Your Top 10 Worst Twitter Tips

[timandren]

You need another Twitter article like you need a hole in your head. There are millions of articles about what to do on Twitter and how to get it done. Some of them include:

How to Grow Your Follower Numbers to Over 10,000 in a Week

50 Ways to Use Twitter

100 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals

Now I'm sure there is some valid information in these articles and the many others out there, but they are sorely lacking in one area and that is what not to do or how not to act.

Twitter is social. It's community-driven. So we shouldn't look to the opinion of one person about what Twitter is or how it should work. The community rules and we should decide our rules of engagement. It's at the nature of what makes Twitter special to begin with.

In order for Twitter to run smoothly and for each of us to make it a better place, not just for ourselves, but the community at large we need to establish what people shouldn't do, just as much as what they should. With the sheer volume of articles about what to do, this post will focus on what not to do. Look at my list below as a beginning topic of discussion. I want to hear your thoughts.

Your Top 10 Worst Twitter Tips

•Collect as many followers as possible and then just market yourself.
•Only pump out content that is going to benefit you.
•Crank out link after link. Conversation? Why bother?
•Assume everyone in the world wants your free e-book so promote the hell out it.
•If you're a business, forget that you finally have a chance to connect with your customer. Sell, sell, sell.
•Don't listen. There is no value in conversation.
•Automatically Direct Message people. They'll never know the difference.
•Don't bother replying to anyone's replies.
•Only tweet your daily events, no matter how boring and uneventful they actually are. Really, your yummy sandwich experience is important.
•Bait and switch. Who cares? You'll never meet the person.

Much of this can be summed up in terms of misinterpretation. Twitter's brand icon is a sweet, little blue bird, not a vulture.

So my questions to you are:

What advice would you give to a newcomer about what not to do?
What is the worst advice someone could give?

Add your responses to the comments and I'll compile them into a post.

[Yellow Note Asset Finance]

I think twitter will die out soon..

[timandren]

Curious, what are you basing your opinion on?

[BellaMiller]

Hmmm, if we're focusing on the "no no's" I would say don't use it as a sales vehicle - get to know people - Twitter is all about relationships.

Focusing on the positives, then I would encourage newbies to follow people they think might be interesting, use Tweetdeck or Twhirl to manage the experience, and just jump in and make conversation

[getnoticed]

Don't tweet about what you had for breakfast or where you are taking your mum shopping - no one cares!

Give out tips, add to debates, retweet great tweets, but whatever you do, don't tweet the detail...

[KrissBlack]

Relevancy/interest has to be at the base of anything you tweet - twittering for the sake of it is the most pointless activity in the world...

[Kellieh]

I like this. I have been looking into internet marketing for the last week, and its taken up so much time that I've been missing out on usual business face-to-face. Its information overload!

[Mike Seddon]

Forgeting to include keywords in your Tweets!

People use the search on Twitter (I believe it gets more searches now that the mighty Google). So if you are Tweeting about something you would like people to pick up on, then make sure you have a keyword or two that is getting searched.

PS- That doesn't mean, sell, sell, sell using high traffic keywords!

[kim6001]

Hello
its very nice and intersting topic........
Thank you for sharing your information.

[timandren]

Great advice Mike. Keywords and hashtags for searchability are important so long as they don't get in the way of solid info. Sometimes people cram in three or four hashtags and it's a bit too much.