Signs You Might Be Working Twitter Too Hard: Or Not *Workin* It At All

So these days I think you’ve got to feel for the folks just getting into Twitter. When it was first released to the public in 2006 during SXSW Interactive, I didn’t get it at all. The phrase "microblogging" still rings hollow to me. Twitter is NOT BLOGGING folks.

These days you can really tell when some one, or in this case a new conference/organization is trying to gain followers. I mean, what’s a new tweeter supposed to do? In order to get followers you have to follow. In order to be successful you have to have lots of followers. So you have to follow a lot of people.

Well, the metrics don’t work out quite that simply. And these days sooooo much of the tweets filling the Twitter.com web browser version of Twitter are in a word: CRAP. The scammers and RSS content drivers are out in mass. And as the golden egg is pursued via social media, what better way to get things going than creating a spankin new Twitter account.

So this unidentified tweeting org has begun following others in order to spread the love. But I have a hard time taking them seriously when I open their bio page and almost all of the people they follow have no bio pic yet. (A really good sign that the twitter account is bogus, spammy or scammy.)

But it gets a little funnier when you start looking at the accounts they are following that DO have pics. Notice the pentagram symbol. Now I’m not sure about your perspective on this, but I would guess if you were looking to join a professional organization and you saw Bruxinha0666 as one of the honorary or promoted members… Well, I’m just saying, it doesn’t always present the appropriate impression.

So nothing against Bruxinha0666, but if the number doesn’t clue you in what about the actual bio should you happen to click on his icon?

So I guess just plain bruxinha was taken?

and so on and so on…

Need a new bogus account just add another number on the end of bruxinha and you’re in business. So… what about 666?

Final question, so if this professional organization is looking to grow it’s membership and gain credibility through it’s effective use of social media, don’t you think they would pay a bit more attention to who they are "friending" in order to get the expected reciprocal "follow?"

I guess I’ll ping the association and let them know that 666 stands for something less cool than "open source" or "hacker." But I can’t help them with all those faceless bios. Cause a bird icon doesn’t stand for a tweeter, it stands for pecker.

@jmacofearth

permalink: http://bit.ly/not-blogging

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