As writers, bloggers, journalists or whatever you feel like calling the people that bring you your tech news, we’re expected to do more than just throw a few words on a site, play with the super-secret iPhone 5 and call it a day. We also spend time pimping our content. But sometimes we go a bit to far and look like name-dropping douche bags.
I’m sure I’m guilty of this. I post an article, someone with a larger audience, or who I think is cool tweets my article. OMG, they know I exist! In my desire to let my followers know that an internet celebrity liked my article, I end up retweeting that tweet. Suddenly I turn into the name-dropping jerk I’ve always hated. That retweet basically tells my followers, “Hey everyone, I’m so important that [insert internet celebrity and/or tech site]tweeted my article.”
It’s ridiculous, pompous, and I won’t do it again. Twitter is different things to different people. But I’m pretty sure technology journalists displaying self-congratulatory behaviour in order to show people how well connected they are, isn’t what people were looking for when they started following a feed.
So I’ll stop. I’ll either retweet Gizmodo’s tweet of my articles or tweet them on my own. There’s no need for me to firebomb your Twitter feed with four mentions of the same article. If I update an article or have something new to say about it, I’ll throw another tweet out there.
More importantly, when a site I admire, or a celebrity — internet or otherwise — thinks my article is worthy of their 140 characters, I promise not to retweet it. OK, I’ll throw a star on it so I can stare at it later, but I definitely won’t retweet it.
Editor’s note: I think that Robbie is totally wrong. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game. I’m gonna let him run with this anyway, so you guys can rip him a new one in the comments.