Twitter Etiquette is one of those things that you must understand and apply if you want to make the most out of Twitter. There is etiquette in everything we do in our daily lives and Twitter is no different. We have a certain level of expectation in the way people should behave in different situations. If people do not behave accordingly, we tend to not appreciate it and reduce our interaction with those people. In Twitter, if you do not follow Twitter Etiquette and behave the right way, your chances of getting more followers and more success will be reduced.
The next 2 sections will cover some of the important do’s and dont’s of using Twitter.
What you should do on Twitter
- If someone follows you, follow them back – probably the most important part of Twitter Etiquette is helping others grow their list of followers if you want to grow your own. This is especially important if you want to be Using Twitter For Business and commercial purposes. The only exception where you wouldn’t follow this part of etiquette is if the person who follows you is not a targeted follower.
- Fill out your profile – before you begin following people with the hope of them following you back, you have to let them know who you are and what your interests are. The best way to do this is to fill out your Bio on your profile and decorating your account with pictures, background and colors that reflects your interests.
- Reply to tweets and direct messages – if you want to build a healthy relationship with tweeple (people on Twitter), then you have reply to their tweets and direct messages. By doing this, you start up conversations and building rapport with them. Tip: As your list of followers grows, you may receive hundreds of direct messages every day. It would be wise to learn how to Purge Direct Messages.
What you should not do on Twitter
- Do not engage in self-promotional activities from the outset – how can you expect people to buy from someone they don’t know? Would you buy from someone you didn’t know? Most probably not. Good Twitter Etiquette means that your first priority should be to build a relationship with other users especially those with your interests before offering someone of value to sell. If you don’t, you won’t win any friends or profits.
- Do not post the same tweets and same links all the time – this is known as spam and can get your account flagged for suspension by Twitter. In addition, it gets annoying if someone sees the same messages and links every time. This makes people think that you’re either just in it for the money or you’re not human.
- Do not write spammy tweets – this refers to tweets that include every single trending topic just to grab attention. I’ve seen many times on Twitter and it makes those who do it look very bad and misleading. If you are tempted to do something like this, don’t!
The bottom line about Twitter Etiquette is that you must think of Twitter as an interactive tool for communication between humans. As a result, you must act human because you are interacting with other humans. Just because you are behind a keyboard and possibly thousands of kilometers away does not mean that you can act like a robot. You could, but people don’t pay attention to robots. And if you’re in business, people only buy from people, even if it’s online.
If you are looking for more information on Twitter Etiquette, the Twitter Guide offers an interesting look at what you should and should not do when using Twitter. However, don’t forget that there are many more guides out there you can search for on this important topic.
If you hope to have great success on Twitter, a good understanding and application of Twitter Etiquette is absolutely vital.
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