Ed’s Projects

People use Twitter in a wide variety of ways. Here are some ways that I don’t find interesting. No, that doesn’t make them right or wrong – in general – but they’re wrong to me.

1. Posting Foursquare check-ins to Twitter. Foursquare’s great. Twitter’s great. Tweeting Foursquare check-ins? Not great. At least, not if you want me to follow you on Twitter. Exception: the exceptional.

2. Forum conversations. Chatting with an affinity group on Twitter is great, if people not part of that affinity group don’t have to hear about it. This is something many groups haven’t figured out yet. A good way to solve this would be to set up a username for the group chat, then have everyone @ their group tweets toward that account, so everyone following sees them but no one else does.

3. Live-tweeting television shows. It’s 2013. The best TV isn’t watched live, making tweeting it ridiculous. Exception: Live tweeting actual live events that happen to be on TV.

4. Daily inspirational quotes. Too contrived for my taste.

5. Tweeting a link of everything you’re reading online. I’m willing to assume that you’re literate, so you don’t need to keep reinforcing that. Did you read something particularly good? Share it. And give some context on what you liked about it. Just link dropping? What’s in that for me?

6a. Posting Facebook updates to Twitter. See #1. 6b. And Tumblr. 6c. And YouTube.

7. Dragging your followers into customer service conversations. I understand that you’re frustrated with Comcast, but that doesn’t justify putting a “.” in front of your “@”.

8. Public thankings for follows or retweets. Act like you’ve been followed or retweeted before.

9. #millennials. If you’re a Millennial that uses the hashtag #millennials, you’re probably awesome at LinkedIn yet unemployed. The only thing worse than me generalizing about Millennials like this is Millennials twittering about what it’s like to be a Millennial. Generations are remembered for what they achieve, and public introspection isn’t much of an achievement.

10. #Hashtagging #the #crap #out #of #your #tweets. Yes, this may make your tweets slightly more visible for some people searching on Twitter, but you know what else can make your tweets more visible? Tweeting stuff interesting enough to deserve a follow or a retweet.