As e.e. cummings' reluctant soldier Olaf did almost ceaselessly repeat, "there is some shit I will not eat," PR blogger Jennifer Mattern says there are some twits she will not tweet.
"Twitter spam," she calls it, when one uses Twitter to share a link to a new entry on one's own blog.
Look, if people really give that much of a damn
about your blog, they’ll subscribe to your feed. They don’t need what
really amounts to a manual feed coming through Twitter as well. It’s
obnoxious. It’s like screaming “Look at me! Look at me! I said
something new and I’m so uber important I just knew you couldn’t wait
another minute for it!” Yuck. …
I thought the supposed beauty of Twitter was the ability to hold
immediate multi-party conversations in a forcibly concise way. …
Oh that's what you thought, is it?
Here are some of the multi-party conversations I've been seeing today on my Twitter account:
I am having some serious problems with Microsoft Exchange!
Heading out to Chiswick.
Heh! I can see the traffic warden on one street, looks like the same guy who gave me a ticket last time I was in Chiswick lol 🙂
Editing line manager booklet – feels good to just write stuff for a change!
Do the Cubs have Swing Flu?
Feeling like a real commuter, headed to Houston.
Too nice to work now…. I hear the bike calling.
This is the church I'll be farting in when I go on Twitter and post the link to this blog entry and with a note that says, "My totally awesome blog post about Twitter bullies"?
Maybe I'm following the wrong crowd. If Jennifer sees an occasional link to a new blog post as a rude interruption of a rich, intellectual conversation, I'd like to know who she's following.
I had special K with red berries for breakfast. Yum!
While I think there is a small point hidden in her comments about the dangers of constant over-self-promotion, that’s not what Jennifer is saying.
Also, there is always the Unfollow button.
She says that if people really care, then they’ll just follow our blogs in RSS feeds, etc. Wouldn’t it equally stand to reason that, if people really care, they won’t mind that we post the occasional link to our blog?
I don’t think Jenn’s talking about an “occasional link” to a blog. In fact she calls spam “a tweet to every single blog post they publish.”
I think you can get away with tweeting every blog post if you balance it out with non-promotional tweets. But if all you ever tweet is a link to a blog post, it gets annoying.
I have to say I’m glad people “tweet” about their blogs or interesting articles that they’ve found. That’s how I have found some blogs that I’m now following. It’s also how I have found and shared relevant articles with my co-workers.
So, David, by all means post a link to your latest blog entry. You never know when you’ll gain a new reader – and didn’t you say something about numbers in a previous post?
Oh, I’m quite comfortable with tweeting about blog items, Colleen, and I tweeted about this one.
(In fact, I can’t think of one other reason to burp out little thoughts on Twitter.)
I don’t tweet every one–just the ones that I think might have broad appeal.
Well, David, not that you need it but it’s great for networking, too. I had become quite inactive in my local IABC chapter in the ’07 and ’08 but when I had resolved to become more involved this year. Because my IABC chapter and its officers and members have a huge presence on Twitter, I felt like I knew people before I walked into my first ’09 prof. development luncheon. For someone who’s uncomfortable walking into situations where I don’t know anyone that was a big help.
That alone was worth the price of admission … oh wait, Twitter’s free isn’t it. Well, you know what I mean.
David, You are doing it right. It’s her opinion. We all have our own opinions and our own ways of using and valuing Twitter.