Could you possibly be a social media douchebag?
Read these 10 signs and see for yourself…I wrote this list because, unfortunately, I’ve seen every single one of these episodes of ultimate douchebaggery.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was today, when I received a Twitter DM advertising some sort of Christmas shopping junk. I went to the guy’s profile page to unfollow him, and there, right on his bio, it said “I am a social media marketing expert.” I Tweeted publicly (without including his name): “If you DM spam me, you are NOT a ’social media marketing expert’. You’re just an asshole.”
That led to the creation of this list…the worst of what I’ve experienced in nearly 3 years of Twitter and Facebook:
The Top 10 Signs You May Be a Social Media Douchebag
10. Every time you sign up for a new “social media” website, you gladly enter in your email username and password so it can send invites out to all your friends.
9. You send out “e-invites” to your “webinars” to all your friends on Facebook. Surely that guy you had a crush on in elementary school will be interested in your “101 Ways to Grow Your Knitting Business” webinar!
8. You subscribe to or buy anything that promises you can “increase your Twitter followers 100x, overnight!” Never mind that most of the people promoting it only have a handful of followers…you’re different!
7. You find this cool program that lets you set up your Twitter to auto-broadcast all of Mashable’s latest articles. Now you can definitely claim the title “social media expert”!
6. You DM all of your Twitter followers regularly about new offers from your clients and from companies that pay you. As a bonus, you sometimes include “Tweet this!” as an indication that your followers should do something nice for you after you’ve spammed them.
5. You let all those “Increase your Twitter followers” and “OMG I just created a survey!” programs DM your followers for you, and don’t know how to stop them. (Hint: Go to Twitter -> Settings -> Connections and remove them, or change your password.)
4. You write on your friends’ walls and beg them to come join your team in Mafia Wars, help find that poor lost cow in Farmville, or otherwise waste hours of their time helping you in some ridiculous online quest.
3. You broadcast anything on your Twitter stream about how a mom discovered a new way for everyone to have whiter teeth, how you can trade the Forex market for just a small “investment”, how anyone can “get ripped”, or how Donald Trump wants to help you become a millionaire.
2. You think RTing quotes from people like Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins makes you look cool. Here’s a hint: If we wanted quotes, we’d go look them up on the Internet, or read those guys’ books and info products (they sure put out enough of them!)
1. You write anything on your public Twitter stream that includes “Help me get to ___ followers!” or “Only __ away from ____ followers!” (Hint: No one cares! We’re people, not “followers.”)
Bonus: You respond to this list by saying, “Hey, if they don’t like it, they can delete it!”
Erica’s Note: How I Got 20,000 Followers on Twitter…For Real
I now have over 20,000 followers on Twitter. I suppose I could “sell my secrets”, but how about I give them to you, right now, for free?
I went out and followed thousands of people who shared interests with me. (I even wrote a blog post on one technique I used.) Many of them followed me back. Six months of doing that and I had gone from 4,000 followers to 20,000 followers. I’ve also met a ton of new friends.
I don’t follow people so they will follow me back. That wastes everyone’s time. I follow people who share interests with me. Unfortunately, even real people sometimes get roped in by scams or turn their Twitter stream into a crap-filled chorus of poorly-thought out promotions. I keep it simple: if you’re not communicating with your audience–if you’re a one-way, broadcasting billboard–I unfollow you.
Want 20,000 real, human followers on Twitter? There ain’t no free lunch. Go work for it.
Recommended Reading:
- How to Find People on Twitter. My definitive video guide to finding, and following, real people on Twitter.
- Why Entrepreneurs Fail–Will You Avoid These Three Traps? Similar to what the social media douchebags do…many entrepreneurs fall into traps as well. I detail three of these traps and how to avoid them.
- How To Choose A Business. Want to start a business, but have too many ideas? Here’s how to narrow them down.
- Follow me on Twitter, or become a fan of erica.biz on Facebook.
Like this entry? You will love getting my free business tips! No spam, and I won't give your email address to any other company.
10. December 2009 at 4:38 pm
Erica – I love this post! These are the exact same things that annoy me to know end. If people would start trying to create meaningful relationships with others, they would realize that then and only then were they truly being social. They care too much about selling to someone instead of building trust and relationship with someone. You hit the nail on the head with this one and I am glad you wrote it.
10. December 2009 at 5:17 pm
This article comes less than 24 hours after I had a very unfortunate run in with sign #10.
I was checking out Friendster and wanted to see if any of my friends were on it (I am never one to send the invites, think it’s tacky). I let it access my contacts because it said I would have the chance to review before any invites were sent out. IT LIED!! No opportunity was given to review anything. Instead, invites went out to almost 500 hundred contacts: family, friends, previous co-workers, recruiters, job leads (I’ve been out of a job for a few months…this can’t possibly have helped at all), and even people that I didn’t know that I had just appeared on a email list along with.
I say that to say that #10 may not be as intentional as some people think. Most sites are pretty upstanding and don’t bombard people with invites unless you grant permission; Friendster did not give me that chance.
But yes, I certainly did feel like a d-bag none the less. (Actually began to sweat when I realized what it did.)
PS – Your Twitter account is how I found you in the first place. You definitely know what you are talking about here.
10. December 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hi David,
The tips are sort of ordered from least to most douchebaggy (is that even a word? I’m really stretching it here
Friendster definitely deserves a slap for that sneakiness.
-Erica
10. December 2009 at 7:02 pm
I just had a good one today. Dude follows me, I follow back. He then DMs me thanking me for the follow. I try to DM back to say “No problem!” and I can’t send it because he’s no longer following me. What a d-bag!
10. December 2009 at 7:13 pm
Ahaha, I’ve had that happen too! Or, better yet “Hey, I need to send you something…please follow me” and then they don’t ever follow you back. Yuck!
10. December 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hi, I clicked on your tweet to get here
. Great article! I just joined twitter about a month ago and see a lot of spammy tweets. Especially, the Donald Trump, making money tweeting and the make money with google. The problems is…that’s all they tweet. I don’t EVER see any personal tweets from these people. I find myself just overlooking them. I may as well “unfollow” now. I agree…I want to relate to real people.
10. December 2009 at 8:43 pm
Yeah, look at the “from” statement under their Tweets. If all their tweets are “from API” or “from Twitterfeed” or “from Twaitter”, you can be assured they’re just spammers, and you can safely unfollow them. Most of those accounts don’t have real people reading your Tweets, so they’re a waste of time to follow.
As a side note, you can easily get 20,000 “followers” by following a bunch of these junk bots–they’ll follow you back. But since they’re not real people, it doesn’t really help you to follow them. That’s how a lot of people get tens of thousands of followers, though.
-Erica
10. December 2009 at 10:48 pm
Aha!!! Thanks for the quick lesson. Starting the “unfollow” mission NOW
10. December 2009 at 7:44 pm
I don’t understand the value of Twitter followers that well. I follow about 60 people, but if I follow any more than that I get too many Tweets to pay attention to. I see some people who follow thousands of people. Isn’t that too many tweets to manage?
If I have follower who also follow thousands of other people, it seems unlikely that they pay any attention to my tweets.
I think I’m missing something and would love to learn more.
10. December 2009 at 8:41 pm
Hi Charles,
I use Tweetdeck and have a group set up called “Friends” where I only follow around 80 or so people. Makes it much easier to keep up. I also follow my @ replies in Tweetdeck.
You can do the same thing with Twitter lists (and you can keep your lists private.)
-Erica
10. December 2009 at 8:38 pm
It’s cool you called people “douchebags” in your latest post. In my latest post I called them “deadbeats”. Lol!
Seriously though, Twitter is a bit of a mess still with all these automated tweets and DMs. Facebook seems to have done a better job.
I think the difference is that somehow Twitter sucks us into going for numbers.
Now, some people are starting to treat Facebook like Twitter and trying to add strangers. I’ve decided to draw the line and for the sake of my Facebook friends to just keep my list small to people I actually know.
10. December 2009 at 9:04 pm
As a relative newbie to Twitter I don’t know that I have committed any of the ten signs that you have listed but for some reason I still think I might be a social media “douchebag.” I’m sure I’ve done some things that made people roll their eyes. Have you ever considered putting together a beginner’s guide to twitter?
10. December 2009 at 10:30 pm
Erica gets ornery. I like it.
I only quote Robert Plank on the internet, because he’s ornery too. But if Chris Haddad got ornery, maybe I’d quote him.
(Looking for quotables in blog post above… perfect!)
11. December 2009 at 11:45 am
Dude. Chris Haddad is always ornery.
11. December 2009 at 1:05 am
An interesting post that made me think about my online behavior.
I’ve recently started an online shop for photography and video accessories and am still struggling to achieve acceptable traffic levels.
I started a Facebook fan page (600 people strong now…) and did indeed ask some friends to join so that I could get a facebook.com/username soon but the rest came from ads that I placed and undoubtedly some people joined on seeing activities of their friends.
I admit I am guilty of #1 as well, as I was keen to reach subscriber No. 600 the other day, so I posted something along the lines of “waiting for…”
However I’ve always resented calling people ‘fans’ or ‘followers’ and have always made conscious efforts to word such announcements carefully, instead opting to say ‘friends’ or ’supporters’ and never forgetting to mention how thankful I am for their joining as it is indeed their choice to spend some time paying attention to my online effort.
All in all, Erica’s article made me feel quite uncomfortable, I got that ‘geez, am I really that bad with people online’ concern, so this is a sign the piece was crafted well, so thanks once again for the excellent work Erica!
Ivan A.
Sofia, BG
11. December 2009 at 1:46 am
Hey Erica,
Loved the list. Twitter has become so boring because of all the human “spam bots” infesting the twitter-verse like head lice.
I have to say you missed one I think overshadows your number 2
It’s not the quotes, but all the assholes who think twitting news headlines (with links) is a meaningful post.
I get this feeling there would only be 3,000 real people using twitter if they got rid of all the douchebag types!
11. December 2009 at 3:36 pm
Whoa, Stew. This is exactly what I think Twitter is most useful for. When I read a post on the Web and think, “Man, a lot of people would be interested in this if they knew about it,” I tweet it out. And my Twitter feed is pretty much restricted to others who do the same. If people don’t want that, they don’t follow. Doesn’t make us “assholes.”
11. December 2009 at 1:50 am
“4. You write on your friends’ walls and beg them to come join your team in Mafia Wars, help find that poor lost cow in Farmville, or otherwise waste hours of their time helping you in some ridiculous online quest.
10. Every time you sign up for a new “social media” website, you gladly enter in your email username and password so it can send invites out to all your friends.”
I quote you here.Sorry,I dont agree that doing no.4 and no.10 is being a social media douchebag.You are forgetting that social media is social media.Its not business/marketing media.Playing Mafia Wars is social entertainment and you can only play an RPG game by inviting your friends.Its not stupid or wasting time.After all Facebook is a place for fun.As for no.10, social media wouldnt be social media if you were not able to invite your friends.You would be lonely on Facebook.Facebook would not exist if you couldnt invite your friends.
Above all,its important to separate social networks from marketing platforms.Social networks have their purpose,and you must respect that.Most spammers on Facebook are marketers who should be advertising their products else,not on a social network.
11. December 2009 at 4:41 am
Hey Erica,
Great list.
I’ll sum up how not to be a social media douchbacg in just 7 words.
“Be real, be you, be a friend.”
People will want to find out more about you, IF what they read from you is REAL YOU and REAL WORLD applicable.
Somedays, I can’t believe the crap I get in my inbox…. on through social media…. because it simply is crap.
Anyhoo…. that you for having fun, being you, and keeping it real.
And interesting!
Have an amazing day!
Mr Twenty Twenty
Whooooo yah!
Who else thinks it is way cool to LIVE YOUR VISION? Vision is what life is all about! Don’t just think about it, DO IT!
11. December 2009 at 5:29 am
Don’t forget the porn bots…. People who’s website is always an adult paysite. After almost a year on twitter, I am still below 80 followers and following. I only follow people I like and/or respect & they have to make that same list to even be a follower!
11. December 2009 at 6:21 am
I use Twitterless (http://twitter.com/tless) to see who unfollowed me (including spammers) and Tweepi (http://tweepi.com) to get rid of those people who follow me for a couple of seconds, then, when I have followed them back, they unfollow me! Both are free. Tweepi can also find people who share the same interests, Erica! I don’t know that I have 20,000 followers yet. I have more like 6,000 (less a couple hundred.) I got them in about a year, just by being myself! One of my main Twitter rules (which I made up myself, incidentally) is always to tweet warm, positive and outgoing stuff…
11. December 2009 at 6:45 am
Mafia Wars? no no no, don’t include that one. It’s different.
11. December 2009 at 7:10 am
Erica,
Thank you for responding to my comment with the suggestion of Tweetdeck. I’m still confused by the purpose of having followers if most people use Tweetdeck to ignore all but a handful of people they follow. Why bother following people if you’re going to use a tool to ignore their tweets?
Thanks,
CJ
11. December 2009 at 7:20 am
Nice post. I suppose it was time someone got nitty gritty about it. But let me ask you – do you do Linked-In or Ecademy? or both?
11. December 2009 at 7:23 am
Good list!
There’s certainly a lot of spamming and “follower-harvesting” going on on twitter. And I’m afraid it will only get worse since google’s live results basically rewards twitter keyword spamming.
11. December 2009 at 8:01 am
Wow! I LOVE this post! Finally someone says this and points it out lol. It gets so old with people bombarding you with these things and their tweets! I always wondered how many people were truly social media experts and marketing experts with the stuff they do…Not saying all are like that, but you know exactly the ones that are being referred to… Great post Erica!
11. December 2009 at 8:03 am
Douchebaggery is a growing trend. There are a couple of sites dedicated to just pointing out douchebaggery, here’s a couple of them:
http://www.socialmediadouchebag.net/
and
http://marketingdouchebags.tumblr.com/
Those sites are great reads too. No, none of them are mine nor am I an affiliate of them blah, blah, blah
11. December 2009 at 10:09 am
Rafael, thanks for those links – had a good chuckle, and yes I’ve met quite a few folks like that on various social networks.
11. December 2009 at 8:04 am
Hi Erica -
I enjoyed your post even if Facebook didn’t! Creative AND informational at the same time.
I have to say I have been guilty of the quote thing on occasion, my defense is I seem to get “performance anxiety” on Twitter and can’t seem to think of anything to say that people would be interested in!
Any tips w/this?
Thanks
11. December 2009 at 9:24 am
Hey Erica,
If you hit up http://www.facebook.com/username/, you can grab a username for your page that shortens it up and takes away the numbers ala http://www.facebook.com/ericabiz
My favorite thing is the people who describe themselves as social media enthusiasts. WTF does that mean? It means I’m going to unfollow you.
Andy
11. December 2009 at 11:50 am
My problem is that facebook.com/ericabiz goes to my personal page and I don’t want to change that. Facebook won’t let me do /erica.biz for the blog username; that redirects to /ericabiz.
I’m open to suggestions on this.
-Erica
11. December 2009 at 9:49 am
Why is it that every time a new communication tool becomes available we forget the fundamentals of communications.
I guess it’s easy to forget that there are actual people in social media behind the computers.
Very nicely done.
11. December 2009 at 10:52 am
Great post Erica,
My guess is that Twitter may settle down because people will get wise to the douchebags and if Twitter has any integrity they will seek to cleanup their platform or it will become a farce and no one will trust it to use it.
I admire the fact you’ve got to 20,000 the hard way and as we’re all starting to find out social media is not for the faint hearted. It is hard, disciplined work and requires an authentic voice of value or people just won’t get connected.
11. December 2009 at 11:20 am
Too funny and I love the pic!
Yea I’m not experienced in the most proper social behaviors myself, Many people may only know about the Douche bag ways from having followed other Douch Bags, If that was their first introduction into it.
That has been my experience anyhow, Esp at most of the social networks where everyone is pushing a “Program” but nobody’s taking LOL!
It was a total waste of time in that way, But on the other hand I did meet a few nice people from interesting places and the only reason I’ve even kept some of my social memberships.
I have Tweeter but hardly ever visit, I do have a lot of followers for someone that doesn’t really ‘get it’ though, My first day I had no idea what I was doing and just followed a a few thousand people that were following this online guru guy.
11. December 2009 at 12:07 pm
Hi Erica,
Once you have 25 fans on your fan page you can get a custom name, I suggest “ericadotbiz” or something like that.
Cheers,
Rafael
11. December 2009 at 12:39 pm
Hello Erica,
Yet another great, informative and thought provoking post.
I am all about the Social, however I have not been using for business purposes. I enjoy the senseless banter between friends.
Having said, I am afraid of ANY person, organization, or business that uses Social Media as a method of marketing – it’s disingenuous and a bad idea all around (It was not designed for mass communication, but to initiate and enhance one on one personal relationships with a common interest – we agree). I literally cringe at the thought of so-called marketers selling information such as, “How to use Twitter for Business”, “How to have 25,000 followers in 24 hours”, and the likewise rubbish. The perpetrators clearly prove that they know absolutely nothing about marketing.
Further, it is unreasonable to expect that Twitter (Et al) are likely to “Clean up” the platform – that is not their job, nor would they have the internal resources to perform such a vetting process. The duty rests among the users – give them credit that they will simply unsubscribe/unfollow the d*bags whom THEY find unbearable.
The bottom line is that anytime a business or corporate interest gets involved, the novelty loses it’s appeal. The perps who fall into this category will eventually figure this out, of course, 2 years later after it’s already out of the mainstream.
11. December 2009 at 1:16 pm
I’m not ornery, I’m just direct =-)
11. December 2009 at 3:12 pm
Great article. Love your directness. No sweet talking here. Just valid, funny and relevant ideas. I don’t think I am guilty of anything on your list, but this post will make me think twice now before tweeting. Keep up the good work. I look forward to following you.
11. December 2009 at 4:00 pm
Hi Erica,
I enjoyed your post on top 10 social media signs that may make one a jerk.
I confess that I’ve never encountered the slang term douchebag anywhere and had to look up it’s definition.
People use social media for their own reasons and those often don’t include meaningful communication.
I have to admit that with all the self promotion and pushing products that goes on there I often wonder why I use tools like twitter.
But once in a while I see real people who aren’t douchebags that use it properly and I go on using it.
Vance
11. December 2009 at 6:22 pm
Amen, Erica. There’s so many people out there taking advantage of others, selling them absolute crap and treating them even worse.
Sometimes, I feel like it’s the fault of the people buying the crap just as much as it is the seller’s. But nonetheless, the sellers should know better.
I always enjoy reading your stuff, Erica, keep it up!
12. December 2009 at 7:29 am
“We’re people, not followers.” It conjures up a funny image of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons tapping his fingers together and saying “my followers…excellent.”
Thank you for writing this post! As always, very enjoyable.
12. December 2009 at 7:44 am
Very entertaining, thanks to Todd Morris for leaving a link in his latest blog post. I think we all screw up and irritate people from time to time. (Yes, ALL of us.) But I think the things you mentioned are universally irritating and I can’t believe how many people employ those techniques. Are they actually successful? I can’t imagine that they are.
Also, THANKS for letting us know about the Twitter connections! I had no idea & was surprised to see how many sites I’d authorized. {shudder}
12. December 2009 at 1:40 pm
I think there’s some fuzziness with some of these (or 1 or 2) categories. I will tweet quotes if they are particularly inspiring to me, because I think they are worthy of pondering. And if a particular tweet account is starting to annoy or overload my stream, I just unfollow. It’s not a big deal.
I don’t use TweetDeck, though – I’m not sure how following thousands but only *really* following a handful is helpful? TweetDeck users, why follow thousands in the first place, then? Do you ever engage with that larger stream? Explains why I can’t connect with some “larger names” sometimes when they ask a question and I reply. I guess that is something that annoys me. Why ask the question if one isn’t really interested in engaging with the people that answer (i.e., the broader circle, not just the few names one is trying to stay in a close network with)? Something not right about that, it seems.
12. December 2009 at 1:53 pm
@Money Energy:
Exactly! This is what I’m trying to understand. What’s the point of following people if you don’t read their Tweets?
23. December 2009 at 3:04 pm
I follow so many because I like seeing the @ replies to others. Twitter used to offer this as a feature, but turned it off several months ago.
I read all @ replies to me (including the one Charles just sent me.
My friends list is pretty fluid and changes regularly. I add and remove people all the time.
-Erica
18. December 2009 at 4:29 pm
I am just getting acquainted with Twitter, but have already been notified that I have followers that make me scratch my head and wonder why they would follow me. If they want to collect followers, why don’t they just stay on Facebook and Myspace?
19. December 2009 at 7:37 am
I was directed here from David Risley’s post, you were 1 of the 4 bloggers who he introduced. ^^ I found this post title particularly intriguing that I had to jump in for a read. It’s really sad, actually. Social media can be such a powerful tool but if wrongfully used, the impact can be disastrous. Selfishness is not tolerated in real life, what more on social networking involving tons of people all over the world? May we all will never ever be labeled as social media douchebag, do I hear Amen? ^^
Pleasure to meet you, Erica.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
19. December 2009 at 8:27 am
I found your post through Ching Ya ’s tweet. I’m so glad that I’m not a
Social Media Douchebag, but I have met my share on Twitter. I have more people following me than I’m following.
21. December 2009 at 5:48 pm
LOL at your Donald Trump comment. that is hilarious! I’ve been seeing that SO much lately
It’s funny, with all the short cuts being sold these days, it seems like we’d all be billionaires by now. it seems a sucker is still born every minute!
23. December 2009 at 5:34 pm
Well I am just very new to twitter and following – like just signed up today (with much reluctance) – rolf!. Rest assured I am following you because I saw Steve Pavlina twitter about you a few weeks back and liked your blog posts.
But some good tips for a newbie, like me. I now just wish I could get a really good understanding of how twitter works as I find the @….so confusing.
18. January 2010 at 3:12 am
Good tips Erica! These sound very familiar to me.At least when it comes to Twitter, some people think that adding a lot of “friends” is the best way to go and then spamming them with offers, when it actually is not.
Twitter and other social sites is not about advertising,it is about being social and sharing.
22. January 2010 at 9:16 am
I love all of them. We are on the same page… everytime I see one of the mentioned, I am like WTF seriously!? I randomly found your site through one of my friends tweets. Good work!