Muted But Not Booted - A Social Media Update for Twitter

For almost a week, I've been paranoid.  Not because I think people are following me or because I'm worried that I have spinach in my teeth...no, it's because I'm worried if I'm TWITTER-MUTED. 

On Monday, Twitter announced an awesome new feature where you can actually mute those annoying Tweeters on your feed.  You know the guy who constantly rails about the dangers of feeding lake fish your leftover KFC (wait...you're not following that guy?) or the woman who posts way too many pics of her dog dressed in Halloween outfits?  You can now silence them.  Not unfollow them.  Not get rid of them completely.  But you can ensure that they stay in the back corner of your Twitter closet like the sweater Aunt Marge knitted for you last Christmas.

Here's the kicker:  the person you mute will NEVER KNOW.  They can still see YOUR Tweets and it will be as if you are still virtual Twitter best friends.

This is great, because it is the more polite alternative than the aggressive “unfollow." You can still interact with the individual that you have muted, but you will no longer receive SMS or push notifications from that particular user. This user will still be able to favorite, retweet, and tweet at you, but you just won’t have all of that activity cluttering your timeline.

The reason that Twitter has decided to make this a staple of the Twitter setting options is because it was one of the most popular features of the third party Twitter apps for Android and IPhone. This is how some social media handles figure out what features to add to their framework without devaluing what they have created. 

For marketing professionals, and business owners this can be a little scary. Used as a brand enhancement feature and as an advertising tool it is completely ineffective if muted. And you want to ensure you're still following social media best practices for marketing. This raises an important question…..

So, what do we do? What do you do? Twitter users will need to be more accountable. Everyone using and utilizing Twitter will need to be more cognizant of what they are tweeting and how much they are tweeting. Some companies that send out mass tweets and “junk” tweets will need to better align with Twitter best practices or they will get the invisible ax...or, I should say, THE MUTE.

Blog image courtesy pakorn/freedigitalphotos.net