With all the blog posts I’ve done on Twitter for nonprofits, you know I’m having a blast with Twitter. I’m connecting with old friends and new ones. I even used Twitter to rewrite a fundraising appeal!

But over the last few weeks, I’ve seen some repeated habits that really annoy me:

  1. People asking for followers.
    I don’t understand why people would send tweets asking, sometimes begging, people to follow them. Twitter isn’t a popularity contest. Twitter isn’t about how many followers you have. It’s about the conversations you’re having.

    So here’s a simple Twitter secret: be interesting. Seek and follow interesting people. You can use Twitter Search or Twellow to find people. Interact with them. Follow conversations during live events like the President’s speeches or episodes of Survivor. You’ll get followers.

    But please, don’t beg for followers.

  2. People thanking me for following them.
    Give me a break! I’m not following you to do you a favor. I’m following you to see what I can learn.

    I choose to autofollow people that follow me. I don’t have the time to manually go through the lists of people that follow me to see who to follow in return. So I’ve found autofollowing to be helpful.

    Some of the thank you’s I’ve received make it seem like they’re desperate for followers.

  3. People trying to drive me to their website.
    Worse than saying “thank you,” “thank you,” is DM’s that ask, cajole, or insist that I go to their website. That’s what bios are for! Just be interesting often enough and I will go to your bio to learn more. Really.

    So be sure to make the most of your bio.

    But if you’re not interesting, or if you do nothing but broadcast messages without replying, I’ll probably simply stop following you.

    The weirdest version of this is people wanting me to become their Facebook friends. I like auto DM’s. But sheesh. How in the world do I know if I want to friend you on FB? Don’t ask me something like that on the first tweet.

There. My rant is over.

If you’ve never been on Twitter before and want to see what it’s all about, I hope you and your staff will join me for Twitter Your Way to Contributions on March 31 at 2 p.m.

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