When it comes to the internet there are many blurry lines, between what is and is not acceptable. For the most part many people should be able to quickly distinguish between what is and is not acceptable. For the most part it should appear to be common sense. However it does often seem like some people have just totally forgotten what is right and what may be not so right.
When it comes to twitter, this comes to a whole new level sometimes. Even though i am writing this post, i have a good feeling the only people that will read it are the people that are already following it, the people that already know what is right and what is wrong. This does not really surprise me though. However the main reason i wanted to write this post was to try and help some of the new comers to see points that they may be able to avoid and get off to a much better start.
Really good etiquette should be something that is used in most all situations. It can help you to achieve much greater things, with much less resistance. This i believe can be just as true with Twitter as it can with anything else. Following just a few simple points can quickly and easily make you appear more friendly, interesting and above all a valuable person to follow. Ok so lets get in and look at some of the things you should consider when using Twitter.
Be aware of ratios – With twitter there are a few key numbers, being followers, following and tweets. While in natural course these will not always stay in balance, and it will entirely depend on why you use Twitter, how they stay in balance. Initially there is one or two specific ratios to consider. Getting followers almost always requires you to follow people, some people will follow you automatically, while others will consider if they want to follow you or not. The ratio between followers to following is one of these considerations. The other can be the number of tweets you have made, in comparison to how many people you have followed and that are following you.
It may sound complicated, but the simple idea to follow in regards to ratios is don’t expect people to follow you if you have 1 (one) tweet and you followed 1,000 people and have no one following you. Yes you will get a certain amount of followers, but few genuine followers will stick around. Especially if the one tweet is self promotional, or what could be seen as spam.
Don’t over do self promotion – Following on from the last point above, try and keep self promotion in check. While yes to some extent Twitter is about sharing what you are doing and what you are working on. However at the same time, you need to consider what people who are following you will want to see. While they have followed you to hear about what you are doing on your website, there is every chance that they do not want to see it 50 times a day.
To provide truly valuable experiences on twitter, you need to engage with your followers. Meaning that you need to join in conversations, and initiate conversation with your followers. Doing this and sharing about your own projects occasionally will keep people more engaged and interested when you do self promote.
Provide Valuable information –
The information that you provide people, especially on the internet becomes the impression that is framed around you. If you continually share information that adds a lot of value, and is interesting and what people want to see then they are going to be hanging to see more information from you. However if on the other hand you are sharing information of now use, people will quickly disappear seeing that you are just wasting their time.
Join the conversation – The best thing about twitter is the number of people that are always there. Lots of people sharing what they are doing, what they want to know, as well as a very wide range of other information as well. Joining in and sharing valuable information is one way, sharing what others are talking about with your own followers is another (or retweeting), replying to questions, and in general being a participant in different conversations that are happening.
Follow people with similar interests – Finally and possibly one of the more important points, is to follow people who have a similar interest to you. If you want to be heard, and you are sharing what you have to say with people that do not have a similar interest, then there is every chance that you are going to have many followers for a short time. This can be best displayed with a simple example. If you are interested primarily in cars, then you should work to find people with this similar interest to follow, because you may find that if you follow as many random people as possible that you will end up losing a lot of them quickly because they do not want to hear about cars.
What using Twitter really comes down to is using common sense. Being aware of what you are doing and saying and how it may be perceived by the people following you. Can you imagine walking down the street and telling everyone about your new car blog, some will show an interest and as for more information, while the vast majority will probably try and avoid you and walk faster or try to avoid you. This is just like building a big random following of all different people on twitter, and sharing one topic which they may not all be interested in.
So enjoy your time on Twitter and don’t make it a chore, by over doing things the wrong way.