I recently did a periodic cleanup of our Twitter account using Untweeps, which is a service that tells you which Twitter accounts you are following are no longer active. I was surprised to see that I was following about 900 Twitter inactive accounts. We saw some familiar faces, and quite frankly, it was sad to see that some accounts of people we got to know last year are no longer actively tweeting.
This whole notion of social media being a marathon really hits home when we do these types of periodic cleanups. For whatever reason, humans are humans, and yes, Twitter isn’t for everyone, and for many, it grows tired and stale. Which leads us to the subject of this blog: why there is no such thing as a perfect social network.
Sure, I love Twitter, but as with any service I use, I are starting to find some limitations to it that are turning us off a bit. I have listed a few here, and are curious if others have their own dislikes about Twitter. Let me know?
1. Quotes: People taking quotes from other people and citing them on Twitter are becoming spam to us. Simple as that. Does anyone gain anything from this? We would love one reason. Here’s some advice: quote yourself; that might be more interesting and fun for your base.
2. Spam Accounts: It is so surprising to see that so many spam accounts are still around and allowed by Twitter to be posted. You would think that after seeing FOREX for the 1,000th time, Twitter might do something about it.
3. Brands That Don’t Get Social Media, But Think They Do: If we see another one-way stream of information on an account with no interaction at all, we do plan to let out at 140-character primal scream. Why, why, why, do brands think that “social media” is just a stream of no interaction? Do they not realize that this steady and passive stream is just hurting their rep? They might as well stop right now, and just delete their accounts. That would be more useful.
4. The Ego-Blasting: Newsflash to so-called savvy Twitter accounts: this isn’t about you, it’s about them.
5. Auto-Follow DMs: People you follow who then send you an auto DM thanking you for the follow, but when you reply to that DM, you can’t send them the DM because they aren’t following you. Come on!
Ok, that felt good.
Franky Benítez 
You are right on, on all counts. The follower page is definitely not user friendly. Including profiles would be helpful. I also find it cumbersome, to navigate as you accrue a larger list of followers. As for points 2-5, I consider them all “twitter noise” and I wish we could auto-delete these by category!!
Driving me crazy, as much as I believe in Twitter, some of the noise is killing it.
All very good points! I need to clean up my account and as Ghandi says …. oooops forget that!
Hey Julio! Thanks for the info. I am sure I am one of those who doesn’t quite get the way to use not only Twitter, but other social online networking. In fact, I have decided that FB means ‘Fat Butt’, which is about all I am getting from all of the social online networking.
What I really want is just to find a site that breaks it all down to elementary steps on each type of online networking, preferrably FREE. I first set up online networking so I could promote my business, ‘Body Blessings’ but both places I was supposed to ‘set up shop’ changed their minds at the last minute, so I am thinking it is time to just go back to work for someone for awhile and take my extra time to learn more about Online Networking and Macs before venturing off into my businesses again.
On another note, I do post the Season for Non=Violence sayings every day since January 30th, because I believe in it and want to get more exposure to it. I only commit to this event and Healing Journeys when they are in town.
Speaking of Healing Journeys, which is a non-profit organization that holds FREE 3-day conferences for individuals whose lives have been touched by cancer or some other defining illness – I was thinking today that ‘Dare to Live’ would be such a great song to perform at one of the conferences. If Fernando was interested in this type of thing, he would want to connect with Jan Adrian, Executive Director. She lives in Sacramento, and she is a one-woman operation (with a Board of Directors, naturally). Their site is http://www.HealingJourneys.org. She also attends SLC, the church that I think would absolutely love to have Fernando sing at it. Just food for thought.
Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and a great weekend. Thanks again for the article!
Blessings!