If you are like me, you use twitter now in your everyday life.  Just a little over a year ago I did not even know what Twitter was.  Well being a member of the twitter community gives you and unspoken responsibility.   Twitter is micro blogging at it’s best, but to keep it that way we really need to follow some simple Twitter Etiquette.

Etiquette: Following

It does not matter if you use twitter for yourself personally or if you use it for your business, there are some things that you must do.  You must connect with your followers.  It is not just a game to see who can get the most followers.  If you do not connect with any of those that follow you, you have lost the entire point of social media.

It is commonly believed that to successfully market yourself and your business online, you need to develop a large list of followers. Followers are the individuals that will receive your message and updates. I do not believe that this is the correct approach to take to use twitter to market your business.  I think that you need to connect with those that you follow.  In addition to that you need to be constantly adding value to your stream in the content that you tweet.  This can be about business things, but try to offer something to your followers that is unique to you.  You will start to gather followers that trust you.

As in any business, you want to develop a rapport with your customers.  You can not do that if you do not connect with them and get to know them.  They in turn will recommend others to follow you.  Soon you will have a nice number of followers that are enjoying your tweets and look forward to what you have to say about your life, and yes, even your business.

You do not have to follow everyone back that follows you, but I think that is is good etiquette to do so.  You will find, from time to time, that you will need to block someone or unfollow them.  That if perfectly acceptable.  You need to do what feels right for you.

Etiquette: Re Tweeting

I think when you first join twitter one of the most confusing terms is RT.  Simply put this is Re tweeting.  It is when you read some ones tweet that you really like, or something that you think your followers would enjoy knowing, or a relevant news event.  Twitter now has a special web button for this, and it has made RT so much easier.

If you see a tweet that you like, by all means Re Tweet it for others in your stream to be able to read.  By the same terms though, if someone RT’s you, please take the time to thank them for doing so.  I know that you have a limit about of time to spend on twitter, but this is an important step in your connecting.

One thing that I have found is that many times I get new followers because someone has Re Tweeted one of the tweets.  So in addition to adding more valuable content to your followers you are actually helping yourself gather more followers that already like what you are doing.

Good Etiquette on twitter will only make your experience that much more rewarding.  It does not matter if you are using twitter to just get to know new people, cultivate friendships, find those of mutual likes (for example dog lovers), or if you are trying to market your business, you should follow these simple steps and you will be respected as a person who adds value.

If you do not already follow me–please follow me on twitter !