Twitter Etiquette: Retaining Followers

There are certain rules that must be followed in life and there are certain rules that must be followed in business. There are also certain rules that need to be followed when it comes to social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, among others.

Twitter etiquette

Etiquette is so important and if you don’t behave properly, people will notice and will not want to interact with you. Of course, it is critical to remember that your professional success, especially when it comes to social media, is dependent on successful relationships. Without the proper etiquette, no progress will be made whatsoever. With the sophistication of social media at this point, it is easier than ever to do the right thing and to ensure that your connections with other people are managed properly and effectively.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that it is easy to ignore the rules of etiquette when it comes to online behavior and hide behind anonymity. People think that if they don’t put their name and other contact information on something that they post, nobody can figure out who they are and nothing can touch them. Wrong! Someone is always clever enough to figure out who that person is. Also, it doesn’t pay to ignore the fact that it is not nice to behave in that way.

Taking advantage of trends that make sense

As you are considering the current (and upcoming) trends, it is important to weigh carefully which ones you feel you want to get involved with. Some of the trends will make sense to you and some will either do nothing for your business or may harm your efforts altogether.  It is very important to give it a lot of thought before you invest any time and effort into that particular trend.

When it comes to trends, you need to figure out from the outset if that trend will help you in a positive way. Your chosen trend (or trends) must highlight and accentuate your brand and your offerings. No matter what you do, you must elicit a positive reaction from the people who normally pay attention to your brand. Your professional reputation must remain spotless. That means that whatever you communicate must be valuable and educational. Most importantly, you must always convey that you have the ability to solve the other person’s problem.

Your content must be pristine

In addition to the concepts that you have in your content (and this also includes communicating in a manner that is polite, sincere, and above board), you must also ensure that the content is written extremely well (from the perspective of grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc). If you have errors in your tweets, your reader will become distracted by those errors and they will not be able to concentrate on what you are actually saying. If that happens, you won’t be able to get anywhere. You will be finished before you even start. Unfortunately, if a reader finds errors of this kind in your tweets, it speaks volumes about you as a professional. It says that you don’t pay attention to details and that you don’t care enough about what you are doing to make sure that it is correct. The importance of this can’t be stressed enough.

Interestingly, the shorter the message that you are posting (and tweets are always short because of the 140-character maximum), the easier it is to miss the errors. It may be helpful to read each of your tweets over once or twice before you actually send it anywhere. Another helpful trick may be to read the tweets backwards or to read them out loud. Either of those approaches will help you to detect errors that you may not have noticed otherwise.

Timing your tweets properly and considerately

It is considered proper form to time your tweets properly and to pay strict attention to the frequency of those tweets. Social media has plenty of ways that you can automate your posts and you should learn what those are. Automating will make your life a lot easier than having to do it manually. However, it is important to make sure that you have control over that automation. Otherwise, a disaster may ensue. If something goes awry and one of your tweets is sent out at the wrong time to the wrong person,  it may come back to bite you and your business and that is the last thing that you want or need.

You may wish to consider one of many social media channels, such as HootSuite, to help you to avoid this type of issue. That type of tool will allow you to schedule your tweets and you also have options available to manage and monitor your tweets (by using tabs). When it comes to your interactions with your Twitter followers, remember to be gracious and always acknowledge and express appreciation for the fact that the followers are making the effort to interact with you. Always remember to be polite when it comes to communicating with your followers no matter what they say. If you follow someone and they don’t follow you back, don’t take it personally. It may not be right for them. After all, you are in search of quality connections. Not volume of connections. Choose your followers wisely.

Conclusion

Twitter etiquette is critically important to the success of your interactions on Twitter. It is essential that you follow the rules of human nature and then go one step beyond and follow social media etiquette rules. Your online connections will react positively to your interactions with them and they will appreciate the relationship that you share with them. When it comes to interacting with your Twitter followers, it isn’t about how many tweets you share and how many people you share those tweets with. It is more about the quality of the tweets and how much your tweets contribute to the members of your Twitter communities.