Recently, my bf joined Twitter and asked me about Twitter etiquette. (Feel free to follow me on Twitter!) Here's the list of Dos and Don'ts I came up with as a result.
DOs
- Update with random thoughts.
- Respond to other people's messages that you find interesting.
- Use @<username> to respond to something someone else is saying. Make sure to spell the username correctly (my biggest problem) so it'll show up on their replies tab (whether or not they are following you).
- Keep your tweets to 140 characters. There's a limit for a reason. Don't split a message into multiple messages. Find a way to make it work.
- Follow anyone you enjoy reading or conversing with.
- Call updates "tweets".
DON'Ts
- Don't use your account only to notify people of new blog posts. That's what feeds are for. It's okay to promote your blog posts, as long as you also make personal updates too (even something as simple as what you ate for lunch).
- Don't have lengthy conversations with someone where you are both responding in real-time to each other through Twitter. That's what chat clients are for.
- Don't reveal anything personal about someone you know. If you want to respond with someone personal that they haven't revealed themselves, use direct messages.
- Don't continuously brag about your intelligence compared to others and then misspell every tweet you have (I unfollowed someone for this... probably the only case I unfollowed a non-bot).
- Don't go around following everyone you can on the public timeline just so you can boost your following/followed numbers.
- Don't follow spammers.
Anything else you think that should be added to these lists?
4 comments:
One that really bothers me is when people @reply someone without considering other people are going to have that in their timeline. So some @soandso "yeah lol" isn't useful to me.
For example, say that I tweet about loving the hot chocolate at Cosi and someone decides to respond. Something like "@bokista Yeah I love that place too! They have the best smores" is going to make someone curious as to the place being discussed. "@bokista definitely" does nothing for the rest of your followers.
Twitter is a public conversation (albeit it often one-sided), not a chat client as you note. The most important thing to keep in mind is that everyone who follows you can read everything you say, so tweet with them in mind.
Good point! You're right, I tend to ignore the @replies that don't include context and sometimes click on the ones that do include it.
I have to admit though, for people who don't "get" Twitter yet, particularly people who are of my bf's generation who didn't have AIM away messages to change every time they touched their computer in college, I have a hard time explaining the appeal of it to them.
You can always click the "In reply to" link below the @ messages to find out what the original poster was talking about. If you're not interested, though, just ignore it. Not that much of an issue, to me...
good article jenny. linked 2 u from my post.
@ bobby - go to settings - notices - @ replies and choose second option. it will show u @ replies addressed 2 mutual friends. it would make better sense and u can join the conversation with people u know.
- Ravi
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