How to be Good and Effective on Twitter

Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platforms and thought it would be a subject of interest to others if I share some basic yet important etiquette which I have learnt along the way.

It gives me a feeling of watching an IPL match. Sitting with a cup of hot coffee and watching the action with interest and mostly amusement. Not to forget, the constant attention that goes on current TRENDS, like the cheer leaders grabbing your attention during the match!

Shots on twitter vary from Hardcore selling to Links on valuable information (more often SEO articles) Trolling, Humor, Facts, Infographics, Quotes etc.

The challenge here is to convey your message in 140 characters and make some sense of it. It simply makes you Think Creatively. The Indian Netizens on Twitter have matured a lot in the last 2 years and the way Indians use twitter have seen a huge shift. People are out there for serious conversation and want to chat with humans and not Logos. Across any platform, good, neat and clean communication always takes you long. If you want to impress those tweeps out there and win followers then this article will help you a lot.

This piece is completely subjective and has been written based on personal experiences and learning over time, working on diverse clients and even more diverse expectations

• Avoid being a EGG HEAD on twitter, don’t keep the handle pic as the default Twitter Egg, people want to see a face and not Eggs.
• Though twitter gives you 140 characters; keep the tweets shorter it increases impact of your tweets making it easy for users to read and push further.
• Remember to KISS, Keep it Simple Silly!
• Don’t strive for followers, strive for engagement, mentions, reply, ask questions, retweet, value add and followers will come and these would be long term and absolute quality.
• There is a section of tweeps who don’t follow back but still engage with others, keep interactions on, all the time.
• DM only when necessary, a lot of spam is happening with some brands and even individual handles doing auto-broadcasting of messages. AVOID this or get unfollowed.
• If you intent to do a live chat session or participating in one such event, do keep your followers informed, nobody will like their Twitter feeds filled with tweets from one user, this could get highly annoying.
• One of the things that powers twitter in being an amazing platform is the #tags. It allows us to add a subject to our tweets making us keep our tweet focused and reach relevant audience, hence it’s important to choose the #tags wisely. Lot many #tags in one tweets makes it look random.
• Avoid Monolingual tweets or approach. You can broadcast stuffs once in a while but not always. Remember one way communication cannot be Social communication
• Share tweets when necessary, this way people will see you/the brand as informative and remember you more.
• Response time is very important. Responding ASAP is the key to attract users on Twitter for a handle and not to forget, it opens up great engagement opportunities.
• This could be a personal practice, if you come across Spam accounts report them, I do it. Less spammers = a better place to spend time.
• Thank people who appreciate you/ your brand or who talk positive about you. Even a simple smiley in reply to their tweets work wonders, if you are handling a brand on twitter then responding quick generates a lot of goodwill for the brand.
• This one is a Brand specific, Brands run away from criticism on twitter, face it and even important solve it and see the magic happening. Complaints aggravate because consumers feel they are being avoided and unheard. Listen to people and they will be your advocates. Trust me it works.
• Most important of all, Be YOU! Create value and help people with good content.

One interesting thing that I have observed in the past year is the Twitter Bullies.

Mere having X hundreds/ thousands followers doesn’t make you a hero, act sensibly and avoid bullying. I have come across people who blackmail brands for small things e.g. “you did not retweet my tweet”, “I was expecting a better prize”, “Either you change terms and conditions of the contest or I will blog about you”.

You may be the smartest one on this planet and may have the best set of followers, but that doesn't give you a right to bully anyone, be it a person or a brand.  When you have a genuine problem you have all the right to get it sorted, but avoid cribbing for small things.

Have fun, be responsible and keep tweeting.