Twitter is second to Facebook in the U.S.’s social media world and is projected to have about 200 million users worldwide. What this means is that what you put on Twitter can change people’s perception of you, both personally and professionally. Thus, it is imperative that you know proper Twitter etiquette. The following are rude, annoying, and self-damaging habits you need to break:
Retweeting Retweets of Your Own Tweets
There are very rare occasions when you should do this, i.e. if it is relevant to a conversation you are having; to do so repetitively, however, will annoy your followers.
Tweeting Irrelevant Personal Information
Be very careful what personal information you tweet. Negatively discussing personal, romantic, and business relationships is tacky, annoying, and makes you look bad. Also, people don’t need to know every mundane detail of your life; tweet only details that will engage and interest others.
Additionally, asking people to repeatedly help you through tweets, like find a job, raise money for something, check out your latest blog post 50 times a day, etc., is also something that will irritate your followers. Keep your requests for such things to a minimum.
Engaging in Spam and Auto-Actions
Spam is a nuisance to anyone who comes in its path. There’s nothing worse than some auto-bot posting irrelevant information around Twitter. However, that isn’t all that spam is. The following are really annoying ways people engage in spam on Twitter that you should avoid:
Third Party Auto-Actions
Everyone knows that tweets are time-sensitive in the sense that if someone doesn’t see your tweet within a certain period of time, they probably won’t see it. However, this is not an excuse to set up 3rd party sites, i.e. autotweeting.com and tweetadder.com, to auto-tweet, respond, or follow for you when you cannot be on Twitter. People typically use these 3rd party auto-services if they’re trying to market themselves. The downside is that said services typically use one or more templates for all of their members; this means that people will see right through the automation and be put-off by your lack of involvement and personalization.
The “Tweet This” Button
Constantly tweeting others’ websites, blogs, news articles, and so on with the auto “Tweet This” button is something else that can annoy your followers. Unless it is something relevant and that would truly be interesting to your followers, don’t do it just to stay “relevant” on Twitter. And never post a link to something without explanation. It will make your tweets seem impersonal and make you seem lazy.
Obvious Spam
Spam is defined as, “disruptive messages, especially commercial…” Though perhaps not the traditional form, tweeting repetitively, i.e. tweeting “Check out my new blog post! Check out my new blog post!” as many times as will fit in 140 characters, as well as utilizing irrelevant hash tags to gain exposure, are without-a-doubt forms of spam.
Using Profanity
People believe that using profanity is a way to get their point across. In actuality, however, it detracts from your message, may offend others, and reflects poorly on you. Whether or not you believe using profanity will offend others, you should stay on the safe side and avoid it altogether.
Disregarding Others’ Communications to You
Twitter is all about social interaction. In face-to-face discussions, multiple people interact and it would be rude for one person to ignore another if a question or comment was directed at him/her. The same goes for Twitter; ignoring someone when they’ve mentioned you or messaged you is rude, aggravating, and will reflect poorly on you.
Twitter and Social Interactions
Again, the purpose of Twitter is social interaction. As a Twitter user, you need to understand that you must interact with others and participate in others’ conversations. If you don’t, it’s like having a one-way conversation and it will ultimately be detrimental to you.
Not sure how to determine a good tweet from a bad one? There are three questions all Twitter users should ask themselves before posting a tweet:
- Would I want my mother to see this?
- Is this something relevant to both myself and my followers?
- Will this engage my followers?
Author Bio
Alexis Tate is a writer offering us a guest post about bad twitter habits that we should avoid, or shed if we’re guilty of them. Alexis writes on a variety of topics, but her passion lies in law. After realizing that lawyers represent themselves falsely to citizens in need of legal help, Alexis began writing educational articles to help citizens find a good car accident lawyer.
