Twitip

By Mary Rose Maguire – Follow her @MRMaguire

When you first join Twitter, it’s a slightly crazy world filled with celebrities, “wannabe-celebrities,” multi-level marketing folks (“Make money from home today!”), major brands, regular folks, and every kind of spammer you can imagine. It’s easy to spot those who will not add anything of value to your stream. On Twitter, you have three choices when someone follows you:

1) Follow them back.
2) Don’t follow them back but allow them to continue to see your tweets.
3) Block them, in which case they won’t be able to see your tweets and will not show up in your “followers” list.

Usually, most people decide not to return-follow an account. Sometimes when you’re new, following back can make your follower list look more robust. Other times, you may not really care if a realtor from Alaska is following you but since you live in Hawaii and have no intention of ever moving to Alaska, you’re not following them back.

Then there are “those accounts.” These are the accounts that may annoy you according to your own set of beliefs. For instance, I block all porn accounts. I also block the “get-rich-quick” accounts. I’m usually careful about whom I follow back, checking their bio page and recent set of tweets. You may be a huge sports fan but hate the Giants. If someone with an account like @GiantsLovah started to follow you, they might get blocked. So we know there are valid reasons to block people. But sometimes you may get blocked by someone you know, which can get tricky.

I recently was blocked by someone I know.

Not only do I know them, I have helped them on Twitter by giving them information they had requested. And, they live in my town. We travel within some of the same networking circles. We’re not closelikethis but I’ve sent personal responses to this person and received personal tweets back. I noticed the block after I answered a question they posed and quite frankly, my answer was very brief and as far as I could tell, far from being offensive. To say I was surprised was an understatement. Assuming that this wasn’t a glitch with a third-party application, I’ll explain some of the drawbacks of blocking people who know you.

The Unknown Factor – You have no idea who they know, who they network with, or who they connect with on a regular basis. I’m a connector. There are few things that bring me more joy than playing “matchmaker” business-wise. When I attend networking events, I collect cards and write on the back who their “perfect client” would be. I keep my eyes and ears open for those who could use their services. When someone I know blocks me, they’ve essentially blocked off potential connections.

The “Bad Taste” Factor – Getting blocked by someone who knows you isn’t pleasant. You’re not sure whether it’s personal or not. As a professional, you don’t want to jump to conclusions, yet the fact remains you’ve been blocked. The person who blocked me is selling something. I’ve actually referred several people to what this person is selling but do you think I’ll do it in the future? Nope.

Reputational Risk – This is becoming a bigger issue as more brands jump on Twitter, only to find there are some people who don’t think they’re the hottest thing since sliced bagels. You may have employees that TWS (tweet while stupid) and show your brand in a bad light. We all have brands, whether we work for a large corporation or we’re a solopreneur. When you block someone who knows you and/or runs in the same business circles, you’ve placed your reputation on dangerous ground. I’m not someone who spreads malicious gossip but that’s me. However, there are people who would take such a situation and bad-mouth the person at every opportunity. For many years, I’ve lived by the adage my father gave me long ago: Be nice to those you meet on your way up because you may meet them again on your way down. You may be a rising star today, but in ten years when you’re in a new industry; the job you’re interviewing for may be given by the person you blocked today. People have long memories when it comes to those who offended them.

I remember the first time I was blocked. I was still a “newbie” and had made an erroneous decision to respond to a “Twitterati” (Twitter celebrities who have thousands of followers) with an opinion that was controversial. You can only express yourself so far within 140 characters and some beliefs simply cannot fit into such a short space. I wanted to explain myself further but lost the opportunity after the person sent me a private message, blasting me. I still apologized, but realized I could no longer see their tweets. That was my introduction to blocking.

Although I’ve since discovered this person was rude and vicious to others, I learned an important lesson. If you tweet for business, stay away from potentially controversial issues, especially those having to do with politics or religion. Even if I know a person well, I won’t tweet about such issues professionally. There are too many ways to be misunderstood and besides, you want people to focus on how your business can help them.

So before you quickly click the “block” button, consider the consequences. Overlooking backhanded compliments or more obvious insults will only shine a positive light on you. Others will notice you’ve shown some class and taken the high road. I’m not advocating being someone’s verbal punching bag, but if they just tweeted something you may not agree with, send a direct message instead to open up a dialogue. Relationships are more important than ever in today’s business world, and you can work Twitter to your advantage by building them. Open doors, not blocked ones, will lead to success.