Sound Off: RT Thanks or Not?
Last week I came across an interesting blog post titled “Eight Twitter Habits That May Get You Unfollowed or Semi-Followed“. I thought it was well-written and I agreed with most of it. I left a comment expressing my thoughts and the author and I had a bit of back-and-forth about my one disagreement. He was very cordial and it never escalated into anything ugly, which can very easily happen when two people publicly disagree. In fact, he even went to my own site and emailed me to privately respond and make sure there were not any hard feelings. I thought this was pretty admirable and it made me respect the author even more.
Here’s an excerpt from the point we disagreed on:
Sending a public tweet that thanks someone for following, for recommending you, or for retweeting your post isn’t an expression of gratitude but a boast sent to everyone who follows you. It’s a big, needy, self-serving way to make sure a wide group of people are aware that someone thinks you’re terrific.
I disagreed on two levels with this statement. First, from the beginning of my time on Twitter I have made it a point to thank every single person who RTs (re-tweets) anything I tweet. No one told me I should or shouldn’t do this. It just seemed the natural thing to do. I feel that if someone RTs something I tweet, they have deemed it valuable enough to share with their own followers. It is an encouragement to me – it makes me feel that I have given a resource or a link that has worth to those that are following me. So I am grateful for the RT for what it says to me and to others. The only reasonable, natural response from my point of view is to say ‘thank you’. So I do. I’ve never seen anything wrong with that until I read this post. In fact, I have had positive feedback from people who thought it was very gracious of me to express my gratitude. It seems to generate interaction and a friendlier atmosphere amongst those that follow me and those I follow on Twitter.
Second, I was personally offended by the accusation that my thank you tweets were self-serving, needy and boastful. That’s a pretty broad statement to make, since the author obviously has no idea what the intentions or personality are behind the thank you. In short, I believe it is completely irresponsible to assume that every single person who says thank you for a RT is only attempting to promote themselves. I’m sure there may be some people that this is the case. But speaking for myself, the only person I can speak for, I know it is not.
Now here’s a little disclosure about myself. I’m just a little stubborn. I don’t like to be wrong (does anyone?) and when I truly believe I am right about something I tend to refuse to rest until I can convince anyone that disagrees to at least admit that my point of view has merit. Yes, I know this can be a positive thing. But it has its dark, somewhat annoying side. Just ask my wife.
So anyway, after this little discussion I decided to ask the people that should be making the determination of whether or not a RT Thank You is necessary, helpful, appreciated or annoying.
I asked my followers.
I sent out a tweet asking what they thought about all the RT Thanks I send throughout the day and the response was all but unanimously positive. 1 person said it was annoying to them but worth putting up with to receive the tweets they valued from me. Another said when she first started following me she thought it was annoying, but then she realized my genuine intentions behind them and so now they don’t bother her. The rest of the people that answered had varying reasons for actually appreciating the thank you.
They thought it was polite, it was genuine, it made them feel appreciated, it was encouraging, it made them appreciate me, it showed the type of person that I am (which they liked), and some even said they have found other great people to follow by seeing them in a list of people I thanked!
These responses only confirmed what I was trying to communicate with my comments on the blog post, and ultimately encouraged me to continue with my own personal policy of thanking everyone who RTs me. It also made me even more grateful for the fantastic people who follow me – I have ‘met’ so many amazing people through Twitter!
So that should have been the end of the issue for me, correct? Well, I thought it was. Until the same author wrote a follow-up piece in which he continued to focus on driving his point home. To be honest, I don’t have a beef with this author and I don’t presume to think he was directing his piece at me. In fact, I don’t really care about his own personal opinion of what works for him and others on Twitter. He is completely entitled to it. As I am mine. I am writing this post to ask you, the reader and possible follower of me on Twitter, to share your own thoughts on the subject.
I’m NOT trying to tell you what is right or wrong. I don’t believe anyone has the right to make a statement of the “correct etiquette” on Twitter, or proclaim exactly how everyone will respond if you do things a certain way. It is my opinion that one of the beautiful things about the social media revolution we’re experiencing is that we have the ability and freedom to make our own choices about how we conduct ourselves on the various channels. If you live to try to grow your following and decide you will shape how you present yourself based on how your followers respond, that is your choice. Go for it! My own approach is to try to engage and interact and share and learn and grow while still being 100% true to who I am. If people don’t want to follow me because of who I am, then that is their choice!
So far, this approach has been working for me and the 5,000+ people who follow me. At least as far as I know.
But I want to hear your thoughts. What do YOU think about the thank you tweets I (or others) broadcast throughout the day? Would you prefer a personal private direct message thanking you instead? Do you just ignore them? Do you thank people too? Do you think it’s needy and self-serving to thank people publicly?
Please leave a comment below and let your thoughts be heard. Please be honest. I would love to hear others’ thoughts on this and I believe an open and honest discussion would help us all grow and shape how we best use services like Twitter in the future. I promise that although it is my nature to want to try to prove my own points, I really do want to hear your thoughts whether they are in unison with mine or not. I want this because I believe it will help me learn to be the best person online and off that I can be, and I hope it will help you do the same.
So come on! Let’s talk…
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