Seven Reasons Why I Won’t Share Your Post on Twitter

To continue my ranty trend, after complaining about blogs last time, this time I'm focusing on Twitter and specifically, the things that stop me from sharing your post. Please note that this is my own personal viewpoint on the things that have stopped me mid-tweet and sent me away forever.

1. No Twitter Button

C'mon – Twitter provides a button code, so how hard is it to get a button and include it on your site? And if you are blogging on WordPress, there are plenty of social sharing plugins that include Twitter. In fact, there are even WordPress themes (like the one on my blog) that incorporate Twitter sharing functionality, so there's really no excuse.

2. Too Many Clicks

Having said that, I hate going to sites which make it too difficult to tweet. I do not want to authorize TwitThis or another tweeting application before I can send a tweet. I want to do it with a single click. If I can't, then I'm out of there and I may not even bother to comment.

3. Authorizing Twitter Applications

I know Twitter was probably doing us a favor by allowing bloggers to build apps to authorize tweets from particular websites (in fact, I bet that's a plugin), but I won't do it. If I click on a Twitter button and it asks me to authorize a website app (even if it's OAuth), I go elsewhere.

The reason? I already have a bunch of authorized apps that I actually use; I don't need one for each website I visit too! (There are a few exceptions, where I like the site enough, but mostly having to jump through hoops sends me away.)

4. Twitter Button Not Working

Now, this may not be the blogger's fault, but occasionally, I hit a Twitter button and nothing happens. It doesn't set up a tweet or it hangs while connecting to Twitter. I'll try once more, but if it happens twice, I'm gone – and I'll think twice about tweeting content from that site again.

5. No Change to the Default Info

If you are using a Twitter, Digg Digg, AddThis or other button, then for heaven's sake, fill in the username information so that when I tweet it's included in the tweet automatically. And fix it so the post title is included too. While I might type it in for the first tweet of the day, if I'm having a tweetfest and I come across too many tweets which are not auto populated, I'll give up and go elsewhere.

This is what you need to do so that your Tweet looks perfect!

6. Too Many Twitter Hashtags

In contrast, some people really know how to use that auto populate tweet feature. Not only do they have a title, link and excerpt, but they've added so many hashtags that there's no room for my username or comment. I like to be able to say something about what I tweet, so leave me room to do it.

7. You Want Something in Return

You know all those tweet to download, tweet to access, tweet to … well, you get the picture. I hate them. Occasionally, I think that the resource is worth downloading and I'll tweet, but most of the time I leave the site forever. The truth is, that if you make it non-opt in accessible and I think it's good, I'll be so happy that I'll tweet it anyway and will come back looking for more. Something to think about, isn't it?

So those are some of my pet Twitter sharing peeves. I don't know if I'm typical or just a curmudgeon, so help me out and share your Twitter peeves in the comments.