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Everyone has their own process for using Twitter, they all have a plan or purpose and thus their own “Twitter etiquette”. I recently read a post (can’t find it again for the life of me), where the blogger wrote about their process. I thought it would make sense to write about mine.
My practice for using Twitter is pretty simple and I am in no way implying that my way is the right way, just purely my opinion and sharing a piece of my own work flow.
I began using Twitter about 7 months ago at a suggestion from a colleague @mattroyten who said I could use it to keep up with the tech world. I already followed several blogs and didn’t see the need. The problem is that blogs are more one-way in nature, yes you can comment, but you can’t realistically have a conversation with someone in the comments section. I decided to give Twitter a whirl.
My initial intent was to number one, follow some known experts in my space and two offer my own tips and advice in the internet marketing world. I planned for a tip per day. After a few months, I found this to be more work than I had the time for and saw it best to focus that energy on writing my own blog content. I could then reference that via Twitter.
I soon learned there is a lot of spam on Twitter. I was reluctant to follow people back at first, but saw my own follow count becoming stagnant at around 50ish followers. Generally this was made up from connections I had on LinkedIn and other connected channels.
My strategy changed to follow back anyone that wasn’t obviously a spammer and were at least somewhat interesting to my field. Here’s a 3 step mental checklist I use. If I answer YES to these, I follow back, if NO, I do not follow:
- Have they tweeted a reasonable amount?
- Do they have a bio?
- Are they (even) loosely in my field?
If anyone that I follow proves to be either a spammer or I later learn that I have no interest in what they have to say, I choose to unfollow them. This practice provides me with a steady follower increase.
Look for a post soon on “Stuff I Tweet”.
What’s your Twitter etiquette?
About Sam Beamond