12.07.08

Five Mistakes of New Twitter Users

Over the past week, much in part thanks to the Top Conservatives on Twitter list, I’ve picked up more than 400 new followers. An expansion of followers such as this is fascinating, and has prompted me to take a closer look at the center-right community on Twitter.

Have no doubt, there are some fantastic people on Twitter. I’m encouraged to see so many conservatives and libertarians beginning to be part of the community. In fact, when you take a close look at the TCOT list, you can see (I actually studied every profile on the list) a trend of new Twitter accounts. And when I say new, I mean like less than a week old.

With this in mind, I think it’s important for us to understand what Twitter is, how we can make our movement stronger through the Twitter platform, and how we can avoid minor mistakes when getting started.

Twitter, in my opinion, is nothing more than a tool that facilitates conversation and community. I like to view it like a cocktail party. Indeed, here your purpose is to shake hands, talk with like minded people, ask questions, learn things, share ideas, and build relationships.

Hold that thought, and consider the following list of things to be careful of while Tweeting your life away.

1) Over Self Promoting
Look, I’m the first person to admit that Twitter is a fantastic place to promote your ideas, your web presence, web content, products and services. Heck, I do it all the time! BUT, I do it in moderation and I make sure to inject it at the right time and place.

Imagine this cocktail party I mentioned above… you’ve been to one or two of these, right? Now imagine what people would think of you if you walked in to the room and started handing out brochures before you even grabbed a drink and joined a conversation. Chances are, a good chunk of the people in the room would start seeing you as a person who attends social events with nothing more than self-interest in mind.

Of course, we all have self -interest, but at some point, especially with social media, we have to put the interest of the group at the top of the priority list as well.

Sure, if you’re seen as a spammer at these cocktail parties, you’re going to have a group of people who will read your brochures because they’re nice people, but you’ve likely alienated another group of people that you want access to.

The real way to approach a cocktail party is to show up, grab a drink, and start working your way in and out of conversations. People will eventually ask “so, what do you do?”. THAT is when you present your brochure.

-Don’t set up RSS Feed only accounts. It’s bad form, self serving, and doesn’t foster community in Twitter. If people want your RSS Feed, they’ll go to your blog and subscribe. I’ve seen people (Scott Graves from RedCounty.com is one) marry an RSS feed account with conversation and make it work well, but that’s different. Scott actually logs in to that account and participates. “Auto-pilot” RSS accounts are spammy (in some cases, but not all).

-If you’re going to crank out links to sites you own, make sure that it doesn’t over power links and conversation that do not evolve around your own sites.

2) Understand Your Twitter Followers
Understand your audience and know that not everyone cares what you write about. What’s news to me may not be news to the rest of the world, and it’s VERY important that I understand that.

I inject a lot of links in to my conversation on Twitter, but there are also a lot of links that I send across my Twitter network via Direct Message. I have the people I follow broken up in to groups… some marketing minded, some social media gurus, some political consultants… most are politically active friends.

A lot of the stuff I send I do it through direct messaging. There isn’t really any harm in blanketing your followers with everything you want/need to say, but sometimes that tweet will get lost in the noise. You need to understand who your followers are. Don’t just view everyone as followers, view them as friends. You know who your friends are and you know what they do, right?

The same should apply to Twitter.

Check out other profiles often, build groups using tools like Tweetdeck, make notes somewhere, and always be aware of who you need to approach when you have a question, issue, need, or idea.

3) Don’t Get and not Give
I know for a fact that I’ve clicked on links that say “I could use some diggs” for people and have dugg the link, but when I DM that person a link to something I need a few diggs for, I don’t get the same in return.

Now, I don’t hold a grudge at all, and life goes on, but still, this is kind of crappy if you ask me. If you’re on Twitter to share ideas and get me involved in what you’re doing, then why on earth are you not willing to get involved in what I’m doing?

I myself have been guilty of this, but it’s an area that I’m improving. Just remember that successful online community development is not built on selfishness.

We’ve heard it a million times… but for the record… there is no “i” in team. If you want to “get”, make sure you’re also “giving”.

4) Don’t Feed the Trolls
Just like with blogging, Twitter has trolls. Lot’s of them. And just like with blogging, the more you engage trolls, the more attention they get.

It’s really pretty simple. Ignore the trolls and they go away.

5) Engage, Engage, Engage, Engage
Nothing screams ELITIST like a Twitter user who has 1,500 followers but has only ever replied to ten of them.

FAIL

You’ve got the opportunity to find hundreds, if not thousands of activists like me who will be loyal to your cause once you cross the bridge and meet and make it personal.

Granted, you may not be able to reply to every single reply to you (God knows I can’t), but you should at least be replying to a healthy chunk of replies to you.

The bottom line is that Twitter allows powerful online communities to sprout in a matter of days in some cases. These communities are built on relationship, trust and ideas. All of which are fueled by authentic conversation.

You don’t really have to follow the ideas put forth in the above list to succeed as a part of the Twitter community, but if you don’t, you’re certainly missing out on the opportunity for something much bigger.

Food for thought…
-Eric Odom

Modified thanks to EthanD

9 Responses to “Five Mistakes of New Twitter Users”

1. Hazel Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 10:22 am

   This is a great post and I am glad I took the time to read it. Is there an etiquette to Unfollowing a person?

   Hazel’s last blog post..Five Mistakes of New Twitter Users

2. Daltonsbriefs Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

   Eric thanks for writing, I tweeted this article early this morning and got a ton of positive reactions in replies. Kinda surprised not to see comments here actually.

3. Todd Jordan Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

   I found this article via Facebook, thought you might find that interesting, vs via Twitter.

   As an avid Twitter user, I think you’ve given a good list of things to watch out for being a new user.

   The engage one is a big one. I follow about 1800 people now and make an effort to talk to as many as I can. I do this regardless of their politics, past times, sexual persuasion, or faith. It’s best to just jump in and get in the conversation.

   Be sure to tweet this article again and perhaps share in comments on other blogs.

   Todd Jordan’s last blog post..Five Mistakes of New Twitter Users

4. ethanD Says:
   December 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am

   Great post Eric.

   One way to still keep in touch with a core group is to use tweetdeck and create a group of people you want to spend more attention on. Just don’t forget rule #5 and engage with your masses of followers.

   twitter.com/EthanD

   ethanD’s last blog post..Don’t Forget the Basics of Networking on “Social Networks”

5. Michael Hardy Says:
   December 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

   Thanks a million, Eric. This is a great reminder that the members of any community have a responsibility to bring value to the community through their participation. Spammers, twitter trolls and elitists are leaches; there has to be a give and take to make it work.

   Michael Hardy’s last blog post..Don’t Forget the Basics of Networking on “Social Networks”

6. ethanD Says:
   December 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

   I just took a look through the twitter TOS
   http://twitter.com/terms

   and it doesn’t (as far as I can see) prohibit multiple accounts.

   For example I have a personal account, a local account and a business account.

7. Eric Odom Says:
   December 8th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

   ethanD, you are correct. I was going off a comment made by Ali a few days back. Post updated.

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