Twitter has taken off like gangbusters in 2008. At the end of 2008 the numbers were telling us that 70% of all twitter users had joined in 2008. Some folks prefer to have a few close friends that follow them. Those folks can pretty much do as they please. But if you are interested in building a brand and using Twitter to promote it, here are some observations and best practices. Just keep in mind that old saying from grade school: “What if everyone did that?”
Rules for tweeting:
- Don’t tweet more than about 4 or 5 times a day.
- Tweet interesting things.
- Share pictures and links with services like twitpic
- Don’t blather on about what you are eating unless you intend to share the recipe
- Don’t put private communications the public twitterstream
- Do NOT publicly welcome all your new followers. Imagine reading pages of that.
- It is OK to tweet your blog posts, but it turns people off if that’s all you do.
- Do not join a “monetize your tweets” service such as Magpie, as it will make people dump you.
- Do not brag about how many followers you have. Everyone can already see that.
- Do not ask for more followers. Boring!
- Retweet others frequently when they have tweeted something good.
- Reply to individuals in public if you think others would be interested.
- Do not tweet things like “Gaaaaaaah”. We need context.
- Tweet at least every other day.
- Be happy and positive.
- Be human.
How to treat the people that follow you
- Do not send an auto-direct message thanking each new follower and sending them your pitch. Direct Messages are individual and personal.
- Thank new followers by following back if you haven’t yet.
- Do not direct message followers whom you are not following because they can’t direct message you back
- Recheck profiles of people you are not following from time to time. Some twits just need a little while to get the hang of it.
How to treat the people you follow
- Do not follow people just to get them to follow you back and then unfollow them.
- Do not do mass follows, or you will be considered a spammer even if you never tweet.
- Follow the followers of people you really like.
- Do not exclusively follow “Rock stars.” Follow a few interesting noobs. They’ll love you for it.
- Use a third party twitter client such as tweet deck to manage the twits that you follow into groups.
- Don’t just read your direct messages and replies. Dip into the stream from time to time.
- Give them some time to follow you back.
- Try to follow about as many people as follow you.