In my opinion, tweeting responsibly means following a few guidelines:
- be friendly & interact with other people
- ask questions
- offer answers to questions
- reply to people when they speak to you or RT your tweet
- RT tweets you enjoy - but don't go nuts here! Do other stuff as well
- for the most part, it's okay to jump into conversations
- constantly selling and promoting your own links irritates everyone
- only tweeting links (with no words) irritates everyone
- auto-responding to a follow with an auto-tweet irritates everyone
Anything you'd like to add to the list? Do you get irritated too?
35 comments:
I'm a terrible Twitterer (Tweeter?) I admit it. I have Networked Blogs set to send out links to my posts. I do respond to posts/RT's to me. Every little once in awhile I say something on there. I try to tweet links to places taking submissions as I run across them (but I forget a lot of the time).
So, yeah, I'm learning and trying, but I suck at it! Thanks for the advice.
Shannon at The Warrior Muse
I try and converse now and then, but I admit a lot of my Tweets have links. I just don't have time to hang out and chat all day. But promise I almost never promote!
I'm not on Twitter yet but hope to join in the next month. So your tips are helpful. But I wonder how good I'll do with it since like Alex I don't have too much time to hang out there. Any tips?
I'll try to remember not to just tweet links to contests though I confess I'll probably do some of that.
Shannon - you don't suck at it!!! There is a learning curve, but it's a lot of fun once you're comfortable with it :)
Alex - You're a good tweeter! It's the folks who tweet their own links all the time who drive me nuts!
Natalie - I think you'll be great. I don't spend tons of time on there either. I think just joining in on a few conversations is good. We do want to know about the contests so those are good links! :)
I have an account but haven't tweeted once. So much else to do, that I can't think about starting that yet.
I think the first thing is I have to be more consistent with twitter. I'm there occasionally, but I haven't had time to hang out much of anywhere the past few months.
I miss that.
I have given up on tweeting frankly- I got tired of many of the things you are mentioning and I got tired of Twitter interfering with who I wanted to interact with. I would only see the tweets of certain people and the people I directly interacted with had almost completely disappeared off my feed. It really annoyed me because I really enjoyed Tweeting with them. I now only retweet the occasional link that I think my followers will be interested in and my blogposts.
I find it irritating when I follow someone new and get a DM to the link of this person's book.
And maybe I'm guilty of all the things that irritate you, Jemi!
Teresa - it's always one more thing isn't it. That's why I've haven't joined FB yet :)
Sia - it is fun - but I also find it's easy to let go - and when you pick it back up, that's okay too. One of the advantages of Twitter to me :)
Danette - that's too bad. I use TweetDeck to keep track of my best twitter buddies - that helps a bit :)
Nas - no you're not!! Not at all actually - RTing for others is great. Those DMs drive me nuts too :)
I don't tweet nearly as much as I should. Thanks for the rules of etiquette!
You're the right person to make this post because you're an awesome tweeter, Jemi. :) You're always social and personable and never boring. Thanks for the good guidelines to consider.
I am still working on my tweeting and I know I have a long way to go. Thanks for the wonderful advice. :)
~Jess
Beth - you're very welcome - glad to help :)
Shelley - what a sweet thing to say!! Thank you so much - you totally made my day! :)
Jess - that's okay - one of the main reason I like Twitter is because there's no pressure to keep up every day - you can pop in when you can!
Your tweets are always great Jemi. :)
My biggest pet peeve is the constant self-promoters. The only people I stop following are the ones who do nothing but promote themselves. I just can't handle the same ad links showing up in my feed nonstop.
Stephanie - aww - thank you! Yup - I'm totally with you - those folks drive me nuts :)
Hi, Jemi! I'm sure I'm guilty of some Twittering no-no's. I'm not very good with the social media scene. I do try and re-tweet any links that I find interesting and I try to help promote other authors through a lot of my tweets.
I typically glance at the other person's twitter feed. If it's all self promotion I skip it. If it's genuine and offers anything of value, even humor/personality I follow back. Usually the others drop me anyway. But I'm interested in REAL connections not advertising.
Susanne - I'm sure we're ALL guilty of these at times - it's the folks who only speak about themselves and their links who drive me bonkers!
Lisa - me too! I need to check the feeds out more before I follow back - I've been caught more than once that way!
The most irritating thing for me, a new Twitter user, has been that links posted on Twitter never seem to work.
Such an inconvenience!
Searching - that does drive me nuts too. I like being able to click right through - not search!
Excellent tips, Jemi!
And you are a wonderful cheerleader in sharing others' tweets!
Kelly - thank you! It's fun sharing links for my buddies :)
I enjoy your tweets. You have a talent for tweeting. Thanks for the tweeting tips. :)
Kathi - what a sweet thing to say! Thanks so much :)
You're an awesome tweeter Jemi. I flip on and off twitter and never seem to catch the interesting posts. Most are the last three irritants. I am trying to get better at it though.
It's definitely not just you. I unfollow people for doing all those last three things. It makes for a more pleasant Tweeting experience. I know this sounds sad but I wouldn't be without Twitter. I've made some really good friends there, present company included.
Charmaine - thank you :) Yeah the last couple are annoying :)
Rosalind - you too! I've definitely gotten to know a lot of great people via twitter!
I really need to up my tweeting skills.
You get authors who send out a never-ending stream of tweets about the awesomeness of their novels. For me, that's the height of tweeting irritation...
Great guidelines! I'm not on twitter as much, but I do try to vary my tweets up a bit.
Nutschell
www.thewritingnut.com
I love this. It's a great example. Now if only I could find the time to live up to all the guidelines. THanks for inducing guilt ;)
(And the auto-tweet? SO not just you!)
Michelle - agreed! In person, you'd never talk like that - so why tweet like that?
Nutschell - exactly! Variety is the way to do it!! :)
Martina - no problem :P You're a great twitter buddy - nothing to worry about! And those auto-tweets drive me nuts!!!
I really dislike people's feeds that are mostly links. It's like they have nothing to say.
Medeia - me too! I like to interact with people - much more fun that way! :)
I agree with you on all of your suggestions. :) I enjoy checking out a variety of hash tags.
Sharon - the hashtags are a lot of fun to check! I'm constantly adding columns to tweetdeck to have a peek :)
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