This is just my opinion, but…
- There are no good rules/tips for Twitter, so pretend you never read this.
- Be appreciative!
- Don’t be a dirtbag or people will unfollow you and block you.
- Not everything you try will work. Sometimes it’s because it’s not good and other times it’s because it’s not the right time. But assume most things will fail, being prepared for success.
- Be positive. Leave being negative to the people that think they’re smarter than everyone else.
- If you ask me to follow you on twitter, I won’t.
- Don’t follow and then unfollow people to get new followers (see #1).
- Don’t buy Followers. Best case, they will unfollow you and your investment will have been in vain. Worst case, see #1.
- Keep in mind that the lists you create in Twitter show up in the URLs of other people’s web logs if you click on those links from the Twitter web page.
- Don’t just post links; add something to the discussion.
- Don’t ask for retweets. Either what you’re posting is worthy of a retweet or it isn’t.
- Don’t tweet once an hour or people will unfollow you.
- Don’t retweet everything you read. Save retweets for special content.
- If someone complains about your organization address it immediately (like you would a ringing phone from a customer) but don’t get into a public argument with them about why they’re not entitled to be displeased with you. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, whether we agree with those opinions or not. Your followers may not have agreed before, they probably will once a negative engagement is put in their faces. Use automation to update you if you don’t look at Twitter all the time, as you don’t want to miss something.
- Don’t automate too much. Remember that given how common automation tools are, people can actually try and get your account to publish something simply by seeing what you’re automating. Remember that airline last year with the picture that maybe shouldn’t have been tweeted…
- If you quote someone, attribute the quote in the tweet, even if you link to the quoted source.
- Don’t badmouth your competition. This isn’t a good idea in person either, of course.
- Be simple to work with. Don’t try to have people do a series of tasks or they won’t. A simple call to action is really the only call to action in 140 characters.
- Be authentic.
- Make fresh, good content.
- Hashtags are fine; too many hashtags notsomuch.
- Talk about things your organization does; not things you don’t do.
- Be creative. Show a little personality. But not flair like in Office Space. If you have to try hard, rethink.
- Never daisy-chain two tweets together. 140 characters is more than enough. Always.
- It’s okay to take a conversation to direct messages when needed.
- Don’t stop listening.
- Try to start conversations, not just send people messages.
- Reach and influence are very different things.
- Post when your customers will read things, not necessarily when you feel like writing them.
- You won’t know what works until you try some stuff.
- Don’t Favorite your own posts.
- Don’t send automatic posts based on things people tweet.
- Twitter isn’t the right platform for everything. Some things are better left to YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, no said ever…
- Analytics are awesome. Provided of course you still feel like a good person at the end of the week…
- It seems to me like people like images.
- Use good grammar!
Bonus: I fully support retweeting or favoriting every nice thing anyone says about you, but if there are a lot then after a few days that might get old and people may unfollow you. You can stagger out your retweets, so consider doing that if you have a lot.