Just a quick thought.
The proliferation of auto retweets on twitter. Am I alone in thinking that it is all a bit of a waste of time? I mean, if someone is using a retweet service then doesn’t that mean that they aren’t actually on twitter and that they are doing something else like cleaning out the cat? And then if everybody is using a retweet service then all everyone is doing is retweeting an automated retweet of an automated retweet so nobody actually sees the retweet because everybody is cleaning out their cats! And then the auto retweet (I believe this is the case) picks out the first tweet on an account and tweets that, so my random piece of conversation gets retweeted across the globe, which happened to me just recently…..several times!
I push the thought out that auto retweets are in fact killing twitter for the author, and very soon, if this all keeps up there will be no authors actually on twitter because they have signed up to an auto retweet service! So what’s the point? No bugger will actually see your tweets!
Just a thought.
I have to agree with you – auto-tweets are the sign to me of a “zombie” account, an account with no human thought or interaction behind it. I can’t stand the things.
Glad I’m not the only one Ian. I may not be the best user of “social” media, but at least when I tweet or retweet it’s me doing it.
Great points. When I first realised how many people where using the auto tweet things, I wondered whether I should carry on or not. And trying to find something to pay back a retweet down days of mindless retweets is not much fun at all. Now I’m thinking that those mindless tweeters are sending out my bits to other real eyeballs in their followers feeds, and I’m getting retweet more these days than before, so not too unhappy with those guys any more. If their tweetlist goes down and down with nothing original for days and days, I just tweet one of the auto tweet ads. 😀 One thing that really does bother me about those things is the randomness of the tweets they grab to retweet – as you say – I wonder if they even realise that they often retweet some REALLY offensive stuff.
I seem to get more retweets nowadays as well Jo, and I hope you’re right and more people are seeing them. But I really do wonder how many peeps actually bother to log in. The thing is, it is so obvious with many of them, one or two do chuck some stuff in to try and make it more real, but…..perhaps I’m too old fashioned in that respect.
The big problem is as you say, the randomness of it. I’m wondering whether to tweet that I’ve got an itchy bum, and see how far that goes!