We’ve talked about Twitter
tips before. Everyone
knows not to use
all caps (really, you
shouldn’t do that anywhere),
but there are worse Twitter sins.
Seven, to be exact. These are things you
should never do or, if you have, stop doing
them immediately on Twitter.

1. Location Bulletins
   I’m on Foursquare but barely use it because,
   surprise, I don’t like having everyone know
   where I am all the time. With Twitter, I used
   to have to announce my location, but now I
   can turn on the geo-location feature or use
   the Foursquare integration and have Twitter
   do the work for me. Why would I ever want
   to do this? We’ve all seen the stories about
   people whose homes have been robbed
   because, ostensibly, they announced on
   Twitter that they were going on vacation.
   Why turn yourself into a headline?
2. Quotes and Useless Advice
   What is this Twitter fascination with posting
   random quotes? Do we need someone
   telling us that Bill Keane believes “A hug is like a boomerang—you get it back right
   away”? Blech.
   I also regularly see tweets with advice
   and aphorisms from all sorts of people. People
   have the Twitter soapbox, so they figure
   they can hand out guidance. Unfortunately,
   it almost always comes off sounding condescending.
   Take this one from Confucius,
   “To know is to know that you know nothing.
   That is the meaning of true knowledge.”
3. Endless ReTweets
   Please, do everyone a favor and don’t try
   to include everyone who ever started the
   tweet or ended up in the Twitter thread in
   your retweet. It makes the tweet unreadable,
   and you have virtually no characters
   left. I know, everyone wants to give credit.
   I try and do it, too, but I also limit the RT list
   to two people, max. And sometimes, if I’m
   pressed for characters, I’ll simply credit the
   most recent Tweeter. Your followers will
   appreciate this kind of discretion.
4. Nasty Comments
   I’m no Twitter star, but I now have enough
   followers to attract random people saying
   particularly nasty or even just pointed things to me. I like, whenever possible, to
   respond to them directly. Now, as is my
   habit, I do not respond in the public stream,
   because I think those random conversations
   only tend to confuse everyone else
   who is following you. The problem I run
   into, though, is that these cowards operate
   like the Enola Gay: They fly over my Twitter
   stream, drop a bomb, and then quickly
   move on. If they’re not following me, I can’t
   direct-message them and engage. To put it
   simply: Don’t say something nasty if you’re
   too afraid to follow.
5. Out-of-Context Blather
   The other day, someone starting tweeting
   responses to a couple of my tweets, but
   insisted on calling me Matt. The comments
   were actually interesting, but since I’m not
   Matt, I couldn’t figure out if I should respond
   or not. Other times, I get tweets sent to
   me that have no relationship to anything I
   cover or am remotely interested in. There’s
   no rhyme or reason to the tweet and usually
   the Tweeter doesn’t respond when I ask
   what they meant. Stay on message, people.
6. Direct-Message Spamming
   I don’t know if these are Twitter robots or
   multi-level-marketers (MLMs) trying to
   hook another unsuspecting victim, but
   there’s nothing more annoying than some one using the private—and somewhat
   privileged—Direct Message channel to try
   and get me to help them sell some random
   piece of marketing or product garbage.
   Please, I’m busy, my followers are busy, and
   none of us has time for this.
7. Ignoring People
   There are celebrities with over a million followers,
   and I think they can be forgiven for
   “ignoring people.” I follow a bunch myself,
   and if you’re watching their Twitter mention
   streams, you’ll notice how often they’re
   hammered by people simply begging them
   to notice, mention or follow them. I’m not
   talking about these people. For most everyone
   else with a few hundred or even a few
   thousand followers, though, when people
   ask you a question, you should do your best
   to respond. This is good practice not just for
   healthy Twitter relations, but it’s an almost
   guaranteed way to get even more followers.
   Those you respond to will usually recommend
   you elsewhere.

Never do these seven things on Twitter—
except when you have to. Truth is, there are
exceptions to almost every rule here, but as
the saying goes, “Better safe than sorry.”
And, no, I won’t be posting that on Twitter.

Post via PC MAGAZINE – November 2010