Inspirational quotes, mixed with "make money now with..." and "get 10,000 Twitter followers with..." tweets are sure signs of a Twitter spammer.
You won't understand this post unless you've been on Twitter a while. After you assemble a Follower posse, based on real people you know and bloggers you like, you start checking out recommendations.
Someone on Twitter suggests you Follow a person, who "has awesome tweets". What that usually means is they're using a social media marketing gimmick, like relentless inspirational quotes. It seems innocent, even beneficial, at first. You read a positive affirmation or a brilliant witticism. It makes you smile. You feel good. It's like sugar or a recreational drug. Fluffy and spacey.
After a while though, you get tired of it.
All these gurus yapping at you to quit being sour, dream big, expect a miracle, stay sunny-side up, whistle while you work, put on a smiley face, don't worry be crappy, and so on. It starts to drip like a melting ice cream cone in your Twitter time-line. You start to feel sticky, syrupy, sickeningly sweet.
What's creepy about inspirational quote Twitter users is that it's constant. You feel like they are programmed robots, spewing mushy nonsense, splattering hot fudge and caramel all over the place. It begins to make you want to vomit it all out in defiance.
Nobody likes even nice sentiments shoved in your face all day long. You can be drearily over-inspired, to the point that you feel like Dale Carnegie is peering over your shoulder, rasping "Is that anyway to win friends and influence people?"
Whoever is coaching CEOs and affiliate marketing gurus to pollute the Twitter streams with all this mindless parroting, please stop. It's similar to some daffy old aunt trying to shove religion or atheism down your throat when you're a child. It feels artificial, contrived, desperate.
Inspirational quote tweets are patronizing, demeaning, "holier than thou". They say: "You mopey slacker! You need motivation!" It's like some witchdoctor psycho-babble guru examined Twitter and concluded: "Twitter is full of bitter nihilist wankers drowning in depression. We need to cheer them up."
Relentless inspirational quotes are a pathetic attempt to get people to RT (retweet) your tweets, to #FollowFriday recommend you, and ultimately, to attract new Followers. But it's not you they're Following, it's the authors of the inspirational quotes.
You have negated yourself. Your own personality becomes hidden. You act like you don't have any original thoughts, and are unable to put your own spin on a proverbial saying. You look almost like a troll or spammer.
Is this what you intended when you started sounding like Al Franken in the film Stuart Saves His Family?
Twitter spammers, con artists, criminals attempting to trick you into fake "money making" schemes use relentless inspirational and motivational tweets.
Don't imitate these jerks. A wise saying once in a while may be okay, but relentless tweeting of them makes you look like a spammer and some people may Report For Spam you, jeopardizing your Twitter account.
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2 comments:
I am glad someone took the time to say this. I am getting sick and tired of the quotes.
When I follow someone, I want to hear what they have to say, not what Ben Franklin said over 200 years ago.
If Ben wants to get his own Twitter account and you feel like retweeting him once in awhile, that's different. But make sure it's a verified account before you follow him. ;-)
When I am examining a twitter profile, deciding if I am going to follow or not, one of the things I look for is quotes. If I see them, it's usually a sure sign of someone that is more likely to send turds floating down my stream than anything of real value.
It's a common practice of spammers, attempting to mask their spamming activities by tweeting quotes between the spam links.
Nope, I don't follow quoters.
YES YES! The inspirational quotes, which also always seem to make "top tweets", have nearly been enough a few times to make me sign off Twitter a few times. They do make me feel quite sick. Great bit of writing there Senor Streight....
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