Today I want to give you some suggestions on etiquette for Twitter. Basically anything that is rude in the real world is probably rude on Twitter. However, I have summarized several things that are more specific to Twitter and may be less obvious. Some of this list has more to do with being rude to yourself than just to others. Also, not all tips are absolutes, only guiding principles so that you’re tweeting with thought and care.
Have a real picture and a brief profile outlining who you are or what you do
Reality Check: Meeting someone at a party and not introducing yourself or smiling
It is rude to have no profile picture or description for several reasons:
- It says you don’t care enough to find a pic of something that helps your network get a sense of you and spend a minute uploading it.
- It causes everyone in your network to be super vigilant whenever they see an egg in case it might be you (if they care enough to bother – they’ll probably just miss a lot of tweets if they follow you at all).
- It may cause someone in your network to accidentally click a spam link in a moment of weakness because they thought it was from you.
- It forces people to do extra research into who you might be before choosing to accept you to follow their tweets or deciding to follow you. That’s if they are bothered doing the research at all – most will just not follow you back.
Always credit other people’s ideas
Reality Check: Telling a coworker you found a great resource or had a great idea that was actually your other coworker’s resource/idea.
When you RT someone, it’s OK to truncate their tweet a bit to make it fit the 140 character rule, but be sure you give credit where it’s due. You can either RT them directly or rewrite the info and add ‘via@tweetname’ at the end of your tweet. It’s also best to credit an online source even if you didn’t get it from Twitter, especially if that source has a twitter account (e.g. newsmedia, bloggers, etc). At the very least, include the link to the info you’re tweeting about when appropriate/possible.
Thank ppl for RTing you
Reality Check: not thanking someone for a compliment or recommendation
I think the reason is obvious but the follow through can get tricky, as it’s not always clear-cut and easy to find all the RTs of your tweets that exist. If someone is using a Twitter client instead of the web, especially mobile phone clients, they don’t always let Twitter know and Twitter can’t let you know in turn. The quickest place to find RTs is to go to the web and click ‘your tweets retweeted’ or http://twitter.com/#retweeted_of_mine. If you are using TweetDeck or a similar client, be sure in your settings that ‘don’t show duplicated tweets’ clicked or you often won’t see past the first person to RT you. Finally, I sometimes find RTs I missed by searching for “RT @SLPTanya” in the search field on Twitter Web. Your Tweets Retweeted is still the best way to see them, unfortunately. Just make every effort.
Also thank people for giving you a shout out or a Follow Friday recommendation.
Respond to ppl who tweet you
Reality Check: Ignoring someone speaking directly to you
This falls under the ‘engage in your network’ advice from my tips on building your network. If someone sends you a directed tweet (e.g. they started their tweet with your @Name) or a Direct Message, you should make every effort to respond to them in some way. You should do this even once you have a lot of followers. One of the most fantastic things about Twitter is that it makes other people more accessible, be they celebrities, companies, or regular folks. Really amazing Twitter gurus who have thousands of followers are defined by responding to as many directed messages and tweets as humanly possible. Will you miss people? Sometimes, but it’s the effort that counts. A simple 
will often suffice (if a specific answer was not required).
Promote people in your network, not just yourself
Reality Check: Only talking about yourself or your interests and telling everyone how awesome you are
It’s fine to use Twitter to promote your blog, company, and so on, but if you spend all your time promoting yourself, you can get very boring and come off as a ‘bot’. If you spend time promoting others in your network with RTs, shout outs, Follow Friday (#FF) recommendations and so on, you more actively engage in your PLN and come off as an interested and interesting person to connect with.
Don’t take it personally if someone doesn’t follow you back
Reality Check: Are you genuinely interested in everything everyone else is Tweeting?
Everyone has different ways of following people, and not everyone monitors who’s following them at any given moment (I certainly don’t). If someone doesn’t follow you back, it’s not personal. Give them reasons to notice you and follow you back by RTing them and engaging them with comments on their tweets. Similarly, don’t take it personally if someone stops following you. In fact, sometimes Twitter has accidentally caused my account to unfollow people I’ve been following happily for a long time. And sometimes people stop following someone else for a short time (e.g. if you’re at a conference or tweeting about a topic they are no longer interested in).
Along the same lines, I don’t suggest you blindly follow back anyone who follows you. You should develop your PLN tailored to your specific interests and needs. Don’t feel you have to follow everyone and don’t feel that everyone should be interested in your interests.
Don’t tweet excessively or with too many tweets in a row.
Reality Check: hogging the conversation
If you regularly post multiple tweets in a row in order to tell a story to all of your followers, consider a blog; it’s a much better format for sharing stories and complex ideas. Likewise, space out information tweets because the same peril may befall you for tweeting many different links in a short time period. People will often skip over your tweets if you do this too often, and then they may miss it when you have something really important or interesting to share or a question they may have been able to answer. I know many people get unfollowed for tweeting excessively because you clog up their twitter feed.
NOTE: I’m adding this post hoc due to some confusion – I don’t mean getting online and responding to multiple people suddenly, I mean posting to ALL your followers EXCESSIVELY in a short period of time (or all day long, as some tweeters do outside of the SLPeeps).
Don’t RT a link you haven’t checked out yourself
Reality Check: recommending a book you’ve never read or an idea you don’t know anything about
It may be broken or otherwise in error. Also, it may not represent your views and then you are, in essence, endorsing it to others. Don’t rely on the caption with the link in someone else’s tweet because it may lead you to think it’s about something it’s not.
Remember that Twitter is Public
Reality Check: acting inappropriately in public
Don’t tweet anything that can get you fired, get you arrested, upset your mother, or otherwise paint you in a negative light to future/current people in your life. Also, swearing on Twitter is a bit like yelling profanities in a public place. Along with the previous tip, I would posit that it’s rude to yourself to potentially damage your reputation because you fell prey to the ‘anonymity of the internet’. This is obvious if you are tweeting professionally but also make a careful decision about what you say even if using Twitter personally. You never know who will see your tweets (even if they are ‘protected’)!
Keep within the 140 character limit
Reality Check: talking for a long time at already long meetings
The best thing about Twitter is its 140 character limit. It does pose a problem occasionally, but if everyone began posting longer tweets, it would be impossible to keep up with the information flow. Also, it’s rude to force your followers to constantly click ‘read more’ to finish your tweets.
If someone poses a question or comment directly to you and you are responding, it’s more acceptable to go over the 140 limit because it can be assumed that that person is motivated to click ‘read more’. It may even be more polite to any followers who follow you both than to respond in 5 or 6 tweets that clog up their timeline.
Use “reply” to keep a string of convo
Reality Check: blurting out commentary to a friend without cluing them into the topic
If you comment on someone else’s tweet, always click the ‘reply’ button. Not only does it save you time by filling in their name automatically, it saves them time and energy trying to figure out what specific tweet you are commenting on. At the very least, include info about referring comment (e.g. re: Frazier protocol convo).
Describe info in links you tweet
Reality Check: lending someone a book with no cover or title page
If you post a link, always include some description of that link so people know if they want to read more, save it to favorites to read later, or just move on. If you tweet ONLY the link, it’s impossible for them to make that decision (and they’ll probably choose not to bother).
Use punctuation for clarity
Reality Check: stringing along all your words in one giant monotone sentence for listeners to parse
I think the reality check says it all. Please use some punctuation (even if we short form words to death) to ensure clarity whenever possible. You know who you are.
Don’t just take my word for it, here are some other references:
14 ways to use Twitter politely
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