I had an interesting experience on Twitter today and I feel compelled to make a statement about how it made me feel. I am even going to try to rationalize what the other party may have been thinking because they may be completely unaware of the impact they made.
There is a marketing gentleman who has separate personal and business profiles and since I manage several Twitter feeds in his market I have seen his primary method for attracting followers to his feeds. He follows a profile and immediately tweets a public message to the account asking for a follow back.
There is nothing wrong with this approach; however to me it comes across as pushy (and a little desperate).
On one of the accounts I manage another company did the exact same thing. The new company followed the account I manage and tweeted a public message asking for a follow back. You know my first thought was, "Here is that pushy guy managing someone else's account and using the same tactics." NOTE - I do not know it is the same guy; I simply think it is.
My second thought was that this gentleman may not be aware his tactic could be interpreted as pushy. He has probably noticed he gets a certain percentage higher rate of follow backs than if he does not do it and has decided this is a good marketing strategy.
Knowing many people follow everybody that follows them and do not even check their notifications, I thought nobody had likely ever mentioned he might be considered pushy. I took it upon myself to do so. You know that tact is not in my vocabulary so I sent the following direct message:
Pushy much? Perhaps you could give me a chance to notice that you followed me before you
pester me to follow you back.
I also followed the company because they were part of this account’s target market.
What happened next surprised me and is the reason for this post.
I received a nice message back stating, “I apologize. Please forgive the intrusion.” And I thought that was the end of it until I noticed the account I manage was following one less account. I checked it out and learned he had retaliated against me by not only unfollowing the account I manage but blocking it from following his account.
I would have left it at that but the situation kept gnawing at me so I am expanding upon the basic facts with what was running through my head and what may have been running through his. (Once again I do know what the other party was thinking.)
This is the direct message I was thinking in my head:
Once upon a time (and, unfortunately, still now) there were men who thought if they did a nice
deed for a woman (bought her dinner, changed her flat tire, gave her a ride home, bought her a
drink, etc.) they were entitled to sex from said woman. I took your follow as a nice, polite, "Hello, I
would like to get to know you better."
Give me a chance to visit your profile to see if I have any interest in you. The immediate, "Please
follow me back." comes across as you assuming I owe you something because you bought me
dinner.
The actual message I sent was:
Pushy much? Perhaps you could give me a chance to notice that you followed me before you
pester me to follow you back.
What he may have read:
I hate you! You should just go away.
The reply that may have been in his head:
Touchy much? Obviously you think I am a jerk so I will send a polite reply and never bother you
again by unfollowing you and removing my unwanted tweets from your feed.
The actual reply he sent was:
I apologize. Please forgive the intrusion.
My thoughts to his reply:
What a nice reply. My feedback will probably make him think twice before using that pushy tactic in
the future. Mission accomplished!
My thoughts upon realizing I had been unfollowed and blocked:
You are a jerk. Remember those men who felt entitled to sex for assistance? They also felt justified
bullying the woman into complying if there was any resistance. How dare you try to bully me and
make me feel I did something wrong by telling you how I feel?
There are now two things you need to know.
- I have not experienced sexual assault which my reaction might imply. I do have friends who have had to deal with these types of assaults and I may be channeling their frustrations.
- The other party might be a great person and if I met him in real life, we might be friends.
But I did not meet him in real life so I have only my online impressions of him, which are not good. So my parting thoughts to him are:
Dude, you may have bought me dinner; but that does not mean you get to have sex with me!
Until next time...
Have a great day,
Susanne
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