How to Block People on Twitter

Being currently one of the most popular social networking sites, Twitter is a powerful promoting tool. In just 140 characters, you can connect with people, set your status more than once a day, share your thoughts, photos, links or favorite tunes and promote your business. Twitter allows you to build your own social network community and grow your list of followers by offering several auto-follow features. However, there will definitely come times that you will need to sort out your list of followers and keep those users that really pertain to your business or personal profile.

Why blocking people on Twitter?

As with any other social networking site, such as Facebook or MySpace, you can choose who you want to follow or who will join your followers' list. Twitter allows blocking any unwanted followers that may keep following you or tweeting you despite the fact that you have been persistently deleting them from your lists. Besides, the accounts of these users seem more like spam accounts as they keep on bombarding your timeline the same tweets every 10 minutes.

So, the main - and possibly the only - reason to block someone on Twitter is because you don't have any common interests, yet they compromise your reputation and you hate it. Particularly, if your Twitter account is set up for work, you don't want any spam follower reproducing inappropriate retweets or having revealing photos that can damage your reputation. The only way to eliminate this event is to review all of your followers and block those that you consider inappropriate.

How to block people on Twitter

Blocking a user on Twitter is pretty straightforward and can be accomplished in just a few steps.

In particular:

1. Log into your Twitter account using your unique username and password. If you use a public computer, do not forget to mark the 'Do not remember me on this computer option' to protect your personal info.

2. If the user you wish to block is already following you, go to your 'Followers' list. Browse among your connections and click on the personal profile of the unwanted contact. Alternatively, just type the person's Twitter name on the search box and click on enter.

3. While on the person's profile, you will see a gear icon on the top center of the screen (next to the 'Message' box). Once you click on it, a drop-down menu will reveal the options 'Mention,' 'Block,' or 'Report for spam.'

4. Click on 'Block' and you have successfully blocked the spammer. Moreover, a box 'Blocked' with a red line will appear on the user's profile replacing the 'Following' box.

You can easily unblock any user, anytime. All you have to do is to log into your account again, visit the blocked profile and click on the 'Undo' option next to the 'Blocked' box under the user's name. After unblocking the specific user, you will have to click on the 'Follow' option to receive tweets and updates.

For many Twitter users blocking is the best solution to stop unwanted messages, tweets, replies or mentions. If you have experienced an increase in spam, even without using Twitter's auto-follow features, it is high time you checked your followers' profiles and clean up your lists. Don't hesitate to block users who most likely auto-follow and have nothing in common with you, your interests or your mindset. Having a lot of followers doesn't evoke credibility if your followers look like spammers. Just follow the steps above and enjoy a carefree Twitter experience.

Sources:

http://jamesrdickey.com/2009/01/lead-follow-or-block-when-to-use-twitter-block-function/

http://support.twitter.com/entries/117063-how-to-block-users-on-twitter