Part II in my wildly successful series on social media things that annoy Cristina.  Keep in mind that these are my opinions, and like you know what, everyone has one.

1.  Adding “Tw” to every word.  Tweet Up.  Tweeters.  Tweminars.  Kill me now.  People who twitter are annoying enough to the rest of the world.  When we start adding “tw” in front of normal words, not only are we annoying, we sound like raving lunatics with a speech impediment. 

2.  Using Twitter as your personal pimping pad.  Imagine yourself in the room full of 500 people you don’t really know. You pick up a megaphone and scream: “Contact me if you want information on how the internet can make you millions.  Call now and I’ll send you a free set of Ginsu knives!  But only if you are serious about making money!”  (that may be more than 140 characters).  That, folks, is what a high percentage of Twitter users do.  It’s so obnoxious. Nothing makes me unfollow someone faster than when my first contact with them involves being told to click a link, stop by their website to sign up for a enewsletter I do not want, or am told they are an “expert in social media”. (side note:  one “expert” spelled social media like this:  socail meda)

3.  Calling yourself an “expert”.  Nowhere else but on Twitter have I ever seen the word “expert” whored out as much.  65% of people claim to be social media experts.  It took me more than a decade to call myself in expert in a couple of very specific areas.  Twitter’s only been around for a couple of years.  How the heck can you be an expert???  Terms like “social media guru”, “Web 2.0 Hero” and “new media leverage expert” make me dry heave. 

4.  Assuming Stupid Followers. It is not easy to make money on the internet.  Newsflash:  the dot com bust was a long time ago.  People wised up. Just because you are slamming me with tweets about your get rich quick schemes doesn’t mean I’m going to buy it from your website.  In fact, chances are, I’m going to unfollow or better yet, block you.  Stop telling me how easy it is to make money on the internet.  I run two internet businesses.  I know it’s as hard as any other money-making endeavor. 

5.  Weird, mass-following keyword searches.  I must have posted a status that mentioned a pimple.  Within one week, I had about 20 “acne experts” following me and bombarding my stream with “new acne cure 2.0!” every 15 minutes.  From a marketing perspective, it’s smart to target your market.  Obviously they have a search set up for anyone using the word “zit”.  However, maybe check the context of the tweet before bombarding?  It’s obvious I’m not covered in acne based on what I talk about.  Nor did my tweet say, “Help - I’ve got more craters than the moon!  Please send me acne help!”  If I had, well then, game on. 

6.  Typing vomit.  Let’s get back to what I personally think Twitter is all about.  Twitter, to me, is about communication.  If you are there to blast out random crap about your company that has nothing to do with me, and fill up my stream so I can’t see the stuff I’m interested in, I’m going to unfollow.  For instance, I’ll call one fellow Twitterer “StuffedAnimal”.  They sell, yes, stuffed animals.  Every 20 minutes I’d get something like this: 

“Why oh why
don’t you stop on by
oh me oh me
our stuffed animals will make you cry”

I wish I was kidding. 

and finally . . .

7.  Ask and ignore.  People who constantly ask questions, like “Is Jeff Goldblum really dead”, receive responses, and only acknowledge the ones from the handful of people they will deign to talk with? Grrr.  This hits on my peeve about bloggers only talking to their perception of the elite.  If you don’t wish to talk to others, do not ask questions.  Or privately message those you wish to ask. Otherwise, regular lame-o’s like myself are going to assume you really want an answer, and take time to do so. 

There you have it!  Hope you twenjoyed it.  What are some of your Twitter peeves?