Thursday, December 17, 2009

Twitter-stuff: thanks for all the RT?

This is just a quick reflection on normative behaviour and a short personal declaration. I don't thank people for passing along what I have to say, and, while I don't specifically hold it against others when they do so, I do question their motivation. And I have unfollowed people for doing it excessively.

I don't use Twitter for strictly promotional purpose, and if you do, more power to you, especially if you are promoting a product or service I actually use. But I wonder, what is actually happening when you publically thank me for passing along your message? Well, yes, I am getting the thank you, and there is some reciprocation, if one or more of your subscribers decides to add me to to their subscription lists, but this is not likely, particularly if you thank a number of people in a single tweet.

Basically, what I understand when somebody thanks me for passing along a message is "thank you, please do it again" - which is all fine and good, but to be honest, if you were to come out and ask me to "plz RT" or whatever, I would be less likely to do so, and the same goes for a lot of the "thx 4 RT" I see - it makes me feel like I'm being played. So please don't bother.

If you disagree with this belief, let me know. I'm not a rude person, I thank people all the time for all sorts of things. But I'm not going to thank someone for carrying on a conversation with me.

4 comments:

Clare K. R. Miller said...

Would you rather people DMed you their thanks? (Since one of the first things you said was about publicly thanking you...)

P. M. Hollott said...

Thanks Clare... and I mean thanks! What I am really trying to articulate, I guess, is that it is not necessary to thank people for passing along something they believe to be a worthwhile message.

Thanking people with a direct message does seem more sincere to me, though, as does @replying directly.

Anonymous said...

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P. M. Hollott said...

this is a quote from @UTSavage on twitter: "No one ever needs to thank me for a retweet. The RT is the thank you for your saying something smart or funny or interesting."

Explains what I am trying to say better than I could - passing the message along is the thank you, if anything, it would be polite to say "you're welcome for the retweet."