How To Enjoy Twitter Free of Olympic Spoilers

You don’t have to give up social media completely during the Olympics to avoid hearing spoilers and results before they air.  On Friday afternoon, I went through the folks I’m following on twitter and removed all major news outlets.  I  sent a tweet listing the media outlets I had just unfollowed, then I favorited my own tweet.  This way it will be easy for me to refollow those media outlets once the games are over.

Removing media outlets from your account temporarily will help, but won’t prevent you from seeing retweets or spoilers from other people you follow.  It’s not like they’re maliciously trying to ruin your Olympic enjoyment – it’s just probably not as important to them to be able to watch a race without knowing the result, or maybe they’re in different time zones etc.

To be able to tweet back and forth with your other Olympic obsessed pals – free of the fear of spoilers, your best bet is to create a list of just those folks, and then view that list in a 3rd party app like Hootsuite.  That way, you’re only seeing the messages from your other Olympic nerd pals. Here’s how to do it:

• On twitter.com, create a new list and title it something related to the Olympics.  Carefully select people you know won’t share spoilers.
• Then download Hootsuite to your mobile device (there is also a desktop version, if you prefer to use your computer).
• Set up a “stream” for the list of Olympics folks you just created, as well as a stream for mentions.
• Instead of using the twitter app, use hootsuite and only look at your olympics list and your mentions.  All the other people you’re following are still there – you just won’t see them if you stay on those two streams.

Voila!

One Response to “How To Enjoy Twitter Free of Olympic Spoilers”

1. Neven Jones says:

   July 29, 2012 at 9:05 am

   Great idea! pinned it

   Reply