Do’s and Don’ts for Good Tweeting

I am by no means a Twitter expert (is anyone?) but rather an enthusiast. And though my Twitter life span has been brief, I can’t help but take notice of the thrills and chills of tweet etiquette, or should I say tweetiquette? Here’s my round up of do’s and don’ts for good tweeting. Not by way of my own followers of course! No, not you…

DO

Have a nice Avatar
Nobody follows a brown square

Shorten URLs
Use a URL shortener like TinyURL, Bitly, or others to make the most of your 140 characters

RT (Retweet) or via
Add RT before a twitter name (RT @nytimes) to pass on a good tweet to your own followers, usually verbatim. If you want to change up the copy to suit your audience, add via before the original tweeter (via @nytimes)

Use Hashtags
Hashtag = #. For instance adding #bvt to my tweets drops the same tweet into Burlington, VT followers on Tweetdeck, Seesmic, or any other social media browser. Hashtags are also a way to form groups, collect information for a brief period of time, or share an experience.

DM (Direct Message)
Add this before a twitter name (DM @deepdishcreates) for a tweet to remain private between the two of you

Engage your followers
Include links (see ShortenURLS) and useful, interesting info

Have a kick-butt background image!

DON’T

Use ALL CAPS
Just like email, ALL CAPS is viewed as ‘shouting’, is hard to read, and leads followers to believe your caps lock is stuck

Use Twitter to “chat” with one Tweep
Move it to IM or email, or at least DM (see DO’s)

Overtweet
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing…twenty (ten, fifty) tweets a day can cause followers to unfollow. The point is to add as much value as you can to each tweet

Tell Jokes
Especially inside ones, many of your followers won’t get it and become confused

Spam your followers
Enough said

Other good resources for getting the most out of Twitter
Twitter Tips on their Facebook page
SlideShare’s Good Tweet Vs Bad Tweet: A Guide To Being Not Boring On Twitter
Check out this visual guide to Twitter >>
Podcast: Twitter for Beginners >>
Read more about how it all works >>
How to ReTweet