Twitter Do and Don’t List for Webmasters

November 7, 2009

I’ve started a Twitter account for my B6S persona here, in addition to my regular twitter account @israelimom.

http://twitter.com/bs6 – in case you want to follow me.

However, do not expect me to automatically follow back. I so don’t believe in feed bots accounts that follow other just for the follow back. If you follow me and I don’t reciprocate, read my blog post about Who NOT to Follow on Twitter, posted earlier this year on my Israeli Mom blog.

When it comes to webmasters, keep in mind that you are dealing with, hopefully, a more sophisticated crowd. Spam just won’t work.

With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of Twitter Do’s and Dont’s for Webmasters:

Read other people’s tweets.
Interact and reply to tweets.
Tweet your original thoughts and ideas about web development.
Post links of interest with your own input injected into the tweet.
Tweet about new blog posts and new projects, with a clear title or added explanation.

Don’t

Spam with product offers – we all know where to look for products.
Send out automated ads – if I see a tweet about teeth whitening I will block and possibly report spam.
Add RSS feeds of other sites to your Twitter account. I know how to add Mashable and TechCrunch to my Reader, and I can follow them directly if I want to.
Repeat the same tweets promoting your blog posts numerous times. Once or twice is enough.
Post endless links with no input of your own – what’s the point?
Post links with no text – smart people just won’t click them.
DM people with offers or links. That is just pure spam.

I am on Twitter because I want to interact with fellow webmasters. I want to network. I want to learn new things. If your account does nothing but those things listed under “Don’t”, you can be pretty sure I won’t follow back.

I hope you join Twitter for the same reasons I did. It is both effective and fun when done right.

Tagged as: social marketing, social media, tweet, twitter

2 Tweets

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omg I suck at twitter challenge | Blog Engage Blog: December 4, 2009 at 7:43 pm

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1 b6s November 7, 2009 at 1:01 am: http://bit.ly/1kHl2W New blog post on b6s.net – Twitter Do and Don’t List for Webmasters – looking forward to comments!

This comment was originally posted on Twitter
2 Jon Tiffany November 7, 2009 at 4:11 am: Nice post, I always think that its best to use common sense and use these services as intended, if you can add the occasional link when its relevant then fine. So many people are just going all out to get links, I think this is actually counter productive as I’m sure that Google are smart enough to be able to identify and ignore un natural links. I think your guide above is equally applicable to comments on blogs as well. I’ll finish by saying that I hope this comment has followed the advice given and added something constructive
Jon Tiffany´s last blog ..Go Green and Cool with LED downlighters
3 Anne November 7, 2009 at 6:29 am: You’re right, of course. A lot of it is common sense, which makes you wonder why some people don’t actually follow it

Some of it is applicable to blog commenting, certainly. However, Twitter sure does open up new avenues for automated RSS tweets. I guess it’s up to the rest of the Twitter users to decide whether or not they want to be exposed to that.
4 Element321 December 4, 2009 at 11:26 am: Twitter Do and Don’t List for Webmasters — B6S.net http://ow.ly/IEkR

This comment was originally posted on Twitter
5 Gaurav Mehta Twitter: touchstonelofts May 1, 2010 at 3:45 am: Thank you for the insight. I am just about to embark on twitter and your tips on do’s and don’ts will definetly be taken onboard. Want to provide a valuable info source for loft conversions…. I was going to put the website RSS feed to twitter but I don’t think so now as it will be duplicate content.

Sensible and reasonable points made.