Tweet etiquette

Learned this from Joelcomm.com whilst having breakfast. Pretty obvious but worth blogging I think:

1. Don’t spam. Don’t follow loads more than follow you. Don’t constantly send out blatant marketing messages like “check out my blog” “sign upto my RSS feed” “come to my event” …mix these with other tweets too.(Joel promises to teach me how to write these other tweets later in the chapter – will blog when I get there)

2. Follow style rules. Use real words not SMS speak. Don’t type in UPPER CASE, that’s shouting. But can use symbols like @ = +

3. Give credit for retweets. Retweets help you go viral. But don’t ask people to retweet you.

4. Stick to 140 characters. Don’t split a tweet over many tweets in an effort to say more.

5. Follow people that follow you. But you don’t have to follow everyone. Check out their twitter home page before following and see if they are tweeting stuff you want to read.

6. Spark conversation and entertain

7 ways to get followers on Twitter

At time of writing I have been tweeting for just over two weeks. I’ve posted 39 tweets and have 38 followers. Not too bad for two weeks – but I want more followers…

Here’s seven killer strategies to get more followers. Taken from Joel Comm’s Twitter Power book (www.twitterpower.com)

1. Look for people you already know. Load you outlook address book to google mail and then link this to Twitter. And ue www.search.twitter.com for a much better search engine to find people on Twitter.

2. Tweet your blog. Load your twitter feed onto your blog and website. Go to twitter.com/badges to download standard plug ins for type pad and blogger. For WordPress go to alexking.org/projects/wordpress.

3. Pay your followers! Give them something free if they follow you. Free ebook or report for example.

4. Respond to requests. Spark conversations. Ask questions, use the reply button and reply to others questions. But only on questions where you can add value.

5. Mobilize your social network. Place your tweets on facebook and LinkedIn.

6. Put your twitter address in your email signature. Easy hey!

7. Run a contest. Ask a question, give a time restriction and offer a prize for best answer.

I’m going to test all of these (already done 1,2,5,6) over the next few weeks. I’ll post the results, please post yours.