Posts tagged Twitter

Many of you are already on the Twitter bandwagon, constantly checking in on your iPhone and laptop during meetings and class. There’s nothing wrong with being a tweetaholic, as long as you can manage to have your fun without annoying others on Twitter. I’ve put together a simple list of five bad habits that seem way too common-place on our favorite micro-blogging site these days.

1.) Constant Self Promotion Doesn’t Help Anybody but Yourself.

Twitter isn’t a place to boost your ego. It’s a place to be social and meet new, interesting people within the community. Instead of having your followers see a stream of, “I just made $384710982374 today. I’m the BOSS!”, make things a great deal less ego-centric by finding another way to share your excitement, such as, “So glad that this week is going so well. Time for a celebratory cup of coffee by the river! ;)” This may enable others to ask you what’s going on with you that’s putting you in such a great mood, or maybe even lead to them to want to meet you for that cup of coffee you’re publicly anticipating. From now on, keep all the narcissism between you and the mirror.

2.) Super-human Tweeting isn’t a Desirable Trait to Find in a Friend.

We’ve all seen this one before. And, we’ve surely made sure to block them faster than they could tweet. Please do not become one of these machines, who manage to send more than 1 tweet a minute, or pull off 500 tweets a day. This may seem fine and dandy on your side of the screen, but to all of your followers, you’re nothing more than a DOS attack on their Twitter feed. It’s alright to have your own personal peak-time each day, where you @ mention several friends for an extended moment during your free time, but try to keep it controlled. Your friends will appreciate you a lot more this way.

3.) Give Credit Where Credit is Deserved. Twitter-style Plagiarism is Ugly

Often times we see a more than clever tweet from a celebrity or quote from an author that we feel the need to share. So what do you do? You Re-Tweet it, of course, but when you do, make sure to provide the original tweeter’s @User Name. The best way to avoid this is to simply use the recently official Re-Tweet feature. If you RT the old-school way, but can’t fit their entire original message and user name in the same tweet, then this is one of the rare cases where it’s alright to use minor l33t speak, by toning down “you” and “for” to “U” and “4″.

4.) Being a Trending Socialite, in All the Wrong Ways.

One of the best parts of Twitter is being able to check out what people are saying about Trending Topics as well as being able to put in your two-cents on whatever it is that happens to be trending at the moment. Unfortunately, some people get a little too “trendy” and somehow manage to fit every single trending topic hash tag into their limited 140 character tweet. Either they’re the type of person who wants to show up in every feed, so they have a chance of gaining more followers, or they think this confirms that they’re on top of things. No matter what their intention is, it’s all garbage, and doing tso is asking to be blocked.

5.)  People Don’t Want to Hear You Complain. Please Keep it Positive!

Sure twitter asks, “What’s Happening?” when you begin typing your tweets to the world, but there’s no reason to share anything that wouldn’t improve other’s quality of life, so if you’re having a bad day, please try to find something positive to say, or don’t say anything at all. It’s never impossible to at least TRY to put a positive spin on things. Perhaps you’re stressed our beyond belief after that guy nearly side-swiped you off the exit on the way back home after work, and you’re still raging. In this context, you should just take a deep breath, realize that it’s nothing to dwell on, and if you must announce “what’s happening” on Twitter, simply type something along the lines of, “Trying to relax!”