The Write Blog

If you read my previous post, you know what’s in store for you now. As promised, I’ve put together a general list of guidelines for Twittering. These dos and don’ts are by no means comprehensive and, depending on who you talk to, all of these rules were made to be broken by braver Twitterers.
Photo by Ann DouglasFor a fun read about rogue Twittering, read Scobleizer.com’s post, The 10 Rules of Twitter (and how I break every one).

Do:

• Ask questions of your followers.
• Update often – Twitter followers have short attention spans.
• Use proper grammar.
• Post interesting articles, links, photos, videos, articles – anything your followers might be interested in.
• Try to follow a “theme” if you like. Maybe your Twitter account focuses exclusively on daily deals at your store, or the hottest hairstyles of the season. If your Twitter profile is business-oriented, don’t post personal items like “I’m walking the dog with my hubby!”

Don’t:

• Overload your followers – limit yourself to 5 posts per day.
• Break up your posts. You get 140 characters. Any longer than that, and you probably should reconsider whether you should put your information on Twitter.
• Steal stuff from other readers. There’s a proper form for “re-tweeting,” and you always need to include the name of the original poster. For instance, if I’m re-tweeting a link, I would say something like “RT @username – love this link! www.link.com.” Always use the letters “RT” and then the correct user’s name, complete with the @ symbol.
• Put up personal information, or information about private events on your Twitter profile. Remember, Twitter is public, and anyone can re-tweet you.
• Spam! Spamming is a major no-no, you’ll find that your followers quickly drop by the wayside.

Here’s a bonus for you: If you’re just getting started on Twitter, be sure to register your username on WeFollow, a directory of Twitter users. WeFollow makes it easy for other people to search for Twitter accounts that interest them – you just might find that you’ll pick up a few followers through WeFollow.

And as always, we welcome any questions (and alternative views) – so let us know what you think about all this Twitter stuff.