Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Guest — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:58:09 -0000

There's one bizarre thing one of the people I followed does. He retweets all of his @-conversations that make no sense or have any value to anyone but the people in question, including flirting that he does with someone out there... Retweeted. How very odd! That was a quick way to get unfollowed. (I followed him because of his location in the first place, in case you're wondering.) I suppose his rationale was to allow people who are not following his friends to follow the conversation, no matter how mundane.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Kerry — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:55:49 -0000

I totally agree with the name tags - they save everyone the awkwardness of walking up to strangers and saying "Hi, I'm from the internet!"

Meet ups can be difficult to organize, and sometimes, very few people show up. When you can get a good group together, though, it's totally worth it.

(I'm @skeletonkey on Twitter)

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Zee Visram — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:51:52 -0000

Thank you for these tips Sarah. I especially like the one about not thanking your follows in a public forum. I also appreciated hearing about Qwitter. Not sure if I would use it but good to know of its availability.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Caroline Cartens — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:24:23 -0000

Thanks, Sarah! "There is no reason whatsoever that not - maybe soon, maybe later - someone will produce a masterpiece using Twitter ..." http://tinyurl.com/mstrwrk

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

carol gibson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:41:43 -0000

I noticed some people complaining on Twitter about "thanks for the follow" messages. Since then whenever getting a new follower, I haven't see an instant option to send them a message. I guess the only response is to follow them back.

I always check the bio first, though. A lot of these people are going to try to get you to buy something. I had one sales pitch, but it didn't turn into spam or anything.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Ron Davies — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:20:43 -0000

Very well done Sarah. If you decide to package your Twitter ideas and thoughts, let me know. I speak on the international seminar circuit for Internet marketing, and Twitter is becoming a greater focus for me.

Cheers,

@RonDavies

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Ben Leis — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:27:02 -0000

You totally forgot to mention the auto responder!!!!! My biggest pet-peeve of twitter usage. The auto response is not genuine and certainly not authentic. We need to create a hashtag movement #StopAutoResponders

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Christopher L. Jorgesen — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:13:15 -0000

I'm not sure I agree with this part: "Keep it short and sweet. The more you cut into the
140 characters, the less content you provide AND the less likely people will use it." A
variety works for me. I get annoyed at people who consistently leave 12 character
tweets.

And I think you should have emphasized the "Don't send too fast" rule. I hate when my
feed gets taken over by one person. Space out the tweets by a few minutes, never send
more than maybe three in a short period of time.

I also hate retweets. It's probably just me, but if I like a person I'm probably going to like
the people they like, so will already be following those people as well. Nothing annoys
me more than seeing the same content go by like 15 times.

Last, I like throwing out a shout out once in a while, and don't mind if people do so as
well, as long as it's not constantly. Saying why you follow someone is nice. Trying to get
someone a start is kind.

Nice article.

Thanks.

christopher....

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

LossAngeles — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:52:58 -0000

Don't forget my safety before I meet up? You're kidding right?

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Jeff Schwandt — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:39:13 -0000

Thanks. I was wondering about publicly thanking new followers. It didn't seem practical without using some automated app and then where's the "connect" with that?

http://www.twitter.com/JaxT...

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

mr.eims @ health aware — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:31:03 -0000

But I think, acting like robot on twitter also not very right.. hurm..

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

David Gonzalez — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:20:19 -0000

Sarah: Fantastic!!! Great advice for those of us who are new to twitter and other social media. Sometimes we may offend unintentionally and this was extremely helpful tips on ettiquette. thanks again!

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

BarbChamberlain — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:15:13 -0000

I use twurl.cc for shortened URLs when I want to track them, which I do for the work account I manage. You can log in with your openID. I do a quick copy/paste from the results page to a spreadsheet, which allows me to do some analysis (if I ever had the time for it!).

@BarbChamberlain

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Rae — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:36:42 -0000

If you're going to use a URL shortener, http://zi.ma probably should have been recommended - it is free and keeps statistics - and the latter is something tiny and snip don't do.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Cheri Sigmon — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:01:58 -0000

What a valuable summary! Thanks, we needed this. I'll share it w/ friends and give you credit, of course.

Lucretia, thanks for sharing tips on editing and disabling the auto-update function from Twitter to FB. Just did! Sometimes, my communities and messages are slightly different, so separation of T/FB will add more value to the content of each, I think. Like others here, I prefer to grow *gradually,* with minimal updates that seem relevant. Occasionally, I digress with "personal" types of stuff; just being genuine.

I do check e-mails to see when ppl follow/unfollow for trending statistics only (it's not really personal to unfollow; it's just like changing a channel on the tube, as someone said earlier). If I see large variations in "range" between the number followed/following, e.g., 876 or 1999 following and less than a "few 100" followers, they might be spamming or just following ppl randomly in order to get "return follows." If they rarely follow *anyone* and have massive followings, I might think they're just professional marketers, or pundits, or it's more about them than their content. Just my personal 2 cents; I follow few ppl who use the "rock star" appeal. I want content & connection w/ people who are interested in interacting...

About blocking, I do that w/ blatant spammers & ppl who appear to be behaving in an unethical manner or who are associated w/ undesirable activities. I use Twitter for professional & business purposes, mainly.

Thanks again.

Regards,
Cheri
@CheriSigmon (primarily for InfoSec and online clients)

@LongestWiener (charity fund-raiser for Dachshunds)

p.s. You're not doing "anything wrong" if and when ppl unfollow you; you're just being you -- genuine and transparent. :) If you can't talk about what's on your mind for fear of a person unfollowing - let them go!

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Rachel Wright — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:25:30 -0000

Thank you for providing the link to block the twitter feed to facebook. I had been looking everywhere for that! Great article.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Patrick Thornton — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:02:13 -0000

@Sarah,

Excellent post. I think it's so important for people (especially businesses) to know what not do on Twitter. You can do all the right things to build a following, but if you make a few mistakes, it can really hurt what you're doing.

I made a post that adds a few more suggestions for what not to do on Twitter over at BeatBlogging.Org.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

LuluMom — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:41:16 -0000

Thanks for some great advice that I wish I had found a few months ago. What's great about the Twitterworld is that it grows, and we can all continue to learn stuff. I read, awhile back, that it was good manners to thank followers, but on their blog or email linked to their website/blog. Getting harder to find this though, and maybe, people don't expect a thanks for follow?

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Doug On Twitter — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:49:33 -0000

Very nice, informative guide here Sarah. You gave a great prepper course to keep people out of some of the danger zones with solid info on what not to do when building a great twitter community.

Focusing on good content and not necessarily the latest widget for mass decimating the twitterverse for the sake of statistics is probably some of the best advice to be given.

Really glad I caught your share and many happy returns.

Doug

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Leesa Renee Hall — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:36:30 -0000

One word - STUNNING! I just LOVE your tips. It should be required reading for all Twitter newbies, along with Nancy Marmolejo's tips on how to use Tweetlater - http://tinyurl.com/5tynxh.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

MITS Engineering college — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:05:55 -0000

MITS Engineering College,Best Institute in Orissa, India

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

Colonel Tribune — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:17:28 -0000

Or a hat.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

malcolm — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:09:36 -0000

Another way to track plus shorten the url is klikdeal. You can choose your own URL and you will get immediate stats on the clicks.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

BCK — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:15:40 -0000

i tend to quickly unfollow people that DM me after I following them, I tend to overlook it most of the time but when you send me a link to your blog asking me to subscribe to it as well it comes across as begging to me.

Re: HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community

BarbChamberlain — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:25:40 -0000

Great piece I'll share with any newbies I run into.

I'm still debating the Twitter/FB thing. After reading this I took it off, but I'd really rather have a way to split out so some tweets go and some don't, instead of losing it entirely.

One friend on FB congratulated me on using Twitter to tweet an event I was at, and another called me "queen of the status updates". Not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.... :D No one has unfriended me so far.

CathrynMarie's suggestion of tweeting @yourself is an interesting one but then I think about how that would look to followers. Narcissistic? :D

It's probably time to check out something like ping.fm. Any other suggestions on ways to manage this?

@BarbChamberlain