Watching my words

I still consider myself a Twitter newbie. I lurked around for six months and have been active for about three months now. I’m still figuring it all out, but so far I have one big pet peeve… the promotional follows.

I make a joke with a friend about ancestry.com commercials and *bingo!* Ancestry.com is following me. I’m looking for video conferencing alternatives and *bingo!* Web conference salesman guy propositions me and follows me. I wanted suggestions, yes, but I got a sales pitch instead of a thoughtful discussion or suggestion. Now, I make a simple comment about Las Vegas and again, there’s a sales pitch!

I don’t mind meeting people on Twitter that I don’t know in real life. Heck, I got to connect with a fabulous crafty-duo whose book I adore at the moment. But I’m starting to feel a bit ambushed, and I don’t know how to deal with it. Do I block them? Ignore them? Send a message that says, “Hi, I don’t think you need to be following me” because really, I have no interest in ancestry.com and won’t provide them any value. Following me is just adding to their clutter.

Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated for this Twitter newbie. But really, save the sales pitches for someone else.