One or two people have DMd to ask if I would move my daily quiz to another account because they thought it ‘spammy’ and I have suggested that they simply un-follow me because the quiz unites a great many people in fun once a day, whether playing or following the players and comic tweeters who keep us all laughing with their spoof answers.

If I feel someone is spamming me, I will DM them to suggest they add a bit more conversation to the mix or reduce the frequency of self-promoting tweets and if they still spam me I just quietly un-follow them.

Some people’s constant stream of linked tweets are very useful, after all, if they are tweeting stuff one wants to stay abreast of!

I don’t think any of us should be drawing lines for each other. If your activities are anti-social, your falling follower count will, surely, create a line all by itself!

2) Spam is something everyone knows about, but no one can really define. As far as I’m concerned, if the service you’re using (like Twitter) gives you the ability to block or “unfriend” people you don’t want to hear from, nothing you’re receiving through that service is spam. You can unsubscribe from any feed you’re getting. I do this all the time, as I’m not into network marketing other than to write about it when people ask me to. If I get more than a couple of “join my MLM” or “see how great this $-making blah blah is” from someone (within a few hours of each other), I blcok them from my Tweet feed.

I do this with emails (blacklists) and so forth. One more note: if you’re creating a Twitter or Facebook or whatever account for your marketing, be sure to say that in your bio. Nothing peeves people more than listing yourself as “normal” and then having a feed full of marketing links. THAT will get your account shut down faster than anything. Twitter and Facebook could care less if you’re “legitimate” or not, if they get enough complaints, it’s easier for them to just close your account than it is to “work it out.”

Anyway, I personally can’t see how Twitter can be that great of a tool for marketing, but maybe that’s because I’m not into marketing.

Think of conversations you have offline. Generally you’ll talk about work and what you do, as well as the other stuff happening in your life.

Why would Twitter be any different?

People will either like it or not, and that’s the choice at the end of the day.

One of the interesting elements to emerge from the Twitter platform going mainstream is the increasing importance of having to really sell content. As the torrent of tweet streams swell, we are having to work harder to draw attention to the content we post. It is important to note that this is true not just for our content, but for any content that we choose to bring to the attention of the community. How we use the 140 character limit to sell this content is hugely important, and if employed monotonously, this headline capacity will fail to draw clicks; irrespective of who has produced it. The best analogy I can give is that of a paper. When you buy a newspaper (or subscribe to a feed), you assume that there will be some articles written by the paper’s own staff, in addition to the insertion of outside thoughts and opinion. This is something we buy into in both cases. As you suggest Dave, if we don’t like it, we can simply cut it off.

At the end of the day, it’s about drawing attention. If you are creative in how you do this, then I think it’s ok to post links to your own content. The success or otherwise thereof will ultimately be determined by the community.

Chris
TLR

But as Kerri said, it adds value to the conversation.

For me, I find I have a lot of Twitter followers who don’t read my blog, so linking there when I can is important.