Some people don’t get it.
Last night, before going to bed, I took a moment to check Twitter notifications. I found two tweets from someone I didn’t know who had mentioned me without actually tweeting to me.
I’m not going to embed them here because I don’t see any reason to give this idiot any additional attention. But he’s a perfect example of someone trying to use Twitter to move markets — when he only has 49 followers.
Here’s the first one:
He was referring to a blog post I wrote years ago about Groupon. I think he’s trying to say, in his semi-literate way, that if I advertised on Groupon, I could fill otherwise empty seats on my aircraft with Groupon customers. Apparently, he thinks these people will appear just when I need them and be willing to sit around and wait until I do.
Of course, his theory doesn’t apply to my business because I only fly by appointment and I don’t have seats that are not paid for. So why would I be willing to discount flights by 75% — which is basically what Groupon requires* — thus taking a deep loss on every Groupon deal flight? That was the point of my blog post.
He then replied to that post to add this:
Not very bright? Well, at least I can string a sentence together, buddy.
My response was simple: “Fuck off.” I then responded to the first tweet by thanking him for the link and following it up with a simple “LOL.”
And that’s when I discovered just how dim this guy is.
He responded:
Not personal? He said I wasn’t very bright. That isn’t personal? And does he honestly think being a Twitter user with 49 followers gives him any clout? Enough clout to get me to delete a 6-year old blog post with dozens of comments?
I responded “Is there something about “fuck off” that you don’t understand?” (Yes, I know. I can be a real bitch. But if you had any idea of the kind of trolling I’ve dealt with over the past few months on Twitter, you’d understand why I now have zero patience for idiots on Twitter.)
But it was his response to my tweet thanking him for the link that proved how really dim he is:
He didn’t realize that by including a link to my blog post, he was actually sharing it in his Twitter stream. Giving it more exposure. Best of all, he’d done it with a #GRPN tag, increasing the exposure beyond his 49 followers. Anyone looking for the #GRPN tag — people actually interested in Groupon — could potentially see it.
And bash him? Why would I want to do that? If I wanted to bash him, I could do it here by simply embedding his tweets without redacting his identity. But I’m not. Instead, I’m ridiculing him while keeping his identity anonymous. Truth is, I feel sorry for him. He’s so amazingly clueless.
So, to sum up, this clown unwittingly shares my blog post about Groupon with a #GRPN stock tag, says I’m not very bright, and then offers to delete his tweet if I delete the post.
I went to his profile to take a look. It was full of Groupon company and stock related tweets. They guy is an investor — that’s clear. For some reason, he thinks he can use Twitter to influence the price of Groupon stock or get more people to sign on for their “deals.” He’s big on tags like #ecommerce, #investing, #socialmediamarketing, #stocktips, and, of course, #groupon. He could be a bot, but even bots aren’t that dumb.
So I blocked him. He’s still probably trying to figure that out.
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* Do the math: Groupon wants a 50% discount “deal” and then keeps 50% of the discounted price. That leaves me with a total of 25% of the original price.
For the record, I have never liked Facebook. Search this blog and you’ll find more than a few posts where I’ve bashed Facebook in one way or another. (
