The Dos and Do Nots of Twitter (Part 1)

It is Monday morning, and I am organizing my Twitter, and it is driving me a little crazy. Every week I do some basic maintenance of my account, and it is about this time I notice all of the bull that I keep seeing. Whether it be the spammy messages on my feed or the lame direct messages – somewhere, someone was doing Twitter the wrong way. Which leads me to, The Dos and Do Nots of Twitter. Twitter is a revolving door of information, followers, news, and unfortunately many sh*t accounts. But what makes these accounts such sh*t? I’ve propagated a list of The Dos and Do Nots of Twitter. So here we go, starting with number one.

Number 1: This is the very reason I decided to write this article. When I follow you, do not spam me with an auto response to your wonky website, or Facebook page. That is not how Twitter works, that is not how any of this works. Do you think I am going to click your spammy link? Build a relationship with me baby, wine and dine me before you try and get me into the metaphorical sack that is your website.

Number 2: We’ve followed each other, and you have direct messaged me for help regarding your project. You seemed endearing and genuine. So I have gone out of my way to help you by visiting your site and taking some brief notes on items that need work. Then when I go to direct message you back, I receive a message saying you are not following me anymore. Shame on you, shame on me. That is the quickest way to get me to unfollow you. At least break up with me after I’ve given you the information. Don’t you want what you have come for?

Number 3: Your default photo is the egg, don’t be an egghead. It takes 30 seconds to find a relatively useful profile picture. Here is a link to how to change your profile picture. It also stands on the following issue.

Number 4: Congrats! You got a new photo, but it has absolutely nothing to do with your business. Your photo is just a random Google image of a pair of men’s shoes. Pretty weak considering your profile claims to be about anything other than men’s shoes. Honestly, who picks a shoe?!?

Number 5: Your profile description is garbage. You either don’t have anything or what you have is complete and utter junk. This falls in line with the egghead; it takes 2 minutes to write a decent description of you or the product you’re offering.

Number 6: #Not #every #single #word #in #your #tweet #has #to #have #a #hashtag. Relevancy is key. We get it, you want exposure to what you are saying, even if it is about your breakfast. But guess what, #a is not going to generate a lot of action. Limit your hashtags to 2-3 per message, and make sure they are relevant to what you are saying, selling, or preaching. #PrayForPortnoy

Number 7: Begging is not pretty. I don’t need to see tweets asking for replies, follows, retweets. Or favorites. Write decent tweet, and it will come naturally.

Number 8: Don’t go ham on tweets. There is nothing worse than seeing your feed with 12 messages from the same individual back to back to back to back (you get what I am saying). Spread those bad boys out. If it is the same message, eliminate the majority of them, then spread them out…over the course a month.

Number 9: Find a balance between retweets, self-promotion and new content. Don’t tweet endlessly about that new blog post you just wrote. Do you want to bore your followers? Because that is how it is done. Stick with a general rule of thumb of say 30/30/30/10. That is 30 percent of your tweets go out as self-promotion, 30 percent retweets, 30 percent original content, and 10 percent for your miscellaneous activities. This leads us to number 10.

Number 10: That last 10 percent that we allocated for miscellaneous activities is not meant to be time for tweeting about your breakfast or the jog you just took. For small businesses take the time to post about something not entirely related to your business (but somehow related), reach out to others. Keep the personal chat out of your business channel, but show people you aren’t some one-dimensional imbecile.

Number 11: Check your opinions at the door. Obviously, opinions related to your industry are important, but what is not important are your beliefs on politics, religion and other touchy subjects. I am not one to preach about political correctness, but it is best to avoid certain subjects as to not alienate some of your audience. #PrayForPortnoy

Number 12: Don’t feed the trolls. It is the internet, the home of the troll. Trolls feed on the blood of angry rebuttal tweets. Avoid them, don’t engage them. Don’t be afraid to block those suckers.

Stay tuned for part two of The Dos and Do Nots of Twitter.

Like it or hate it – tell us on Twitter or Facebook.

Derek Brusin

I am the one who likes cupcakes.

Would you like to share your thoughts?