Twitter can be really fun. However, it can also feel like walking into a rowdy Wild West bar… that’s on fire. People shouting, hashtags flying about, auto-dms punching you in the face…
Here are my biggest pet peeves in the wild world of Twitter and some way to avoid them.
1. Auto-DMs
These, for me, are one of the most annoying things out there. It’s like waving to someone across the street and having them chase you down, throwing buisness cards like ninja stars at you. Not fun.
Quick-fix: Turn off the auto-dm and focus on making real connections.
2. Humblebragging
“My hubby bought me a latte and a donut, AND people think he looks like James Franco. #blessed”
“I never work out but somehow always fit in a size 0. #luckyme”
“Ugh, having a ten bedroom mansion makes it SO HARD to find a missing sock. Thank goodness for the maid. #crisisadverted”
“Only spent 813 bucks at Whole Foods! That’s what I call pennypinching. #success”
#shutupplease #nobodycares
Quick fix: It’s one thing to share good news. It’s another to constantly mention things that a lot of people don’t have. Ask yourself if you’re sharing a good thing or if you’re bragging to make yourself feel better.
3. All Output
Read my book! Read my blog post! Read my joke! Read my mind! LOOK AT MY PHOTOS! LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEE
(As an extrovert, I’m guilty of this one.)
Quick fix: Try to respond to your friend’s tweets too, or retweet their interesting blog posts. You don’t want your feed to be all you tweeting. Interact.
4. Shouting at Celebrities
Just. Don’t.
J.K. Rowling will not blurb your book. Jennifer Lawerence will not marry you. Robert Carlyle will not give you Once Upon A Time spoilers.
Quick fix: First, ask if your tweet is polite enough you’d send it to a coworker. Then, make sure you’re not the 357th person responding to the celeb’s post.
4. Too many hashtags
I #wrote a #book. It’s #fun #magical #YA #Checkitout #amreading #amwriting #amhashtaging
It’s hard to read tweets like this. I catch myself scrolling past them because they look like spam. Also, if you use more than four hashtags, Twitter will actually flag the tweet as spam and not show it in searches, etc. Use minimal, powerful hashtags. (For example, don’t hashtag common words like “book”, instead use tags like #amreading)
Also, respect hashtags created by others. If you see people tweeting thoughts with a hashtag on the end, perhaps like #yesallwomen or #mswl, don’t just assume you can use the hashtag for whatever you want. Some are part of a converstation started by specific people, about specific topics. Some are only used by certain people. For example, #askagent is only for when agents are going to answer questions. Don’t put it on your tweet about a book.
5. Putting other books down/linking authors to negative reviews
*please note, this doesn’t mean “thou shalt not negatively review books”
What this means is A. derailing a book conversation.
Person A: I loved Harry Potter! Best book series ever
Person B: Me too. I wish Draco had a better arc
Perscon C: Fav books ever!
Person D:* tags everyone else in the convo* HARRY POTTER IS STUPID AND YOU’RE ALL STUPID FOR LIKING IT.
Yeah. Just don’t. If the person isn’t asking for opinions on the book, you don’t have to tell them yours. Likewise, be careful about tagging authors in your tweets. If someone is asking for book recommendations, and you tag the author, you’re bringing that author into a conversation where people could end up stating why they don’t like that author’s book
For example
Person A: I need a book with beagle puppies as main characters
Person B: Wishbone series!
Person A: Cool, but I’m looking for books.
Person C: I love BEAGLE MYSTERY MURDERS by @PUPPYAUTHOR
Person B: Yeah but @Puppyauthor writes the STUPIDEST BOOKS EVER.
@puppyauthor goes and cries in a corner.
Quick Fix: Be polite
6. Not Giving Credit to Artists
Twitter person: HEY LOOK AT THIS GREAT ART!
NO IDEA WHO PAINTED THIS BUT IT’S REAL PRETTY, RIGHT?????
Quick tip. If you want to retweet some cool fan art, FIND THE ARTIST. You can use google image search to do so. Not doing so is really unfair to the artist who has done so much work.
So, there’s my biggest pet peeves on Twitter. What are yours?
Creatively Carrie 
Still slowly finding my way around Twitter, so this post is helpful. Found your blog on there under #mondayblogs and decided to try that hashtag myself today–so much to learn!
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Carrie! I love this post! I feel like everyone on Twitter should read this and then read it again.
I’m going to be honest, for the longest time, Twitter terrified me. I didn’t want to be “one of those people” and I didn’t know how to use it properly. I still don’t think I do entirely, but I’m trying to hammer that out so I can really connect to people the way that I want to. When I started on Twitter, however long ago, I did’t realize it for the tool that it was. Not a marketing tool, but an outreach tool to connect to people I wouldn’t have found if it weren’t for Twitter.
As far as pet peeves, there are a really only two things that grind my gears. The first is the follow for follow thing. To top it off, I really don’t like how some people will follow you, only to unfollow you the next day or a few days later, and then they re-follow you again. My first thought is, “I see you there, I know what you’re doing and it’s not working.” *shrugs* The other thing that I don’t find hugely annoying, but I just think is rather ineffective are the massive lists people make. I don’t mind being added to them at all, I just don’t see how they are remotely useful to the people that make them. And this is not because I don’t use lists, I have them and love them, but I keep my lists very small. They are tailored to who I interact with regularly, who I want to interact with more, or who I want to keep an eye on (if their coming out with a new book, or if I just want keep up to date on their blog, etc.). But on average, my lists are kept to around 15-20 people. Some are bigger than others (my fav author list for example, ^.^).
I’m absolutely guilty of “3. All Output”. I definitely try to balance it out, which is hard *cringe* but if I already know I’m not going to be very social then I try to stay away from Twitter altogether.
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People who are too noisy… you know, the ones who just can’t keep their finger off that Retweet button and just keep hitting it and hitting it. How much better to hold it in reserve for the relatively few tweets of value that truly warrant sharing.
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