Help me write a blog post about Twitter Etiquette.
I’m still doing research on Twitter use and I’d love to get some feedback from Twitter users. Today’s topic is Twitter Etiquette: The Dos and Don’ts of Using Twitter.
You probably know what I’m talking about. There are the basic ones, like don’t spam, don’t exceed the 140-character maximum per tweet by blasting out four tweets in a row as a long sentence, don’t be rude.
But what’s important to you? What’s your “pet peeve” on Twitter? What do you wish your fellow Twitter users would stop doing — or do more often?
Take a moment to comment on this post. I’ll be assembling the responses in a future post — and possibly using them in a related project I’m working on. Be sure to include your @name on Twitter so I can give credit where credit is due. And retweet this (please) to help me get the most responses.
Thanks!
And if you haven’t voted on the Twitter Follow Poll, please do. You can find it here.
My biggest pet peeve is people who actually answer the question “What are you doing?” I know that is what twitter is asking but its boring. Share something interesting. Give me a good like. Make an insightful comment. Don’t tell me you got a chalupa at Taco Bell
Sid W´s last blog post: ZICAM – Homeopathic Quackery???
Please do retweet other people’s posts if you think they are interesting. It’s a way I can learn about sites I may know about – and other interesting people on twitter.
Reply to other people’s tweets and join into a conversation. Don’t just talk about yourself, your blog, your website, etc
When I follow you – please don’t send an automated reply with a link to something you are selling.
On Twitter @PattyHankins
Patty Hankins´s last blog post: Orchids Through Darwin’s Eyes
I have three pet peeves:
Auto Direct Messages –Twitter is about connecting with people–not bots.
No credit on a RT (retweet) or retweeting without acknowledging that someone else said it at all.
Having a long two person personal conversation. That’s what a phone is for.
Susan Cohan´s last blog post: Thoughts of Spring…on Ground Hog Day
@mikehill33
Re-tweets. In addition to the archive Twitter keeps of all a users Tweets, people find it necessary to “re-tweet” the same useless crap, over and over. A great example of this is a certain head of a publishing company who spends the majority of their day “re-tweeing”. Rubbish.
Retweets can be good or bad. I agree that it’s pretty frustrating when people retweet “the same useless crap” — and so many of them do. But once in a while, some good content will get retweeted. That makes weeding through the rest of it pretty worthwhile.
When I follow someone who has consistently crappy retweets, I usually stop following them. Don’t like getting my time wasted (any more than it already is).
I agree that ANY kind of automated response or initial contract completely sucks. I really wish the Twitter folks could get a handle on that and stop it. I think we can make a lot of the automated DMs go away by blocking the sender and reporting them to @spam via a DM.
Reading long personal conversations via tweet can also become tiresome quickly. I think we should all consider a “three-tweet rule” or something like it. If you tweet 3 responses in a conversation with a Twitter friend, take it to DM for the next response.
These are great points. I hope more folks speak up with their opinions on Twitter etiquette.
An Eclectic Mind » Twitter Etiquette: What Do YOU Think? http://is.gd/j47W
I’m using it to work and network with like-minded professionals who are interested in finding and developing new and exciting ways to utilise eLearning, Web 2.0.
I have an etiquette question. I hope it’s ok to ask here. I work for a non-profit arts organization that twitters. I started using splitweet which shows me all tweets that include our org. name. If people say, “We went to __ last night and really enjoyed the performance.”, is it ok for me to reply with our own tweet that thanks them, even if we have never followed each other?
So far when we have done this, we’ve had a good response, and often they begin following us. But I worry that some might find it weird to get a thanks that shows up on our twitter page and links to theirs. Should I just do it as a private message? Or is it ok to thank people publicly?
Viv: My personal opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with sending an @reply with thanks in the situation you mention. I’ve actually gotten something like that from Southwest’s Twitter account after tweeting about the free WiFi that was available at a Southwest Airlines waiting area in Newark.
It’s when you send multiple @replies to a person and they contain a lot of marketing material that things get iffy. Ditto for direct messages to new followers. I don’t know ANYONE who wants one of those.
I don’t understand why a person who blogs about technology, would post a link to follow them on twitter, and then tweet about how many hours of sleep they got, what funny thing their boyfriend/girlfriend said, or what party they attended last night. Wouldn’t it make more sense to create a separate twitter account for these kinds of tweets?
Someone said that rss is going the way of the dinosaur, I certainly hope not because it is still a source of getting direct information on what you are interested in.
Renae: I’m sorry. Are you talking about me? I don’t just blog about technology, so I’m not sure if you’re referring to me. In any case, if you don’t like my tweets, PLEASE don’t follow me. That’s the beauty of Twitter.
I agree that RSS is useful, although I’ve always found it difficult to keep up with the few feeds I follow. Frankly, I have a lot better things to do with my time than to sit in front of a computer, wading through new content on the Internet.