Many of you who follow me on Twitter know that I vigilantly go after those who abuse the service in order to advertise their product or service. Now, I know that Twitter is all about Marketing and Public Relations, but when I see the same message being Retweeted several times in my feed, it annoys me.
I often get asked why it annoys me so much and my usual response is “Head On. Apply Directly To The Forehead”. Sometimes I emphasize it in CAPS, sometimes I use exclamation marks. Either way, you get the picture that something so short and really giving no additional information or giving you anything to really talk about is just annoying. Head On is a product that is supposed to relieve headaches, however, it’s advertising practices often induces them.
After talking about my unfollowing several friends and publicly criticizing the contest holders, my friends and I thought we should post about this practice. In the middle of trying to assemble the article, @mtn_dew posted a contest that we just couldn’t leave alone. The difference with @mtn_dew’s contest is that they decided to throw in some official rules. This could have justified their contest if it wasn’t full of legalities that prevented anyone from actually winning. Requiring a Tweet of 154 characters when there is a strict limit of 140 characters makes following the rules of typing it EXACTLY as shown impossible.
After everyone had a great chuckle at their expense, we decided it would be best to create a blog and let everyone see what exactly was going on. So, the blog is now available for you to read at http://rttolose.wordpress.com .
Hope you enjoy it!