Twittequette

Image via CrunchBase

I've finally gotten Twitter to the point where it has become a useful tool and not simply a recreational social network. It took a while to find the people I wanted to follow, but I have garnered so much good stuff from those people that the development process has been decidedly worth it.

During that process, I've drawn some conclusions about what constitutes a good member of the Twitter community.

• You should bring something to the party which adds value to the network. Share. If you've found a good web site or interesting video, share a link to it.
• Provide a little description of what you are linking to. Tweets like this, "Take a look at this http://www.####.com" are often going to be ignored.
• If you get something good from a post, don't tweet it as if you found it yourself, retweet (RT) the original post. Give credit where it's due.
  
• Avoid serial tweets. If you need more than two or three tweets to get your message across, use something like TinyPaste to enclose your message in a single post.
• Don't carry on protracted personal conversations as if Twitter were an IM service. There are better, more appropriate tools for this.
• Use direct messages (DM) for personal posts (using d + username + message).
• Thank people for following you. They don't have to you know.
• Please don't be a persistent whiner or complainer. If 2 out of every 3 tweets you post is a complaint, you won't stay on follow lists too long.
• If you post a tweet that solicits responses, acknowledge those responses with a DM.

I know I've broken every one of these rules at least once, but by trying to follow these principles as much as possible, I hope to be a good, valued member of my Twitter community.

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