101 people to avoid on Twitter

Twitter is an evolving social media platform. And like any evolving social media platform there are many who seek to take advantage of it and generally make it an unpleasant experience for genuine users. The following is a list of people, people defined by specific character traits, that I suggest you avoid on Twitter in order to safeguard and enjoy your Twitter experience.

If you are currently following any people who exhibit the following characteristics or tendencies then hit the block button on their profile before it is too late.

1. Social media gurus. Anyone who uses the following words in their username or biography. Social media guru, social media evangelist, social media expert, social media anarchist, social media ninja, social media warrior or anything remotely similar. These people want to sell you their social media systems and should be avoided at all costs. You don’t need to pay any money to learn about Twitter. All the information you need is freely available online.

2. The SEO crowd. Anyone who uses the term SEO or search engine optimisation. SEO is dead. Seriously. If you want to do well in Google then just write good quality relevant content on your blog. Any kind of SEO manipulation, either using software or any form of trickery will get you banned by Google.

3. Make money online hustlers. Anyone whose only business model is selling junk that claims to show you or help you to make money online are, thankfully, a dying breed. Help them on their way to extinction by blocking them and reporting them for spam. If you want to make money online start a blog, write quality content, get traffic, monetize your traffic with third party advertising. That is all you need to do.

Let me just back up a little and explain something important. I’m sure there are people out there who are selling things online that are of value. However, there are 2 very important reasons why I think the honest people are still going to go down on the sinking make money online ship. And that isn’t a ship you want to be associated with. Reason number 1 is that for every honest marketer, and there are some honest marketers out there, there are about a billion crooks and thieves who are hell bent on making the make money online niche the modern day snake oil sales industry. And reason number 2, an even more powerful reason, is that all information is free and people are becoming increasingly able to access it for free.

Trying to sell information that is already free in an increasingly skeptical marketplace forces the crooks to use more complex tricks and more outlandish claims to profit their material. Prices increase as the scammers try to bleed as much money from their victims as possible before the bubble bursts. The crooks become the face of the industry, the information becomes free, the industry crashes. And it’s probably going to crash completely very, very soon.

Anyone trying to sell plain old fashioned information at a plain old fashioned price doesn’t really stand a chance.

4. Fake celebrities. Anyone who thinks that people like Britney Spears and Lily I’m leaving Twitter now I’m back on Twitter file sharing is the work of the devil and will kill the music industry look at me look at me look at me Allen, are not controlled by the corporations behind them needs their head examined. However, there is nothing we can do about this since they all have verified accounts that have, no doubt, been arranged by their record labels.

5. Anyone who only uses Twitter as a automatic syndication service for their blog.

6. Religious nuts, zealots and cult leaders.

7. People who claim to be millionaires but, for some odd reason, want to spend all of the time pimping themselves out on Twitter. Ask yourself the question. If you were a millionaire would you spend your time telling everyone about it on Twitter in order to sell your junk?

8. Weight loss specialists. If you are fat and want to lose weight then eat less food. Giving away your money to a weight loss guru will only result in you being fat and poor which is, presumably, even worse than being fat. Unless of course the aim of the weight loss specialist is to take all of your money so you can no longer buy food.

9. People who constantly churn out those banal phrases and quotes that are supposed to inspire and motivate. What is this, 1982? If I want to read Zig Ziglar quotes I’ll buy his book. Or, better still, I’ll by a cheap calendar and read them on that.

10. Anyone connected with James death sweat lodge Ray. That stuff kills people. And that’s even worse than getting scammed by the make money online crowd. Because it will kill you.

11. Affiliate marketing experts. For all the reasons outlined in points 2 and 3 above.

12. Anyone using adjectives as nouns or prefixing their surname with a definite article. Only once have I seen this implemented successfully and that was in the 1990’s video game, Gods. Great game, great music, great everything. Into the wonderful.

13. Anyone using the 140 character limit as an excuse for bad grammar and bad spelling. If you can’t say it properly in 140 characters then don’t say it at all.

14. Any account that uses sexuality, either with language, an overly provocative avatar or an overly sexual background image, to increase following. Send these accounts scuttling back to adult friend finder and the other scam dating programs by hitting the block and spam button on their profile.

15. Ugly accounts. If your twitter background is one of those awful freebies that make my eyes bleed then please change it. You have 3 perfectly good options. Use the standard template, learn to use photoshop and design your own or pay for a professional one.

16. Ugly avatars. Please note, I am not saying avoid anyone who is ugly, I’m no oil painting myself, just avoid anyone who has an ugly avatar that looks like it has been photocopied 76 times and then scanned by the oldest scanner in existence.

17. Anyone who constantly uses numbers in front of their titles to boost traffic.

18. Anyone using the word facilitate. You either do or you don’t do. Someone who facilitates is a middle man and the world doesn’t need middle men anymore. The internet is everyones free middle man.

19. Anyone who doesn’t understand irony. Not sure what I mean? See the title of this blog post and then point 17.

20. Anyone who geo tags everything. I don’t want to know where you are every second of the day. And, more importantly, why do you want me to know where you are?

21. Politicians. For the love of God you bunch of sycophants we can see through you.

22. The people who can’t see through the politicians. Anyone following Sarah Palin, for example. Seriously, who are those people that follow her?

23. Sarah Palin. Obviously. Although she has a verified account so good luck stopping that particular publicity train.

24. The fake celebrities who think it is cool to claim not to understand Twitter and then walk away in a blaze of glory that everyone ignores, only to come back a few months later. Lily Allen anyone?

25. Journalists who don’t understand new media.

26. Anyone who writes negative things about the iPad. The iPad is the future, just wait and see. Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

Want to add a person or characteristic to the list? Leave a comment below.

Hopefully you found this post amusing, and maybe even useful. If so, you can follow me on Twitter @b2gs3. If you really enjoyed it please Tweet it so that others can enjoy it too.