When Your Timeline Becomes An Embarrassment

Have you ever had one of those moments of embarrassment when viewing  your social media timeline, there it is. A post that you wish was not there.

Embarrassment: an emotional state of intense discomfort with oneself, experienced upon having a socially unacceptable act or condition witnessed by or revealed to others.

Welcome To My Timeline Embarrassment

While taking care of some business tasks one morning, I also had my Twitter account open. Finishing up my tasks, but before moving on to other priorities for the day, I performed a brief scan of recent posts on the timeline.

Scrolling through the timeline, I was making a mental note to come back to certain posts that were of interest to me. Continuing to scroll on down, there it was;

A re-tweeted tweet by a company that I recently followed back.

The re-tweet had nothing to do with me; it was just a bit, (that is putting it lightly), vulgar.

It was a moment that anyone would wish to go away. The embarrassment sets in even though no one can see you. You just want to erase the post, but can’t. All the while, your other followers possibly saw it too.

Time To Investigate Your Timeline Follower

Continuing to scroll through the timeline, I noticed that the company I recently followed back had many re-tweets, one right after another, posted from various people. Some were saying the same thing, others something different, but most promoting some product. The vulgar re-tweet was right in the middle of the other tweets.

I had no way to erase the  re-tweet causing the embarrassment, and found the other re-tweets of no use, along with clogging up my timeline. It was time to take action.

Find the company that I followed back and hit the unfollow button.

The Use Of Automated Tweets 

Many people and businesses are using automated services for their tweets. I find most of these services as a way to end up getting connected with, shall we say, bad neighborhoods.

Most of the services are gamified with loyalty/rewards/credits programs to get a person to re-tweet anyone, then in turn you will receive credits towards some sort of reward,

along with the promise that your follow list will grow exponentially. The problem is that you have no control over who is going to re-tweet your post and then land in your timeline.

This was not necessarily the case concerning the company that re-tweeted the unsavory tweet. I do not partake in any automated tweet networks.

It seemed to me that possibly the company in question had their own network of followers and they re-tweet whatever their network followers post. It also appeared to be on autopilot.

Putting Your Posts On Autopilot

Even though the vulgar re-tweet found its way into my timeline, I realize that it was not my fault. I hope anyone else that saw it noticed that it was a re-tweet from another company.

Do you think the company that re-tweeted ever saw the vulgar post? I think not. There were too many re-tweets from the same company in too short of a time-span.

Any legitimate business should really think twice before signing up for one of these automated re-tweet networks. It puts your business in the position of having unwanted tweets in your timeline, which could be harmful to your business.

The Bad Neighbors Still Show Up

Make it a practice of viewing someone’s previous tweets before deciding to follow him or her back. However, seeing anything they have re-tweeted might not show up. This is when being proactive comes in to play.

Every so often take time to scan through the recent posts on your timeline, especially when you have recently followed new people or businesses. Anything that you might find offensive to others, not to your liking, or complete gibberish, make note of how it made its way into your timeline. Go to the follower’s profile that created the post and hit the unfollow button.

You can only be proactive. There is no way to control what others’ post, along with who might re-tweet it. The bad neighbors just have a way of showing up from time to time.

Be considerate of the legitimate followers you have by being proactive and cleaning out the un-wanted neighbors. Your professional followers will thank you for it.

Posting your own tweets, even though it takes time, is the best way to go. As stated in my timeline 3 minutes after the unsavory re-tweet;
“Time to meet with PR client and review with legal what to say and not to say — AND WHEN”!

Have you experienced an embarrassment created by others in your social media timeline? What steps do you take to keep your timeline in a good neighborhood? Let us know in comments.