Why do Twitter users protect their updates?
July 24th, 2008 by Andy Merchant
Private or public Twitter accounts - what’s best?
There have been a few posts on this subject lately, so here’s my take!
Private - do they have something to hide? Are they from the dark side, or are they just plain shy?
A massive part of the social media mix is open conversation , transparency and the ability for people unknown to you, to comment and have opinions on what you have to say.
So why when it comes to Twitter do a small minority of users insist on vetting you before allowing you to see their Tweets. It’s like they want to check you before they except you!
TWO HUGE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT PROTECT YOUR TWEETS AND HAVE A PUBLIC ACCOUNT…
1. Everybody in the whole wide world has the opportunity to see your Tweets.
2. Public tweets are indexed by Google
Let’s face it, the whole idea of Twitter is to promote conversation and sharing, make contacts and friends in 140 characters or less. Protecting your Tweets makes it a lot harder to do this, and it is not great for social media optimisation either!
I guess the only reason you would want to protect your Tweets are:
A, You want to talk aggressively about other Twitter users.
B, Don’t want your boss to see you slagging him/her off.
C, You Tweet about your stamp collection.
D, You are talking to a mistress via Twitter.
E, You think you are far too important and senior to be followed by mere mortals
I can recommend another way of keeping Tweets confidential - Group Tweet - which allows you and your gang to send messages via Twitter that are instantly broadcasted privately to only the team members.
Maybe Twitter should just go back to the drawing board and not give users the option to have protected Tweets!
One reason FOR a private account I have come across is in a similar post, click to view here.
A comment is left that says “Twitter in a way is the space where I can say anything, it’s my “free space” to complain about brands, work, anything. That’s why I’m private on Twitter.” - she has a point!
What do you guys do - public or private - let me know your thoughts?
Tags: , , private, protect, protected, public, tweet, twitter
August 6th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
[...] me off when marketers come up with silly stuff like privacy as their key selling point. Whilst majority of users on Twitter have public updates, with minute by minute commentary. Surely that should be a serious [...]
February 25th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Your two reasons why you should not protect your tweets sound to me like two reasons why you should. You said:
“1. Everybody in the whole wide world has the opportunity to see your Tweets.
“2. Public tweets are indexed by Google”
Some people don’t want to be Googleable. I protect my Facebook profile (only allow friends to see it) for this same reason.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Fair point, I am coming at it mores from a strategic point of view.