has no intention of engaging with their followers

Following someone who follows you is participating in social networking.

If you read their bio, visit their blog and decide that they may not be someone you are interested in following, then don’t follow them back, but let them know why if they ask.

You became a citizen of Twitterville to connect with others and participate in the conversation.  If you want others to engage with you, learn about you and follow you, you must return the same respect.

Twitterland has an unspoken law…only nice people can live in Twitterville.

PS: A note to Internet marketers:  Get to know your followers first, build a repoire, before you send them a link to your ebook. Especially not in your direct message thanking them for following you.

How do you define a Twitter Snob? Leave a comment and let your fellow twitters know.

Tagged as: Twitter

  • http://www.katebuckjr.com Kate Buck

    9. Users with protected tweets that approve you to follow, but don’t follow back. (If you don’t want to interact with me, don’t approve my follow.)

  • http://jaysontcote.com jtcote

    Great, I totally agree, thanks Kate!

  • http://www.deannaspencer.com/learnsmallbusiness DeAnna Troupe

    I hate it when people don’t put photos on their twitter profile. How am I supposed to know who I’m following. I don’t follow anyone with that default icon on their profile. They immediately get blocked.

  • http://jaysontcote.com jtcote

    oooh that one gets me too, I mean come one, who ever heard of a social media network that’s not personal? Its a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. Thanks Deanna

  • http://danielgreene.com Daniel Greene

    I’m not going to name names here, but I’m wary of anyone who follows a few hundred yet is followed by a few thousand. Especially when I see no reason for them to be a celebrity worthy of hordes of fans. I think social media should be just that — social media. Not social marketing. I’d like it to be fun, and if a little business comes my way, great. But a lot of people (on Twitter anyway) seem to be keen on branding themselves and gaining followers.

    BTW, you can thank Kate Buck for leading me to this post with her Tweet (and you can thank me for sending others your way with the correct post slug ha ha).

  • http://brandchef.blogspot.com Andrew B. Clark

    aaaaarrgh… you stole my thunder. I was just getting ready to do a post about Twitter etiquette (see my Twitterstream from yesterday)…

    Oh well, your’s is MUCH better (video and all). And now I can be a good Twittizen and retweet for ya’…

    Great work and keep up the good tweets!

    Keep Cooking!
    Andrew B. Clark
    The Brand Chef

    P.S. – I have a similar post about social networking on my blog… “The Brand Chef is a Jerk.” I’d love for you to check it out…http://tinyurl.com/5knpht (thanks)

  • http://www.ritashouse.com Rita Wright

    Jayson-great post! Yes, I have wanted to say the same things…why follow me if you don’t even visit my site to see who I am? You hit the nail on the head. I leave comments for the people I follow, so they know I was there..and so far have found none to return the favor. I also retweet interesting remarks. I suspect many are just gathering numbers. I have to wonder how the numbers help them, if all are only gathering numbers and not visiting sites?

    Oh well,it’s a new day and we move forward.

  • http://jaysontcote.com jtcote

    Thanks Rita, yes many twitters are just building lists and/or believe in just twitter rank and numbers, which is great if that’s your purpose for twitter. To address your statement “I have to wonder how the numbers help them”. I wonder the same thing if they are not creating real relationships and allowing those numbers to turn into loyal customers or even friends.

  • http://www.conceptbakery.com/blog Klaus Holzapfel

    This is a good list with many good points. Plenty of common sense in which I always like.

    I think at the end it boils down to reciprocity and if you are willing to have 2 way conversations.

    Makes me wonder if there even is such a thing like a one way converation…

  • http://www.brewpoint.com christy

    interesting post. I’ve been pulling back from twitter lately, mostly reading and only answering questions for “general audience” or directly to me. So many people follow me that I have no clue who they are… I feel strange DM’ing them with nothing else to say besides, “I’m sorry, but who are you?” But, now I realize that I’ve followed plenty of people who have been referred to me, or a re-tweet sounded interesting.

    My fear is that if I respond to someone with ill intent, I;ve opened the door by responding to a follow with a DM. Then again, i’m always more fearful than I need to be.

    Thanks for putting this info out there with your name on it.

    christy
    @xybrewer

  • http://twitterscore.net Twitter Score

    Very interesting post. I'm completely agree with you!

  • http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/ Chris Brennan

    My issue with following everyone that follows you is that you end up getting a million Tweets each day, and so you don’t see the updates from the people that you *really* want to follow or pay attention to. How does one deal with this? Do you just accept it as the price paid for potentially making a lot of connections?

  • http://jaysontcote.com askjayson

    Hey Chris, I know what you mean, following everyone can create quite a task to see relevant or status updates that are most important to you. There are a few ways to deal with this.
    1.) Don’t follow everyone
    2.) Use Twitter lists to organize your followers
    3.) Implement seesmic desktop or tweetdeck to create groups to filter and organize followers

    My personal favorite tactic is to get my followers on an email list that I can then broadcast specific messages to. I hope these ideas help. Make sense?

  • http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/ Chris Brennan

    Great ideas! Thanks Jayson!

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