5 Golden Rules For Twitter

If you're a celebrity, a business owner, looking for a job, or simply looking to expand your social circle, Twitter can be the ultimate self-promotion tool, as long as you know how to use it.

As far as I’m concerned, there are only three things you have to remember...

• Conversation
• Conversation
• Conversation

Social media (and Twitter in particular) are just massive networks of people interested in similar things, helping each other and sharing information. If you want to get anywhere in this world, you need to join that party.

How does that work in practise? Well, I’ve outlined my 5 golden rules for Social Media below...

1. Converse, Don’t Preach

Think about this. If you want people to like you, and recommend you, they have to have a reason. You have to make yourself valuable to them. So how do you do that?

By doing everything you want other people to do for you. Post interesting/informative links, retweet often (but not too often, you don’t want to be known as an “excessive retweeter”). When you get new followers, thank them personally. When someone replies to you or sends you a direct message, make sure you respond. It’s called being polite, and it works just as well online as it does in the real world.

Just tweeting your own promo and/or links is the fast way to get a bad reputation in social media. Don’t do it.

2. Don’t Argue

More specifically, don’t have arguments. Light disagreement and jesting is (usually) fine, it’s all part of life. But starting a large disagreement or a flame war (trading insults) is not big, not clever, and definitely not wise. If you have to disagree, do it politely. Get your point across, and leave it. It doesn’t look good for any of the protagonists to be slagging each other off in public.

If you’re the victim of a personal attack, ignore it as best you can. You might find that being super polite to the attacker stops them in their tracks. If it becomes too much, unfollow or block that user, and if you feel it necessary, you can report them to Twitter (or whichever network you’re on). I’d recommend this only in extreme circumstances however.

3. Be Social, Be Respectful

Being social on the web is about conversation, but you also have to make use of the things that are there. If you’re talking about a topic, and there’s a hashtag for it, use it. Participate in things like FollowFriday by recommending your favourite tweeters (twitter users). Post links to services or websites you find useful, and check out those services that are recommended to you. And whatever you do, avoid auto-follow services like you would the plague. It’s all about being real.

Respect for others is a key part of social media. You may not agree with them, but that doesn’t matter. We’re all human and entitled to our opinions. You’ll also find that race and disability are never an issue on social media. Don’t be the one to break that unwritten rule. If you do, I can guarantee everyone who ignored the “Don’t Argue” rule above will be onto you!

4. Don’t Be Afraid

One of the hardest things to come to terms with when you start using Twitter (and all forms of social media) for the first time is the idea that almost everything is good. Don’t worry about promoting your competition, or retweeting something that may, in the end, turn out to be not what you thought it was.

The chances are it won’t, and most people understand you can’t vet everything. And far as your competition is concerned, the “pay it forward” principle applies here. Be friendly and helpful to them, and they will return the favour. If they don’t, it’s their loss, and you will come out looking better in the long run, because you were the one being helpful rather than just promoting yourself.

5. Use a Twitter Application

Using Twitter is so much better when you use a 3rd part application for your tweeting, rather than just using the website. There are many applications (Twhirl, Seesmic, etc), but my personal favourite is TweetDeck. It’s available not only for Mac, Windows and Linux, but also for the iPhone, giving a seamless interface no matter which platform you’re using.

Most Twitter applications are (like Twitter itself) completely free, and they make my golden rules so much easier to follow.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it, my 5 Golden Rules for successful Twittering. They apply whether you’re a celebrity, tweeting for a company, or just for your own enjoyment.

Just one last thing... if you find yourself in a foul mood, wanting to argue with lots people and just plain grumpy... walk away. Your followers will still be there tomorrow, just so long as you don’t annoy them today!

Good luck, and enjoy being social!

Dan

This is a guest post from Dan Nash, disabled entrepreneur and social media maven. You can find out more at www.DanNash.net. You can also follow me on Twitter.

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