One of the great things about Twitter is the abundance of chats that the platform has encouraged.
From the likes of #blogchat (one of the best chats on Twitter, period) to #gno, #SMsafety and more, there are a ton of great weekly chats that see some of the best tips and exchanges of ideas anywhere.
Or, at least, mostly best tips and exchanges.
Because one thing that seems to be growing in abundance along with the popularity of the chat itself is the hijacking by certain Twitter users, who offer “tips” that turn out to be nothing more than links to posts on their blogs.
I call these folks Twat Pirates – TWitter ChAT hijackers (or pirates).
Now, don’t get me wrong. The great thing about Twitter chats is the opportunity for participants to meet new people, and therefore gain awareness of what their own stuff is about.
But at the same time, most chats usually offer a chance to promote yourself, either at the start or the end of the chat. So where’s the need to constantly throw in your own links and say, “Oh, this is a great article”, or, “You might enjoy this post, it’s really relevant”?
We all like to think we’re helpful. We all like to think we can offer advice to help awareness of us grow, while helping others at the same time.
But as Troy Claus (who made me think more on this) said, there’s a good way and a crap way to do this.
The good way is to maybe say, “Hey, I wrote a post about that, I can send you the link if interested.”
Or, you can be a Twat Pirate instead.
Choice is yours – which one do you want to take?
(Note: I had some emails asking if I knew what twat meant in slang terms. Being from the UK originally, yes, I do, and the choice of term was deliberate.)
image: ZakVTA
