Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness

1. Add value to others’ lives. This is the Golden Rule of Twitter.

2. Don’t ask for anything. Or at least don’t ask 99.9 percent of the time.

3. Use RT (Re Tweet) label. Taking someone else’s tweet and then tweeting it as though it were your information, in a sense, is stealing. Be original. There is no shame in a RT. Without people doing this some content would not get very far.

4. Thank people … often. Thank them for following you. Thank them for RT-ing you. Thank them for including you on a #FollowFriday list. Thank them for a great tweet.

5. If you reply, mention what you are replying to. “Great tweet” is meaningless response if the person you are getting back to has had more than a single tweet in the past week.

6. Use Direct Message for anything that is less than positive.

7. Only use Reply if you think your followers will care about your reply.

8. Do not use an auto responder or an auto follow bot. It sends the message that your fellow Twitterers are just numbers and not that important to you.

9. Play nice. It seems so obvious, but if you anything you say on Twitter can be misconstrued (where a lot of visual clues are missing) – it will be.

10. Be you. Being genuine in all your Twitter dealings will, over time, set you apart from those who are these just to get an audience, just to sell something or just to be annoying.

Further reading:
10 Commandments for Social Media
Social Media disasters