Hey CA/ARCserve: Stop spamming Twitter

I know this isn’t about backups, per se, but I just couldn’t help it.  CA is the first major storage vendor I’ve found that is spamming twitter a lot and I want them to stop!  So I’ll through this up there and hope for the best.

Twitter is a great resource for a lot of things.  And because it’s a great resource, it creates a new place where spammers can try and reach new customers.  What is Twitter spam, you may ask? Run a twitter search on ARCserve and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

OK, What CA is doing is not technically SPAM. The equivalent of email spam I suppose would be figuring out how to send direct messages or even @ messages to thousands of twitter users.  What they’re doing is hiring “professional tweeters” to tweet their message over and over and over and over.  You notice if you’re doing one of two things:

1. Following one of these professional tweeters (why would anyone DO THIS, but people do…)
2. Running a series of searches, one of which includes ARCserve

I fall into the latter category.  I want to keep up on what people are saying about various products, so I run a search on various product names, one of which is ARCserve.  In the last week or so, that column is now completely filled with nothing but ARCserve posts from these professional tweeters.

Hey, CA!  All you’re doing is spending money and ruining a great medium.  AND it means I’m going to delete you from my search, so I’ll never see your actual tweets that you might want me to actually see.

BTW, yesterday I saw the following tweet from @Tramain360: “That CA ARCserve company offered me $14 to tweet a ad for them… I denied it…lol” LOL indeed.  Good on ya, Tramain360.

Go hire someone that actually understands social media and how to use it and stop filling up my search column with “BUY ARCSERVE! It’s GREAT!” posts.

Written by W. Curtis Preston (@wcpreston), four-time O'Reilly author, and host of The Backup Wrap-up podcast. I am now the Technology Evangelist at Sullivan Strickler, which helps companies manage their legacy data

2 comments
  • Curtis,

    Since they have “professional” Tweeter posts but no user posts, doesn’t that kinda say they don’t have any users? I’m sure that’s not the message they’re trying to send, but it’s a logical conclusion to what they’re doing.

  • I have some seen some posts from real users in the past. This definitely obscures those posts.