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Top 5 Ways To Annoy Your Followers On Twitter

by Tim Lenahan on Jul. 29th, 2010

how to annoy peopleDo you remember the utterly pointless article about how to annoy your friends on Facebook?  Well, utterly pointless if you don’t like to be annoying sometimes.  Believe it or not, Facebook is not the only place you can be annoying online.  If you really truly enjoy getting on people’s nerves, why not attempt it on Twitter also?

In this article I would like to show you that it is truly easy to annoy people on Twitter.  In fact, it is so easy that some of these ideas are regularly practiced on Twitter already, and probably by accident.

Take this as a warning, if you are already doing one of these and didn’t know it was annoying, well, now you know.

Tweet In All Caps, All The Time

If you’ve been near a computer for a while, you will know that using all caps is yelling.  Want know how to annoy people in real life?  Walk around yelling everything.  Want to annoy someone on Twitter?  Do the same thing. Unless you are Billy Mayes, you can’t pull it off without being annoying.

annoying things to do

Maybe you’ll get attention, but not in a good way.  Go hurt someone else’s digital ears.

Tweet Something Spammy Over & Over Again

OK, I know that once you begin to repeat something over and over it becomes spam in itself.  However, doing it with a statement that is spammy already is what will make it that much more annoying.  It could be an affiliate link, a link to a contest, a promotion to your favorite blog post, or just something mundane.  Repeating it over and over will definitely get you on the “annoying wagon.”

annoying things to do

As a personal note, if someone I am following starts doing this, I will more than likely drop them like a ton of dead bricks.  Take that as a warning.

Tweet Updates About Every Mundane Thing That Happens Throughout The Day

how to annoy people

Chances are you are not cool enough for everyone to care how much milk you put in your corn flakes this morning.  They probably won’t care what brand of toothpaste you chose this time and whether or not it tastes good.  Seriously, get out of bed, put your stupid socks on, eat your cereal, and brush your teeth and KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.  Sorry, bud, but nobody cares.

Don’t Reply To Anyone Who Speaks To You On Twitter

how to annoy peopleThe silent treatment is not meant for Twitter.  Have you ever heard of something called conversation?  Isn’t that one of the points, maybe even the goal of having a Twitter account?  To communicate?  If all you are on Twitter is to speak and not listen, good luck keeping followers.  I know we have covered this already, but most people are there to communicate.  @ Replies are not all that difficult to figure out.

This is even more annoying when a company on Twitter does this.  Why have a Twitter account to interact with your customers if you are going to forget they even have a voice?  Trust me, they do, and they’ll use it even if you’re not listening.

Use Multiple Twitter Accounts To Tweet The Same Tweets All The Time

I know some people (@BrettBarner who also runs @godlysheep) that I believe know how to run multiple Twitter accounts without being annoying.  However, if you are just using multiple accounts hoping that different people will follow each and that it will equal more followers, you’re annoyingly mistaken.  Run a personal one and one for your business or blog but do it right and keep things separate.  Does that mean you shouldn’t tweet the occasional cross-tweet?  No, but don’t go overboard.

Twitter can be a great tool for communication, if used correctly.  It can also be a great tool to use to annoy the followers you love the most, if used incorrectly.

Take a gander at MakeUseOf’s Twitter guide in order to get a handle on things.  I hope it helps.

What else can people do on Twitter to be annoying?  Share in the comments.

 

(By) Tim blogs about tech tips tricks and news on his blog: timmyjohnboy.com

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More about: fun . offbeat . social networks . Twitter

View Comments

2010-07-29 20:40:35
Steve Campbell

You're right, those are definitely some things that annoy me on Twitter. lol Nice article.

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2010-07-29 21:07:34
Marilin

Billy Mays is dead, good job!

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2010-07-29 21:35:53
timmyjohnboy

Hey, I didn't kill him. I just used him to make a point.

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2010-07-30 01:05:45
JK III

Alternate Heading: How to commit online social suicide :D

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2010-07-30 03:20:33
timmyjohnboy

LOL!

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2010-07-30 06:20:56
IshootPeople

hah…those could be usefull definitely :)

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2010-07-30 11:08:11
Aibek

the ALL CAPS one is hilarious :-) .

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2010-07-30 17:56:50
Swapnil Pimputkar

ReTweet everything which comes @you.

I know that's annoying.

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2010-07-30 17:56:50
Swapnil Pimputkar

ReTweet everything which comes @you.

I know that's annoying.

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2010-07-31 04:06:28
timmyjohnboy

Interesting thought.

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2010-07-31 15:55:16
BNJ

And in the spammy category: those chain-letter-type posts that say “send (or retweet) to all your friends and something good will happen” or if you don't repost something horrible will happen”, or similar. That's a sure way to reveal your true age as 11.

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2010-07-31 22:41:54
timmyjohnboy

11 year olds on Twitter posting chain letters. Sounds annoying.

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2010-08-01 05:02:13
Shirley Thomas

Argh… I was really hoping for tips and tricks on how to annoy my Twitter friends! LOL.

The last one is something I really have been gritting my teeth over. It's fine to run multiple accounts like you said, especially if you're marketing your several blogs; Follow Fridaying them is also fine with me.

But when every single updates of those other accounts are retweeted into my stream… that is really, really annoying. (What if I had followed those accounts too? Good thing I didn't. Ha.)

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2010-08-01 07:15:05
timmyjohnboy

Yeah, to me it comes across as spam when you start getting the same message over and over from the twit's other accounts.

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2010-08-04 19:26:55
House MD Stream

All caps one is funny! Great article!

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2010-08-09 17:05:44
Glorynet66

I often think by sending my tweets of whether it leads me to a situation to annoy my followers;of course i should not like doing that,and always trying to find a balance.
To me one of most annoying ways is to send tweet with the affiliate/advertising links in great deal at once,which i experienced and thought of unfollowing that user.
thank you

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