Learning the etiquette of Twitter
By Adrian Weckler
1. Using an account purely for marketing or promotion
Twitter can be a very effective marketing tool. But there’s marketing and there’s marketing. Simply vomiting out ads or minor offers will limit your credibility.
2. Not posting your own Tweets
Setting up a Twitter account with your name and photo, and then getting some flunky to write bland ‘updates’ about where you are or what you’re doing is worse than not having an account. It shows contempt, and it’s completely obvious.
This often happens with accounts created by politicians, celebrities and certain other ‘important’ people. While Ryan Tubridy’s account (@TubridyRadio1) was written by RTE staff, he remained below 1,000 followers. Within two days of him starting to write his own tweets, his followers rating jumped to 3,000.
3. Sending repeated direct messages to people you don’t really know
By and large, Twitter is a public forum.
Sending someone a personal, direct message, alters the character of the communication. You’ll put someone you don’t know on the spot if you do it repeatedly.
4. Being widely abusive
People with opinions spice Twitter up. But there’s a difference between a challenging opinion and a purely abusive one. Foul-mouthed rants can sometimes be interesting, but are usually just boring.
5. Tweeting too much
Though daily Tweeting activity is good, a never-ending stream of updates (especially with links to other websites) is a big turn-off.
Unless you have some really compelling stuff to say, or unless there’s a major event unfolding upon which you’re commenting, two to three stand-alone tweets per hour are probably about as much as anyone wants to hear from you. That doesn’t include replies or other interactions.)
Five ways to make yourself a star
1. Don’t waste people’s time
If you want people to pay attention to what you’re saying, tweet something that either (a) people don’t know or (b) is an original take on something under discussion.
2. Have a speciality
If you’re an expert on something, let it be known. Although not everyone will share your passion for metallurgy, most people like to see a passion for something.
3. If you don’t have a speciality, at least show your character
Suppose you’re a mid-ranking marketing executive with no extra-curricular activities. Okay. But you might be funny or neurotic or obsessed with bumble bees.
Let it out. Whatever you do, don’t tweet about what a nice girl Cheryl Cole is.
4. Answer people who tweet you
If you tweet someone, it’s nice to get a response and vice-versa. One or two kind or meaningful responses will lead to goodwill.
This will probably lead to people retweeting your updates to a wider audience.
5. Don’t follow too many people
One of the crudest ways of getting followers is to start clicking furiously away on people to follow. But if these people tweet regularly, you will have difficulty keeping up.
Twitter has brought in a ‘lists’ system, allowing you to cluster different classes of people into different Twitter streams, but it all becomes hard work.
