You Don’t Know Me…

Tweet

Last time I checked I was still a nice person: If you fall, I’ll pick you up, heck, and I’ll bend over backwards to help my friends. However, there are limitations, especially when it comes to social media. I view the word friend in a more traditional sense; one definition states: 

a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

Now, when it comes to Twitter, I’ve got an open attitude and will follow most folks back. I believe in giving tweeps an opportunity to get to know me. 

Seems that lately though newbies immediately start asking me to:

• Listen to their new song

• Retweet something that I know nothing about or have no interest in

• Tweet at me to follow them back 

These communications arrived via both Direct Messages and Tweets. Now, I’m all for retweeting and sharing worthwhile things IF I know you. Think about it; do you retweet “just anything” without knowing something about the person? 

An example. A new follower (let’s call her Annie) claims she has “Bon Jovi” tapes and would I Retweet the message to get to the fans? I don’t know what she has! Her icon is a picture of a cassette with a CD behind it. There is no URL on her profile. Who ARE you, Annie?

Here’s another example; it's a bit more on the bizarre side.  Received this tweet:

hello.i'm checking u out..U ever talk about ancient knowledge or conspiracies? Whats your thing

I tweeted back, suggesting they read my bio. Then this tweet came back:

I'm selective.Would U tweet some humanity videos i send u that should go viral time to time? I'm on a mission

A mission, huh? A mission to target people you don’t know to spread the word of who-knows-what? What ever happened to credibility? And trust? Did we skip that part? This would be similar to someone coming up to you at a huge party and saying “Would you mind telling those people over there about my theories of ancient knowledge and conspiracies?

Before I had time to reply because the next tweet blew in:

since i'm a pain lol..i'll unfollow and if you say yes i'll follow back.. hehe my humanity mission..either way i wish u well

Now, what would YOU do in a situation like this? To be “investigatively” fair, I followed the link on this tweep’s profile page. And there, I found a YouTube channel with titles such as “Parasites Inside You”, “Congressman Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech” and “US, Europe complicit in Israeli Crimes”. Uh, not my cup of tea.

Lessons Learned: While it’s generally okay to follow someone on Twitter, do you really know who they are? Sure there are lots of fake profiles however they’re not the ones that are going to spew strong opinions and wackiness at you! And, would you be willing to be Facebook friends with this person without the blink of an eye too? Sure, some people wouldn’t give it a second thought. 

Food for thought: You want to meet me? Tweet me! Get to know me and I'll be happy to support you. 

Swedish singer Lykke Li sang about following in this recent tune (see below). And of course, you are more than welcome to follow me on Twitter, like my Facebook page, circle my page on Google+ or visit the website.