How to Use Twitter Without Being an Ass

12. May, 2010 View Comments

Twitter has fast become one of the most important items within a bloggers toolbox and not only can you connect with millions of other people, but you can reach out to those that are accurately in line with what your blogging efforts exist for in the first place. With Twitter, if you have the right people following you and you’re churning out relevant and useful information, a single tweet about your blog can reverberate to the screens of countless others, resulting in an atomic explosion of traffic.

However, with every good thing, comes the inevitable…not so good thing. As much as I love Twitter, there have been times where I’ve sworn it off for good, about five times now and even though I keep going back, I know that the bad side is simply going to be the nature of the beast and it just needs to be accepted.

That said, if you’re thinking of (or already using) Twitter, give this tips a thought and remember that most people on Twitter are still human.

Massive Follower Counts Do NOT Matter
First and foremost…remember the saying “Quality over Quality” in that, regardless of whether you have 100 or 1,000,000, the quality of the connection is what matters. Let’s say that you post your coffee blog out to your Twitter account and that account has 25,000 followers. If you look closely to those followers, you may notice that only about 5% (if you’re lucky) of those followers actually like coffee enough follow tweets about it, or maybe only 5% have ever had a cup of coffee in their lifetime. Find and follow people that matter, and accept the same.

Motivational Quotes…and Nothing More
Although it’s nice to get the occasional motivational boost here and there, if people wanted to receive such quotes, we can find them on our own. Motivational support is good, I’m not saying that such tweets don’t have their place, but make them original and make up your own, linked to your target market. When I receive a new follower, I always check out their bio first, then their twitter stream and finally, their site if they have one. If I see a ton of quotes in the stream, the block button is well employed.

Automatic Direct Messaging
There are some services out there that allow you to tie your Twitter account to them that will fire off an automated Direct Message (DM) to your new followers. This is as bad as sending out spam in the eyes of many and it takes away the personal touch one could add after the connection has been made. Sure, when you’re attempting to collaborate with someone, it’s a nice feature to have if you prefer using Twitter as such a platform, but if you consider this as such, the the DM feature is much like an inbox…which can be targeted…by spammers. Don’t be that Twitter-er.

Repetitive Tweeting and Re-Tweeting Your Own Tweets
I’m not saying to stop supporting what you are putting out there on your stream, but there was a blogger or two that absolutely flooded their Twitter streams with their own blog posts and they retweeted them about fifty times per day. Sure, on the blog, it looked like the posts were gaining a TON of activity, but when you tracked down who was retweeting them, it was the original poster. Needless to say, there were a lot of folks talking about it and were not all that happy with their timelines being overridden with the same tweets over and over again. When I tweet out a new blog post to my stream, I let the first automated tweet go out, then do one retweet maybe six to eight hours later in the same day in case followers didn’t see the first one. Don’t over do it, again…it’s a bit spam-like and bad form.

“Jack (or Jill) of All Trades” Twitter Biographies
Let me get this straight…you are a:

Social Media Guru
Scuba Diver
Pastor
Underwater Basket Weaver
Coffee Connoisseur
Astronaut in Training
and finally, an Internet Marketer?

Wow, how do you find the time to tweet while you’re drinking coffee from orbit or weaving baskets wearing full blown scuba gear?

Treat Twitter Like You Treat Your Reputation
Essentially, people on Twitter will see your stream before they ever visit your blog or website. There’s nothing wrong with promoting something that you believe in or posting your blog links out there to generate traffic and conversation, but remember that your stream is still tied to you in one way or another, so if you value your…well, value, then keep it on the up and up.