In the past I’ve talked about having a social media ‘purge’ every few months with the intention of cleaning out any unnecessary or, quite frankly, irrelevant activity that doesn’t warrant your attention. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Especially on Twitter where someone follows you, you feel obliged to follow them back, only to find that they post once every year or they clog up your timeline with drivel.
That may seem rather harsh but when you’re using your Twitter feed for business purposes perhaps it’s not really helpful to see a lot of retweets which are of no interest to you. So, I’m all for a good purge and it can actually be quite liberating to do this once in a while.
However, what about blocking? Is blocking someone from following you worse than simply unfollowing them? I know of course why people block other accounts, but what about blocking your competitors for example, or those who work for your competitors? Is this really appropriate?
Think carefully
Each case is different, but I would suggest that each business thinks very carefully before they block an individual or company that they consider a competitor. Take this recent example – someone who we work closely with in a PR capacity recently found out that they had been blocked on Twitter by one of the industry exhibitions. This happened despite the fact that he worked for a number of clients all exhibiting at the event. He could quite genuinely have supported and helped them via their Twitter account, using his tweets to draw attention to his clients being there. A virtuous circle of social media activity you might say.
His ‘crime’, however, and the reason for the blocking it would seem, was to work for a competitor exhibition. In a marketplace which whenever anyone talks about new entrants, for example, is normally followed by a, “I welcome competition” statement it seems rather churlish and childish to block someone simply because they work for a competitor. Especially so in a marketplace where other clients might wish to use their services and use their own relationships to boost their presence at an event.
A positive tool
Don’t get me wrong, everyone has a right to block whoever they want, however there’s a real danger in seeming overly sensitive, precious and petty when we are talking about ‘the competition’. If you are confident in your own set-up, products, services and proposition do you really need to block your competitors anyway? What are you actually blocking them from? They’ll be able to see everything you’re doing anyway via other followers, retweets, searches, and so forth.
So, while it’s always good to get rid of the irrelevant in your social media activity let’s not pretend that the competition or those that work for them can be placed in this box. Instead, let’s use social media as a positive tool which showcases your offering rather than putting out the message that you are somehow running scared of those who happen to be active in the same marketplace.
