Rules of Twitter Etiquette

 

Twitter is very different to Facebook, and there are certain mannerisms and decorum you should abide by when posting and interacting.

Despite the simplicity of Twitter, it does have basic etiquette that people new to the social site need to understand so they don’t annoy or offend other users.

Follow these basic rules and you will get more followers and better engagement on Twitter:

1) Be Wary

How you present yourself on social media will reflect on you and your business so if you post anything misleading, offensive or inflammatory it could have a negative impact on your businesses reputation. Your posts will be pubic and can be seen by everyone so be cautious of what you post.

2) Self-Promotion

Twitter is a SOCIAL network, not an advertising space. Of course, you can get away with a certain amount of self-promotion but if your feed is nothing but links to properties or general self-promotion you will lose followers in a heartbeat.

3) Oversharing

Don’t be one of those businesses that constantly posts pointless and dull tweets, ensure you stay clear of tweets that don’t inform, educate or entertain your audience.

4) Hashtags

Hashtags can be very beneficial to your tweets. They can add humour and information to tweets as well as to help the tweet be found. However, don’t go overboard. A tweet with a string of hashtags will deter your audience as it makes you look very spammy. Stick to two or three hashtags max!

5) Following

Despite what you may have heard, you are under no obligation to follow everyone that follows you. Doing this tends to make you look like a robot. Choose who you follow wisely, stick to following those who share your interests.

6) Engage

After all it is a social network. Twitter allows you to interact with pretty much anyone on the platform so take advantage of this. As long as it’s relevant, don’t be shy about tweeting to people you don’t know personally.

Also ensure you interact with users who reach out to you, reply as soon as possible, answer their questions and be as helpful as possible.

7) Retweeting

Retweeting is a way of sharing someone else tweet, which is something you should do regularly if you see something that is relevant to your audience.

And don’t be shy to add your own insights when retweeting.

8) Use Characters Wisely

You now have 280 characters to play around with but that doesn’t mean you should use all 280. If you are hoping for your tweets to be retweeted, leave space for users to be able to add a comment when they share your posts.

9) Automation

Sometimes it’s ok to schedule tweets but you shouldn’t rely on auto-generated or scheduled tweets too much as it tends to come across too robotic. For example, sending automatic direct messages to followers thanking them for following you is very outdated and spammy thing to do.

10) Be Yourself

Finally, don’t try to be something you are not. Be genuine, show off your personality, don’t be robotic and ensure you only post tweets that will enrich your audiences twitter feed.

 

Ensure you follow these 10 rules and keep it simple. By doing this you will get so much more from Twitter.