As we learned in Part 1, Why Use Twitter, Twitter is a real-time information system network. You can connect with all sorts of people: experts, authors, massage peeps just like you, etc. You name it, you can find it on Twitter.
In a fantastic twist of great user friendly service, the good people of Twitter have created a great beginner resource for twitter here. I suggest you stroll through the menu and start with Twitter 101: How should I get started using Twitter? And once you’ve got the hang of it, there’s a great Twitter for Business guide, too.
If you’re not familiar with Twitter, you’ve got some homework to do before the rest of this makes sense. If you are familiar with Twitter, this post is for you!
Please Do
Know why you’re there. Are you looking to connect with clients, friends, leaders in your industry? Do you just want to follow comedians and retweet jokes? These are all perfectly legit uses, but those choices should govern your behavior, who you follow (because many will follow you back) and what you share.
Use a Twitter handle that’s easy to recognize, and is consistent with your presence on other platforms. (Unless you’re using twitter just to retweet off-color jokes and talk about your ceramic clown collection. Then hide under a wacky pseudonym and don’t follow any clients or colleagues. Please.)
Have a good avatar, a clear headshot or your business logo.
Share information that is useful and interesting to your followers.
When you share information, be sure to give credit to the originator of the information. It’s just nice, and you’ll likely make a new friend!
Have a sense of humor, enjoy the conversation, and be outgoing.
Keep it to 140 characters or less. If you have to put out multiple tweets to get a point across, you’re in the wrong platform, you want Facebook or Google +. Twitter is about microblogging: communicating your message in 140 characters. This can be tricky at first, but it gets easier with time and practice, trust me. I am certain that I’m a better writer because of Twitter. It’s forced me to create crisp, concise thoughts that can be easily understood. (Think we can’t communicate ideas, feelings, in 140 characters or less? Go here sometime.)
Be yourself. An appropriate, professional, fun version of yourself.
Interact. Converse. Engage. Play.
Thank people for retweeting you and following you.
If you’re managing multiple Twitter accounts and/or Facebook accounts use a tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. It allows you to share content to specific platforms with the best formatting for that platform.
Please Don’t
Auto DM new followers with a sales pitch. It’s insulting, sales-y and gross. Example, I started following a major massage company, and they Auto DM’d me about their new product that I should want to buy. Ick.
Likewise, don’t Auto DM new followers with a request to follow you on Facebook. I’m here on Twitter because I want to be on Twitter. Meet me where I’m at, I’m not traveling to you.
Tweet while drinking or otherwise not in your clear, deliberate mind. Trust me.
Be an automaton. This is still human interaction, just through the web. People want to interact with people. Not robots.
(okay, go get a beverage, because I saved the most intense points for last.)
Please Don’t link your accounts so that your Facebook posts appear as tweets.
More often than not, the post is well over 140 characters and translates into a tweet that is truncated. I created an example (instead of publicly calling someone out on this. See, I’m not a total jerk).
On it’s surface this isn’t an awful tweet, and really, it’s one of the more attractive examples of linking. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is in Twitter Land. The links to Facebook don’t work well on mobile. Clicking on that link will open a browser, not the mobile app, and I’ll be forced to log in to Facebook. It’s a pain in the rear. Experienced Twitter users quickly learn to ignore links with ‘fb’ in the address. We simply don’t click on them, and we start ignoring the person constantly tweeting them.
But if this were a good tweet, it would be short and concise, it would tag the NCBTMB’s Twitter account and use a hashtag in front of massage so it would appear in searches, etc. Check this out:

It’s the same message, but with clickable links to the person (or brand) we’re talking about and a link to the topic, too.
Sometimes, Facebook posts just don’t translate well. If there’s a picture posted, we don’t see it on Twitter the same way you do on Facebook, so often the headline that we do see doesn’t make sense. You’ve lost me. I’ll never hear what you’re saying.
Also, you are losing the opportunity to incorporate Twitter’s most useful (and fun!) features into your tweets. Twitter uses @tags and hashtags (#) to identify people and topics. You don’t get those clickable in-tweet links when you’re just funneling updates from Facebook
Please Don’t link your accounts so that your tweets appear as Facebook posts.
This method is not as awful, but I still don’t love it.
The nice part is that, because the post originates in Twitter, it will be 140 characters or less. What’s yucky is, the tweet may be full of @ and #, and that’s garbage* to people on Facebook. It doesn’t make sense in that forum, and people ignore it. But if you leave out the @ and #, you’re not using Twitter fully. Bummer.
Also, you are losing the opportunity to incorporate Facebook’s most useful (and fun!) features into your posts. (If this sounds familiar, thanks for paying attention) Facebook has expanded the update fields to allow for over 63,000 characters. You can be more descriptive, you can tag pages and profiles, you can attach pictures that are seen on the wall at the same time as it’s headline.
An aside:
I understand it may be ‘easier’ to just link accounts and leave it be. But networking and community, and building relationships, is not always about what’s easier for you. It would also be easy to skip the proofreading of your brochure. It would be easier to not give a client a knee bolster, or a warm pillow under the neck. You’re better than that. Also there are tools to make it easy to properly manage multiple accounts and platforms. Check out Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.
So there it is.
Are some people pulling off techniques I have in the “Don’t” list? Sure.
Are we all using Twitter in our own way? Yes.
Regarding Comments to this post, here is my Wish List:
I would love to know how you use Twitter to connect with colleagues, clients, Richard Branson, Samantha Bee, marketers, whoever YOUR community is.
Or I would love to know why you aren’t using Twitter, what’s stopping you?
*phrasing courtesy of Teresa Deak,
**For more reading on the evils of linking posts across platforms see here and here
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