NO THANK YOU On Twitter, Please! 5 Better Alternatives

By Rachel Thompson | Blog

Apr 28

Before you freak out, read the post. (Don’t worry, my mama raised me right.) 

 

 

  • A nice fella commented here on my BadRedheadMedia site that he thanks every single person who follows and RTs him.

 

  • A girlfriend with a very large following on Facebook said she can’t keep up with all the ‘thank you’s and your welcomes’ on all her social media and get her writing done so she just checks in when she can.

 

My overall thought: when all you do is say THANK YOU FOR THE RT or THANK YOU FOR THE FOLLOW, you are diluting all the hard work you’ve put into creating your branded presence.

 

Why create a personal brand if you’re going to make people jump hurdles to find it?

 

Because when people visit your stream, they see a creatively thought out tweet, hashtags on your keywords, links to interesting content, and then a rash of THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

 

Think about it: do you want to follow someone when the majority of their content is simply a bunch of THANK YOU’S? It’s like trying to get to customer service with your bank. Ya know, the live kind.

 

Where’s the beef? Where’s the person?

 

Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t thank people. You absolutely should. 

 

So, how to solve this quandary?

 

I’m gonna tell you. Cause I’m bossy like that.

1.   Bitch it up: thank them for the RT or follow but also insert a funny quip or saying. Use a keyword or phrase. Be yourself (which is your brand anyway) while still thanking them.

 

For example, on my personal @RachelintheOC stream, I’ll mention something about Nutella, martinis, or #Mancode in the thank you. This is still representative of my brand, my personality, and I’m still thanking them.

 

 2.   Use DMs: highly underutilized. Do you thank people individually on your public stream so they will feel good or so everyone else will see what a great person you are? Yea.

‘Use the Force, Luke. Let go.’

Use a Direct Message. It’s much more personal to thank someone privately (unless that person says they never check DMs, which I find is quite rare).

 

And I don’t mean one of those automated DMs thank you services. Take a second and do it yourself.

 

3.   RT them back: Twitter is very karmic. If someone RTs you, take a look at their content. If you find them to be within your interests, RT something of theirs. This increases your interaction and your secondary reach (since your Twitter handle is shown on their stream) as well as their secondary reach (same concept). Then if someone else RTs you and them, you have tertiary reach. And if someone else RTs all y’all, well, I don’t know what comes next. Fouthiary? (I know. Quaternary — but who says that?)

 

Read this and pay attention: the simple few seconds it takes you to scan and find something of theirs worth RTing is worth far more to them than a THANK YOU FOR THE RT on your stream, particularly if your following is much larger. This is a generous thing to do.

*If you’re on Triberr, use the REBLOG feature which is quite nifty.

 

4.   Follow their blog: A few more seconds, sure. But take some time to go follow their blog, even make a comment! I recommend my clients go to at least five blogs each day and comment. This is a wonderful way to interact with people outside of Twitter and find rich content.

 

5.   Follow them back: Twitter is based on a ‘trust model’ (shout out to @Dino_Dogan for explaining that to me) as I’ve mentioned before. This means you can follow someone, see their stream, etc but there is no obligation for them to follow you back (of course, DMs won’t work). {This differs from Facebook, as you cannot interact with people without both of you following each other back. Though you can leave private messages for each other. Which is weird.}

 

I believe you should curate a targeted, quality stream. This is why I personally follow all of my tweeps myself and eschew automated programs like Tweet Adder – whom Twitter recently filed suit against for spamming.

 

Point is, you are under no obligation to follow anyone back. However, if someone follows you and they are not a pornbot (unless you like that kind of thing and really, I don’t want to know) or weird spammer, give them a look. They went out of their way to follow you (even if it was through automation), so at least review their account to determine if they fit your follow criteria.

 

  • There are many more ways you can thank people: send them email. Subscribe to their newsletter. Look them up on Facebook. Buy their book! Introduce them to someone else. Offer them a guest post….

 SPAM: One final note of caution for Twitter newbies and vets alike: avoid #TeamFollowBack (or any other Twitter ‘trains,’ which is different than a hashtag meme — something I’ll review in a future post); don’t beg for follows (ugh); and never, ever send the same message (spam) to hundreds of people (particularly with a link) asking/begging/demanding ANYTHING.

(For the record, I get those requests daily on both my accounts. We all do. I block and report for spam. Because you are spamming. It leaves a bad taste in our mouths. So stop it.)

 

That’s it for today. I hope I’ve given you some ideas to expand on your Thank You repertoire.

 

How do you thank people? Do you agree or disagree? Share your ideas and experiences below!

 

Don’t forget to visit me at RachelintheOC.com, follow me @BadRedheadMedia and sign up for my newsletter! >>>>>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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About the Author

Rachel Thompson is the author of newly released BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge: How to energize your book sales in a month - created to help authors market their book. She is also the author of Broken Places (one of IndieReader's "Best of 2015" top books and 2015 Honorable Mention Winner in the San Francisco Book Festival), and the multi award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed. She owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post,  IndieReader.com, The San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self-Publishers Monthly. Not just an advocate for sexual abuse survivors, Rachel is the creator and founder of the hashtag phenomenon #MondayBlogs and two live Twitter chats: #BookMarketingChat (co-hosted with TheRuralVA, Emilie Rabitoy) and #SexAbuseChat, co-hosted with C. Streetlights and Judith Staff. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.

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Leave a Comment:

(36) comments

Louise Sorensen April 28, 2012

Good advice, Rachel. I’ve been thanking everyone. From now on, I’ll try to think of some other way of thanking people.

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 28, 2012

    As I said, it’s important to still thank people, just make it more interesting! Or take an action that means more, such as the ones listed above. Appreciate you visiting and commenting, Louise.

    Reply
Miranda Lynn (@MyEclecticBook) April 28, 2012

Honestly I thank in bulk when I can and occasionally send out a shout out to all my followers, but then I will take one day a week where I spend about an hr (all my schedule will allow) and check out other blogs and author websites, follow, comment etc and share posts I find interesting, funny, or worthwhile for other aspiring peeps like me.

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 28, 2012

    That’s great, Miranda. It’s all about connecting. You’re finding other peeps who interest you (within your criteria) and going out of your way to follow, comment, and share. That’s exactly the idea.

    Reply
Pavarti K Tyler April 28, 2012

HERE HERE! I’m all for thank yous and good manners but for the love of all that is holy stop mucking up my stream! Twitter has become almost unusable and it’s my favorite social media 🙁

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 28, 2012

    I love your HERE HERE! Thanks Pav. People want to do the right thing — and what we’ve learned growing up is to thank people when they’ve done something nice for us. So it kind of goes against our grain to do a simple thing like tell people THANK YOU. But it takes extra effort to go the extra mile. Thanks for doing that for me here today. xo

    Reply
Peggy Fitzpatrick April 29, 2012

Wow. Fabulous post Rachel – love that you just say what you think. Truly I applaud that.

Amazing advice! “I’ll mention something about Nutella, martinis, or #Mancode in the thank you. This is still representative of my brand, my personality, and I’m still thanking them.”

I need to go read all your other posts and share.
Love your stuff sister!

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 29, 2012

    You rock, Peggy. Love yours, also! Can’t wait to work together on our future projects. See, this is what’s so great about the THANK YOU stuff — it leads to future stuff. If either of us had done a simple, boring ‘Thank you for the RT’ we’d never have traded goofy cat pix and ended up here.

    Are you paying attention, people?

    Reply
      Peggy Fitzpatrick April 30, 2012

      Excellent point Rachel!

      I am excited to work with you on future projects too!

      I am having a hard time curbing the “thank you’s” it seems rude to just stop but I will work on making a better connection in it’s place. And not thank Triberr tribe mates any longer except by sharing their blogs as well. Am I getting hives? Oh, wait I can do it. 😀

      Reply
        Rachel Thompson April 30, 2012

        You crack me up, Peggy. Here’s what’s most important: do what’s right for you. Still thank them if that feels right, but do something else — follow their blog, connect them to someone else, RT a post not in the Triberr queue, or simply DM them or share a cat pic :).

        It’s not that you’re NOT thanking them because you are, of course. It would go against your very nature not to so you couldn’t possibly do that. Just ‘bitch it up’ if you will, as I mentioned in point #1.

        I know you got this, girl. xo

        Reply
          Peggy Fitzpatrick May 2, 2012

          Did I mention you are fabulous? 😀

          Reply
Michael Brenner April 29, 2012

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for the mention and the great riff off my original post. You are absolutely right. The first step is to realize that it is important to BE THANKFUL. Next step is to determine the best way to express it. Great suggestions!

Best, Michael

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 30, 2012

    Glad to have you here, Michael. Being thankful is so important — as people grow (including myself on my personal author account), it’s critical to continue to interact with folks. Not everyone will grow with us — that’s another difficult but important lesson.

    Some of my original Twitter followers have unfollowed recently & it bummed me out! But, I realized where I started 3 years ago is quite different from where I am now (branding-wise) — and yet, I will still follow them because of the lessons they taught me back then. I’m still thankful.

    THANKS (hehe) for you comment and visit.

    Reply
Diane April 29, 2012

Great post, Rachel. Thanks for sharing this. You’ve made me realize that I’ve been neglecting my thank you’s. Now I must get back to it, but not go overboard as you’ve so clearly pointed out.

Thank you!
(figuring it’s ok to thank you here 😉 )

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 30, 2012

    Yes, it’s cool, Diane and thank you for visiting and commenting.

    It is important to stay in touch who do go out of their way for us, paying it forward so to speak, yet taking it a step further. That’s really the point of this entire article.

    All the best!

    Reply
Justin Bog April 30, 2012

Very nice to read your thoughts on the continuous Thank You, or on Twitter, the TYs. I come from a place of common sense. Life is too short to spend writing TY to every single person. When I take the time to respond to a new tweet, or when someone else takes the time to respond to something I tweeted, I engage. You never know who your next cool mate will be. And so many people are terrific. Being organic and conversing is really great.

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 30, 2012

    So true, JBo. The organic nature of social media is such an important component, particularly when we schedule in so much of our content (Triberr, blog posts, Hootsuite, etc). Thank you’s are typically live so it’s in our nature to want to respond right away. Such a great point!

    And you’re the epitome of graciousness, Justin. Thank you for being such a great example for all of us. xo

    Reply
Sherry Roberts April 30, 2012

When someone retweets my stuff, I always check them out. If I am not following them, I follow. I try to make contact in some way and give them a boost.

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 30, 2012

    That’s awesome, Sherry! It takes only seconds to read their tweets, click on their blog, follow (or not)…even if you don’t follow (if they’re not your target), you can still RT or follow their blog. That’s the beauty of social media — making it work for you. Love seeing you here! xo

    Reply
shaunda wenger April 30, 2012

Ha! (as in, great entertaining informative post) and aha! (as in, not a moment too soon!)

I find myself here after I had just retweeted you (because I always love your advice) and then read your post, after doing… I hate to admit, sending out a handful of thank you tweets–can you believe it?!

*blush, smile, blush, oh well, I have seen the light*

I love the suggestions for making the TYs more personal along one’s brand. Thank YOU!

Reply
    Rachel Thompson April 30, 2012

    Timing is everything, right Shaunda? I appreciate your kind words regarding my posts and tweets. Twitter is such a learning process — I read stuff everyday that changes my practices. See, here’s the deal — you figure out what works for you and take it from there. I just feel that only thanking people is the easy way out. Going above and beyond yields far greater ROI in building relationships, friendships, , networking, trust, and even perhaps, book sales.

    Thanks again for the visit and discussion.

    Reply
Jessica Kristie May 2, 2012

Good advice. I thank people on Twitter but I do it sparingly between other tweets and often several people at once. If you have enough going on — in the stream can be okay, I think.
I’m also glad you mentioned the #TeamFollowBack peeps. I purposely don’t follow them and it is a turn off. I think people almost misconstrue that now and think they are telling everyone they follow-back, but you shouldn’t do that either. Don’t talk about it, just do it. People can tell by your follow counts if you follow back or not. 🙂

Reply
    Rachel Thompson May 2, 2012

    Glad to have your comments here, Jess. You are terrifically genuine on social media — even though I tease you about the hearts and butterflies. 🙂

    I looked up the whole #TeamFollowBack thing and it’s actually against Twitter’s TOS guidelines — which clearly make no difference. They’re not doing anything about it. Which is fine — I love the freedom we all have to make Twitter whatever we want. But, as you said, anyone who’s Twitter savvy see through the silliness and randomness of it.

    Can’t wait to have you on my author blog tomorrow! Woot — and hearts and flowers and stuff.

    Reply
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Cara Bristol July 2, 2012

I do thank people for RTs, mostly because I want to acknowledge to them that I saw it and I appreciate it. But I also RT back and I try to keep track of who RTs me and then I’ll give them follow shout-out.

Reply
    Rachel Thompson July 2, 2012

    Yes, it’s important to thank people. I certainly do and encourage you also…just sometimes DM is better so as not to make your timeline all thank you’s…that’s my point, truly.

    Thanks for commenting, Cara!

    Reply
RachelintheOC (@BkPromoCentral) November 2, 2012

NO THANK YOU On Twitter, Please! 5 Better Alternatives via @BadRedheadMedia http://t.co/vOb2IUrx

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RachelintheOC (@indiebookpromos) November 2, 2012

NO THANK YOU On Twitter, Please! 5 Better Alternatives via @BadRedheadMedia http://t.co/6M3jjOvR

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Rachel Thompson (@RachelintheOC) November 4, 2012

NO THANK YOU On Twitter, Please! 5 Better Alternatives via @BadRedheadMedia http://t.co/FyUMQTpY

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@FamilyStories November 4, 2012

Excellent advice.~> RT @RachelintheOC: NO THANK YOU On Twitter, Please! 5 Better Alternatives via @BadRedheadMedia http://t.co/TWTbyAZ8

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Mariah G July 14, 2014

THANK YOU! I don’t know why DM never occurred to me. This was a total eureka moment. Thanks again.

Reply
    Rachel Thompson July 17, 2014

    quite welcome!

    Reply
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