By: Hillel Fuld (@hilzfuld)
There I was, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, I got a tweet from someone I do not know. Of course, getting a tweet from a stranger is fine, I get 500 of them a day. But this one was different. Why? See below.
@HilzFuld hey, we have created our first Android New Music video discovery app… please check it out here: http://t.co/WQXewT1afd
— rormix (@rormix) October 1, 2013
These guys were spamming me with self-promotional crap. But again, nothing too unique there. Happens a few times a day. My first reaction was to click through on their profile and see what this company does for the most part on Twitter. It looked like this.
Spam, spam, spam, and some more spam. This was too much and I couldn’t NOT say anything. So I replied…
.@rormix Hey, please stop spamming people because A: You’ll never accomplish anything that way. B: Eventually Twitter will ban you for this.
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) October 1, 2013
That reply was public thanks to the little dot before the @, making it a regular tweet that all my followers saw, not just a reply to that account. I did that intentionally so others can learn too. But this company did not take the hint and learn a lesson. They continued…
@HilzFuld not spamming, we have a great app and would like your thoughts.
— rormix (@rormix) October 1, 2013
Fair enough, they are not spamming, they just want my opinion, irrelevant of number of followers or the fact that I write on various blogs. Got it. So I replied with the full intention of explaining to them what they were doing wrong, in the unlikely chance that they truly didn’t get it.
@rormix Really? Go through your tweets. How many of them start with “Hey” and include a link to your app! That is group spamming! Stop it.
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) October 1, 2013
But they weren’t going to give up. They “genuinely” wanted guidance. Cool, always happy to help!
@HilzFuld What do you suggest? We are a start-up, can you mentor us? We only tweeted a select group of people. Thanks for replying.
— rormix (@rormix) October 1, 2013
So that is what I did. Offered help!
. @rormix I suggest you learn how to use a platform before abusing it. Here is a guide to Twitter I wrote. http://t.co/ahIOG7J39L
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) October 1, 2013
Surely, I thought, they would be thrilled with this advice and would immediately stop their ridiculously aggressive and spammy tweeting while reading the guide I sent them. Surely, I was very wrong.
@HilzFuld reading it now, if you are interested in our app, please check it out. 🙂
— rormix (@rormix) October 1, 2013
At that point, not before, was when I decided I was done with this company and would indeed never download the app. You know who else will never download their app? All my followers. Oh, and anyone reading this post.
Such. Bad. Marketing!!
@rormix Clearly you are not listening. I am done.
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) October 1, 2013