Twitter once used to be the place where people used to share what they fancied. Now, with more than 100 million daily active users, things have changed. You can no longer tweet every shit that comes out of your mind. With a frequency of more than 5000 tweets per second, the audience is flooded with information and they have to be picky. Things like Interests, Quality and Relevance will matter to them. Therefore, one has to understand what you should and shouldn’t tweet (especially if you are a twitter newbie).

Do:

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1. Engage

The first and the most important part of being social is to Engage. You have to start interacting with your followers. Ask them questions, answer their queries and maybe have a nice engaging chat with a few. You got to interact in order to succeed and become a more influential twitter person.

2. Share Love

Tweeting and Retweeting go hand in hand. If you like something and feel that it adds value to your stream, don’t hesitate to share it. If you like photography, share some useful pictures, tweets or blogs with your followers. Share something useful and people will reciprocate in the form of reactions or retweets.

3. Hashtag It

Add a few hashtags to tell people what topics is the tweet all about. If it is about social media, add a #sm (or #SocialMedia, whatever you like) hashtag. It also helps your tweets to become part of search results and even some trending topics.

4. Wear Your Opinion

Don’t try to impress your circle with ideas that you don’t really believe in. Tweet what you really feel about. Be opinionated and discuss and even debate with people. Debating is not wrong, but having a fixed set of ideas and not being open to others can be detrimental.

5. Value Addition

There are millions of people tweeting at the same time. What are you offering via your tweets that others are not? This is the question one should ask oneself. Think about what you want to tweet, pick a few topic areas which you like & follow regularly. Start finding good info around these topics and start tweeting!

6. Gain Relationships

Building relationships may be difficult, but it definitely pays off in the long run. Gaining connections helps building influence and hence, it helps in developing a strong presence in twitterville.

Don’t:

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1. Say No to AutoDM

One of the most irritating part of following a person is when u get an auto DM (Direct Message) from him/her. People think that they can create a personalized and genuine Auto DM which followers will like. But, on the contrary, one can easily identify an Auto DM and it is very annoying to see one.

2. Don’t Spam

Twitter is a great medium for marketing. But that doesn’t allow you start spamming random twitter users with promotional links. You need to strike a balance between self promotion and real engagement. It cannot just be about me  me. It has to be about others as well.

3. #Hashtag Overloading

As I mentioned before, hashtags add value to tweets. It is a way of categorizing your tweets. But, unrelated and excessively long hashtags in tweets can be annoying. For eg. #IfILoveHashtags #IMightLoveToHaveEverythingUnderIt #ThatIsSoAnnoying.

4. Control Your Emotions

You have an opinion? great! Start discussing. Don’t lose your temper or start lashing out on people who do not agree or might be irritating you. Avoid such conversations because it can be really bad for your image. If somebody is being a prick, block them.

What Social Ninjas Had to say about this:

1. John Paul Aguiar (@johnaguiar)

Do: Share helpful, mostly targeted information and be available to engage. Success comes more from the engagement than the shares.

Don’t: Never over share, learn the right amount of tweets to send each day that keep you active and in front of your followers and not annoying.

2. Ray Beckerman (@RayBeckerman)

Do: Look for people who are interactive and unselfish, whose style you like, and who tweet about things that are up your alley.

Don’t: Don’t fill your twitter stream with stuff that’s personal between you and another person and which your other followers won’t appreciate.

3. Andy Sowards (@AndySowards)

Do: Be relevant & helpful. Do lend a helping hand to everyone.

Don’t: Don’t be a dick. Don’t Spam. Don’t expect anything from anyone.

4. Jessica Northey (@JessicaNorthey)

Do: Be yourself. PERIOD. Be authentic and have clear goals that make sense, to you. Use the same PR rules for your Social Media practices as you would anything you say or do in public. Pause when agitated or doubtful.

Since there are SO MANY different kinds of people in the world, my best advice has always been to tell artists/musicians I work with to treat social media like they are on stage. If they wouldn’t say into a mic at concert in front of fans or family, maybe they shouldn’t say it online either.

Don’t: Don’t try to be anyone else, or let anyone tell you how to be you, even me.

5. Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld)

Do: Act on Twitter as you do offline. Be human, considerate, and sensitive to others.

Don’t: If you’re doing something to get more followers, like overusing hashtags, or asking for RTs, then you’re doing it wrong. Think longer term and provide value

6. Lori Moreno (@LoriMoreno)

Do: Be Helpful, Share Valuable Content, Meet Friends all over the World.

7. Michael Q Todd (@mqtodd)

Do: Tweet regularly, follow back stick to at most 3 main topics in your Twitter account. Retweet over half the time. Converse regularly.

Don’t: Tweet too much (about every 2-20 mins is good. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Don’t just converse or just post links.

8. Lucie Hys (@OnlineFantastic)

Do: follow people regularly who may be interested in what you got to say. Participate in tweetchats. Think before you tweet.

Don’t: Tweet anything you’d not want your family/employer to know about you.

9. Tommy Geraci (@teeco71)

Do: Fill in your profile info & have a pic of yourself.

Don’t: Don’t be anything but authentic, it shows more you think & engage, engage, engage!

10. Deborah Lee (@debsylee)

Do: put the needs of others before your own.

Don’t: Don’t forget that without the support of others you won’t prosper.

11. Britt Michaelin (@BrittMichaelian)

Do: express gratitude regularly for RTs, mentions etc. Do have a goal or better yet a social media editorial calendar for Twitter activity.

Don’t: Don’t get into battles with Twitter trolls. Don’t be afraid to block people who are rude.

12. Esta H. Singer (@sheconsulting)

Do: Do smile when you engage peeps; it shines through text, gives incite to who you are.

Don’t: Have a bad day and lash out in-stream; you’ll regret later.

13. Amy Neumann (@CharityIdeas)

Do: Be positive and uplifting, always.
Don’t: Don’t complain unless you offer a solution. Raise other up. 🙂

14. Gina Stark (@SuuperG)

Do: enjoy the experience. Make it your own. One of my favorite Twitter activities is joining chats.

Don’t: Don’t let anyone dictate strict rules of engagement for you on Twitter.

15. Lotay (@Lotay)

Do: be kind; do give credit; do highlight great causes
Don’t: do not use profanity;

16. Glen Gilmore (@GlenGilmore)

Do: be social, say “hello”, help, have fun, LISTEN, learn, explore, look to make “virtual” connections real-life connections!

Don’t: spam, send me automated anything, forget to be social, use new media like old, worry too much about gaining or losing followers.

17. A.R.Karthick (arkarthick)

Do: Engage with tweeps in a positive manner ~ share quality posts ~ be resourceful

Don’t: say NO to auto DM ; limit selling/pitching ; never over-share; less automation/more fun