Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Blogging/Facebook/Twitter Etiquette...Or Not...

Blame the cold, rainy weather, the bad day I'm having, or just that I'm now becoming more social media mature, but I have to rant for a bit about blogging, Facebook, and Twitter etiquette.  I know this is off-topic from my usual photography stuff, but this post has been weighing on me for a week or more and I finally need to get it off my chest.  Here goes my rant about my top three annoyances when it comes to blogging, Facebook, and Twitter (at the risk of losing some of my followers)...

1) I think this is my biggest pet peeve--follow for a follow.  I admit, I did it when I first started blogging but I completely regret it now!  I would rather have 10 real followers than 200 who only "follow" me so I will return the favor.  I want my followers to follow me because they enjoy my blog content and really want to read it.  So no, I will not follow you back because you asked me to.  I will only follow you if I am actually interested in reading your blog.  I will be cleaning up my blog reading list and will be weeding out the blogs I am no longer interested in.

2)  This one is to people who do giveaways on their blogs and is in direct relation to #1 above.  Those people who say "you must be a follower of me in order to enter this giveaway" turn me off.  Really???  You are that shallow about your followers?  You'd rather have a high number than followers who actually care about your blog?  Sure, I'll go ahead and follow you for the giveaway but you bet that as soon as I don't win (and even if I do win) I'm going to un-follow you!  If your giveaway is cool but something I can live without, I just might not enter at all because of that requirement.  Like I said above, I only follow people I actually follow.  I will never make it a requirement that you follow me in order to enter giveaways on my blog!
3)  I think that says it all.  Those people who tweet whole tweets of hashtags annoy me.  If you do it over and over and over again, I will un-follow you (especially if that's all you tweet).  Sorry.  I just can't handle it.  Same can be said for those Follow Friday tweets.  It's ok if you do one or two @s but if it's a whole, entire tweet of @s, and more than one in a row, it's super annoying and a complete turn off.  I'm glad you like to share the love, but I really don't care who you follow and I don't want to see your entire follow list in tweets.  Again, I follow who I want.

Phew!  I feel better now that I got those top three blogging, Facebook, and Twitter annoyances off my chest!  What are your thoughts on these?  Do you have other annoyances?

*Go ahead, you can un-follow me now.  I won't take any offense. 
  

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14 comments:

Adriana Iris said...

ditto.I hate when they comment just to phish my readers. I hate when I read myself on other readers.

CM said...

So true! I agree.

I've had people leave comments on some of my more serious posts with a similar, "Stopping over from -----, following you and hope you follow me back!" They obviously didn't even READ the post they commented on or else they wouldn't have left such an insensitive comment.

Good for you for being so real. I have some similar opinions about blogging and Twitter. Maybe one of these days I'll have the courage to actually post them!

Jen Westpfahl said...

I agree with all of these.

I don't know if this is a peeve but I won't follow you on twitter if:
1. there are no @s in your stream.
2. there are only @s in your stream, meaning you are offering nothing particularly original.

Jenilee said...

I agree!!! especially 1 and 3!

Through the Lens of Kimberly Gauthier said...

Jamie - I agree 100% and I try to respond gently to the "I need followers, I'll follow back" posts by suggestion other avenues.

I would rather have people who actually read my blog, who are interested in what I say. They don't even have to comment, although comments are fun.

I'd rather have that than 1000 faux followers who are clicked my RSS because of a contest of a need to pay me back for a follow.

I did participate in a boost contest where I got loads of followers, but only a handful were actually interested in me. So disappointing. Live and learn.

FANTASTIC POST!! Thanks for saying what many people are thinking.

Becca said...

I particularly agree with this because I am VERY particular about what blogs I follow. (so consider yourself hand-picked from many MANY photography blogs! ;) )

With only a limited amount of time, and a wide variety of interests, I can only read 2 or 3 blogs on the subjects I am interested in.

And I don't even care if people follow my blogs (if you read my blogs, you'll see... because I don't have any followers. Ha ha, but yet I still write... )

The only time I had a giveaway that required you to "Follow" my blog was when I was trying to get people who "followed" my private family blog to follow our public front page instead (so they could get RSS feeds). But then, the "contest" was only open to the 70 or so people on my "readers" list anyway... so I don't think I violated much blogger etiquette there :)

Anyway, I always enjoy reading your blog. Ironically, your blog post about whether or not you need a DSLR (vs a super zoom P&S) is why DH is adamant that he buy me a DSLR. Ha ha. I read that post so that he would be convinced that I DON'T need one, and then he kept saying, "See, that means you need a DSLR." But I am learning a lot about photography by reading your blog, and I especially love reading posts by a mom that just likes to take pictures. Just like me! :)

Sorry for the uber long post. I just love your blog, and I love you, and I am a very... loquacious person. And now you know that I follow you because I love your blog. :)

K-Sue said...

I agree! I find reading Twitter posts annoying - they seem to mostly be fluff. Perhaps I am too old...

dawn said...

****dittohead
I jumped aboard yesterday because of one pure reason - I'm about to get a new camera and I want to utilize every resource I can get my hands on!

It was fun to read your rant as I share your sentiments wholeheartedly! We can be very insecure human beings, and the darndest thing will feed our ego - such as, well, "blog followers"
My blog, unless you're interested in matters of recovery, would not interest anyone. I'm blogging with a genuine goal of reaching someone out there who is currently suffering in their addiction.
period.

Great post! And don't ya just feel so much better puttin it out there!!

Oh, one more thing,,,,,
will you please follow me now? I'll give ya some free face cream.

KIDDING LOL, Just kidding!!! Ha
~d

Unknown said...

yay for honesty!

Beth Adams said...

I'm fairly new to blogging, and I've tried a few blog hops. I've found that even though I have a few new followers, I don't seem to have new readers. How can you increase your readers without going through the annoying blog hop thing? I'm clueless. lol

Jamie and Shane said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jamie and Shane said...

I have no blog (well, I do, but it has a total of 3 posts in the past 3 months, and my mom is my only follower), so I am a blog follower only. I have to add something to this discussion...I absolutely hate giveaways. They just muddy up the waters, so to speak. There are some blogs that I have followed for years that I have stopped following recently just because of all of the giveaway crap. BORING! I can honestly say that it just screams "follow me, follow me!", and frankly, it's like the needy person that you want to avoid. I guess I've never seen a giveaway that didn't take up 4 posts, and require that you follow, tweet, etc. your head off to enter. Ok, thanks for the avenue to gripe. It felt good!

Your mom said...

I definitely did the follow for a follow early on but now I don't do it not because I have a whopping number of followers but because I'd rather have really readers and connections.

I'm guilty of a "follow" for giveaway for one main reason: sponsors and giveaway people care about how many followers I have. The more followers I get, the more sponsors who contact me about posting give aways ... a viscous, viscous, circle!

Something I hate:
When people comment about their own post in my blog (and leave a link).

I don't use twitter so I didn't follow #3 at all BUT I am more firmly a believer in NOT tweeting :)

I liked your rant today. Of course I like it spicy!

Sara said...

I agree with Beth...how DO you get anyone to even stop by and read if you don't do blog hops and such? I agree with your general idea...I would like ALL people to follow me that are interested in what I write...BUT...but it always seems I am more interested in other's blogs than they are mine...seems like you have to be a "Big" blogger with stroller-like giveaways to get any actual followers!! hmmmmmm

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