How To Use Twitter...Or Not
What is Twitter? From the site:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Twitter has evolved to far beyond that. In addition to the site's stated intention, it has many other uses including being a news source and community for many different groups of people. Since I have started using twitter, a common question that comes up is Is There Twitter Ettiquette? Here is my take on it as I wrote it on twitter:
Twitterquette 101:
The twitter site has none posted in the TOS (terms of service) so I feel, No there is no such thing as twitterquette. But I see other people feel so and want to impose their ideas of social interaction. Very interesting to me how what this is varies
Some feel you must say hello/bye to each person you follow/following you whenever they pop up. Some feel you must say a general hello/bye
Some feel any kind of hello/bye waste of time; that hello/bye is implied
Some feel talking about personal issues big etiquette breach, others feel talking only biz big breach
Some feel talking talking directly to one person should be done by DM (direct message), others feel conversations should be open so others can join
Some feel they should enforce their ideas of social interaction on others lest we have twitter chaos. Others feel live/let live
Twitter is evolving as a social medium & I am fascinated by the development and enforcement of twitter social mores
There are definite social assumptions and social pressure on twitter to tweet in a specific manner depending on your mindset & group
I am also puzzled as to why some people think their ideas of social rules are something 'everybody' knows. How? Osmosis?
Oh yah I forgot, some people think you must respond to all @s(public direct contact) or else rude, others feel this is optional & not rude. Same w/DMs(direct messages)
Some feel you should anyone who follows youu, others feel optional. Some feel you should link your blog/site to anyone's blog/site you follow
So as you can see it's basically free 4 all. However you tweet is bound to bug anyone fixated on this stuff enough to try enforcing
I call these folks the twitter police. There was a @bossytwitterer who said I tweeted too much
How could I forget that one? Some people think you should only tweet certain # each day. Some think tweet as much as you want
Some people feel if they follow you, You should speak first. Others feel they should
The quality of sincere interaction is higher on twitter than say, Myspace, so I tend to give silent followers benefit of doubt
Just like I assume they give me as I don't/can't respond to every one every day. Generally I respond to what I find interesting
I assume followers respond to me based on something I wrote they found interesting. Since interestingness subjective, response varies
I try not to hurt feelings, but see how easy this is to inadvertently do? Say someone uses twitter mainly as IM(instant message) to talk to friends, ok
Someone they follow may use it to post solely what doing where & never check @s. they offend first person by never saying hello/bye
Now following issue is it's own subset of diverse twitterquette LOL. some people feel you should ONLY follow people you know off line
Some people feel you should also follow people you know online too. Some say only biz, some say both biz & personal but you should know them offline
Some feel you should follow anyone with public page you find interesting in some way.
See? you can't follow a do's & don'ts list because there aren't any! So I crack up at the twitter police LOL
and then they get offended when I'm like, just unfollow me, no worries. I find this very strange, very odd.
One more thing on twitterquette then I'll stop & go write a boring blog post on it or something: the many subsets crack me up
Originally posted to my Twitter. You can follow me for indie biz & media updates throughout the day
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Twitter has evolved to far beyond that. In addition to the site's stated intention, it has many other uses including being a news source and community for many different groups of people. Since I have started using twitter, a common question that comes up is Is There Twitter Ettiquette? Here is my take on it as I wrote it on twitter:
Twitterquette 101:
The twitter site has none posted in the TOS (terms of service) so I feel, No there is no such thing as twitterquette. But I see other people feel so and want to impose their ideas of social interaction. Very interesting to me how what this is varies
Some feel you must say hello/bye to each person you follow/following you whenever they pop up. Some feel you must say a general hello/bye
Some feel any kind of hello/bye waste of time; that hello/bye is implied
Some feel talking about personal issues big etiquette breach, others feel talking only biz big breach
Some feel talking talking directly to one person should be done by DM (direct message), others feel conversations should be open so others can join
Some feel they should enforce their ideas of social interaction on others lest we have twitter chaos. Others feel live/let live
Twitter is evolving as a social medium & I am fascinated by the development and enforcement of twitter social mores
There are definite social assumptions and social pressure on twitter to tweet in a specific manner depending on your mindset & group
I am also puzzled as to why some people think their ideas of social rules are something 'everybody' knows. How? Osmosis?
Oh yah I forgot, some people think you must respond to all @s(public direct contact) or else rude, others feel this is optional & not rude. Same w/DMs(direct messages)
Some feel you should anyone who follows youu, others feel optional. Some feel you should link your blog/site to anyone's blog/site you follow
So as you can see it's basically free 4 all. However you tweet is bound to bug anyone fixated on this stuff enough to try enforcing
I call these folks the twitter police. There was a @bossytwitterer who said I tweeted too much
How could I forget that one? Some people think you should only tweet certain # each day. Some think tweet as much as you want
Some people feel if they follow you, You should speak first. Others feel they should
The quality of sincere interaction is higher on twitter than say, Myspace, so I tend to give silent followers benefit of doubt
Just like I assume they give me as I don't/can't respond to every one every day. Generally I respond to what I find interesting
I assume followers respond to me based on something I wrote they found interesting. Since interestingness subjective, response varies
I try not to hurt feelings, but see how easy this is to inadvertently do? Say someone uses twitter mainly as IM(instant message) to talk to friends, ok
Someone they follow may use it to post solely what doing where & never check @s. they offend first person by never saying hello/bye
Now following issue is it's own subset of diverse twitterquette LOL. some people feel you should ONLY follow people you know off line
Some people feel you should also follow people you know online too. Some say only biz, some say both biz & personal but you should know them offline
Some feel you should follow anyone with public page you find interesting in some way.
See? you can't follow a do's & don'ts list because there aren't any! So I crack up at the twitter police LOL
and then they get offended when I'm like, just unfollow me, no worries. I find this very strange, very odd.
One more thing on twitterquette then I'll stop & go write a boring blog post on it or something: the many subsets crack me up
Originally posted to my Twitter. You can follow me for indie biz & media updates throughout the day
posted by Trula at
1:15 AM
0 Comments
Links to this post
