Can You Tweet?

This post is from Dan Goodswen, who tweets from @dangoodswen

Do:

Be interesting, funny and unique
Use a consistent voice
Be personal – brands should have as much personality as individuals
Follow people with similar interests
Follow people who follow your competitors
Follow back – you’re not a celebrity
Create lists to manage Tweeps you follow
Engage in conversations with followers
Ask your followers their opinions on current news and issues
Greet new followers
Mix in tweets about your brand/business with tweets about your day, fun facts etc.
Retweet interesting tweets by your followers
Respond to @ replies
Make it clear where your links redirect to – people need to trust your links!
Thank people who retweet you, or better yet, RT something original of theirs (search their timeline)
Play games
Check your facts – #futureday was a happy accident, but I should have checked before I tweeted!
Use hashtags to help users find your content
Join in with trending topics
Click on other Tweeps’ content, watch their videos, read their articles, and send them positive comments
Share the music you’re listening to, the film/show you’re watching
Retweet Follow Fridays that mention you
Do a Follow Friday for users you’ve engaged with

Do Not;

Spam – limit your tweets per hour/per day
Feed the trolls
Aggressively follow and unfollow in bulk (I have been guilty of this)
Populate your twitter feed with RSS
Send out angry/tantrum tweets
Tweet same piece of content more than once a day/a couple of times a week – enough is enough
Take insults personally – if in doubt, kill them with kindness
Swear/curse when unecessary – you might not care but Twitter has users of all ages/predispositions
Unless a politician, a minister or a porn star (or Charlie Sheen) leave politics, sex and religion off the table
Hate, spread prejudice, or air dirty laundry
Troll others – ‘Tweet as you would like to be tweeted’
Beg for retweets
Beg a celebrity/twitter personality to follow you back
Claim other people’s Tweets as your own – retweet, don’t republish
Make light of international incidents, especially where lives have been lost (Are you listening, Gilbert?)
Accidentally post something embarassing to the wrong account

I am @osakasaul in English / @SaulSay in Japanese
In Quora, I am Saul Fleischman

About Saul Fleischman

Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.

su.pr size it! http://su.pr/6AN178

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alan jones

Great list. Think I need to try and recruit Dan to our social media team for next year’s TEDxSydney 2012. It reminds me a lot of my own social media guidelines.

Saul Fleischman

Thanks for seeing what I have been doing here, Alan @bigyahu:twitter Jones. I have your guet blog scheduled for 7/29, by the way. Meanwhile, take a look at http://osakabentures.com/2011/06/blog-amplification/ – what I was telling you about, in Quora.

alan jones

Thanks Saul, will check that out.

Chrysta Bairre

As a newer Twitter user, I want to say thank you for these tips! Some of them are common sense, of course, and others Twitter etiquette rules I’m still learning (aren’t we all?). So far I haven’t done any of your don’ts, and I haven’t done all of your do’s. I see a few to add to my list!