Twitterquette: Twitter Feeds are NOT Burger King – Why Everyone Can Not Have It Their Way

I had an interesting conversation on Twitter yesterday that prompted me to write this post because there is an important Twitter and life lesson to be learned from it.

Tadeusz Szewczyk aka Tad Chef aka @onreact_com who has an SEO blog and writes for the Search Marketing Firm SEOoptimize sent me these Tweets that included a link to his post on Twitter Netiquette:

While I DO agree with most of his points in that post, there is one very good reason why my Twitter feed is not Burger King so everyone can’t have it “their way”:

You can’t please 16,578 people and counting so you should not even try!

One of the major problems in our relationships and world peace is that almost all people expect everyone else to do everything “their way” – not realizing how many very different ways others see the world.

As more and more people realize that everyone can NOT have things their way, life will be more pleasant. We all need to be far more tolerant and easy-going – especially about small stuff – and as the saying goes, “It’s all small stuff”.

We need to realize we can NOT have what we personally would prefer because:

1. For every person that thinks something is too much there are just as many who think something is not enough – like Tweets or links
2. Believe it or not no one can read your mind

Most people are NOT intentionally doing things to annoy you. The majority are totally self-focused and everything they do is what they feel is best FOR THEM.

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you
if you realized how seldom they do.”  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

Those who are doing what is best for the many like me still can not do things “your way” because:

1. We need to focus on what is best for all of our followers and not just you.
2. We can’t read your mind so we could not do what you feel is best for you even if that was our greatest desire.
3. Even if you send us a great post on Twitterquette we can’t be sure exactly which of your points was what caused you to send it to us.
4. There are NO hard and fast rules for ANYTHING – and that includes Twitter.
5. While having rules might make those who want to control what everyone else does feel better, just like laws they can and will be disregarded by many.

The only way to not offend anyone is to do nothing – and hide to make sure no one notices you’re doing nothing because if they do there will be those who complain because of that.

Few realize that there is no consensus on best practices for much of anything. That is especially true if they tend to choose peers and friends who are much like themselves.

One of my close collaborators and Social Media expert Kristi Hines wrote a point-by-point rebuttal in the comments of Tad’s Twitterquette post that is worth reading because it includes some excellent advanced strategies and insights on using Twitter.

That is why I often do polls like my Spam or Not Spam poll that shows why using crowd-sourcing for Akismet will never work. I bet most bloggers think “everyone knows what spam is”. Guess again!

Bloggers definition of spam ranges from “any comment I don’t like” to “any comment from someone I don’t already know” to “any comment that links to a business” to “I might approve something IF I like it”.

You might notice that I often use “we” instead of “I”? That is because many of us collaborate and brainstorm best practices live every day in chat or Skype. I do not go by only my opinion on things. I bounce them off my most trusted collaborators.

Here are some comments from chat changed to protect the innocent and not reveal who said what:

• Ah, so you should probably just change your entire Twitter engagement then so he doesn’t have to see something he doesn’t want to see…LOL
• Seriously, one follower… got to make them happy…
• GrowMap:That’s kind of what I was thinking…hmmm…like I knew what it was he didn’t like (he tweeted a post to me asking me to stop “shouting” at him)
• Um, totally don’t understand what that means…Unless he’s not a fan of caps and he took offense to the GREAT ADVICE tweet…that would be silly [NOTE from GrowMap: I’ve started calling attention to key tweets by adding RECOMMENDED: or MUST READ: or GREAT ADVICE at the beginning of them – and received thanks from several for doing that so they don’t miss those.]
• Oh, maybe #7… he doesn’t like reality… That must be the problem…
• GrowMap: That was what I thought at first – but then I realized he more likely meant I tweet too much OR he doesn’t like to see bad news and I’ve tweeted too much reality for his tastes lately
• Maybe he wants to live in fairy bubble land where only fluffy bunnies hop merrily around a grassy field
• Damn you for spreading reality into his world of sunshine!
• GrowMap:You’re cracking me up
• It’s my comedy hour of the day 🙂
• I guess everyone has their different offense-o-meter
• No acceptance of uniqueness
• GrowMap:People actually think that each and every person on the planet should do things exactly how they want them – and expect that we could read their mind and know that is
• Well, at least this guy knows what the real problem on Twitter is… not everyone is following his rules. Good to know!
• No kidding… I quite like people who share lots of links a day. And their older articles I might have missed.

Each of us must decide how best to accomplish what needs to be done. If we wish to be effective we may choose to heed some advice from people like Scobleizer. I highly recommend reading his very entertaining post about breaking Twitter rules.

Twitter netiquette rules are GUIDELINES
NOT worth getting all stressed out over!

Also believe the good advice offered by Guy Kawasaki in his posts How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness and How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter.  Read his How to Change the World post to better understand WHY we need to be effective and influential wherever we are active including Twitter.

Yes, I do believe we must always be aware of what we are doing and how it affects others. Yes, I do believe we should do our best to limit flooding the Twitter timelines of followers who don’t use it the way I do when we can.

TWITTER TOOLS NEEDED:

We need tools like CoTweet, HootSuite, Simplify360, MarketMeSuite and others to provide us with a better way by automating our activities into rolling updates that put a time delay between tweets that we can adjust from minutes to hours to maybe even days.

We could use a way to tweet and RT the same tweet from multiple accounts and have the tool randomly change when those tweets are sent through.

ATTN: DEVELOPERS: We need these specific Social Media tools. If you have a tool we should see or are willing to build one, our group of Social Media Influencers are willing to alpha and beta test, provide detailed feedback and promote it for you in exchange for use of the tool.

We are all still developing best practices and have varying degrees of expertise using Twitter.  The link section below will assist anyone at any level to greatly increase their Twitter skills and influence.

TWITTER BEST PRACTICES:

• How to Get Started on Twitter
• Use Twitter Lists so you can find what you want and still follow those who follow you – and why you should
• How to Use Twitterfeed for a consistent Twitter presence
• Strategy for getting more Twitter followers interested in YOUR niche
• Better Twitter Retweets
• Twitter Tools for Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts
• Geo-targeting Twitter – also see How to Use Twellow
• CRITICAL for BLOGGERS: Put Your Twitter UserName on your BLOG!!!!

NEW:I pulled all those together in one post: Twitter Best Practices

People who are influencers on Twitter and who write blogs can create a better world for us all. If you’re serious about being influential I encourage you to contact me and to follow the other influencers I linked to in my Small Business Advice post.

If you are offering services to small businesses and would like recommendations contact me and see my post on priorities for Small Business Internet Marketing.

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Gail Gardner

Small Business Marketing Strategist at GrowMap

Gail Gardner is the founder of GrowMap.com. She is a Small Business Marketing Strategist who mentors small businesses, bloggers, and freelancers. After 23 years in the field with IBM and 5.5 years managing AdWords accounts, her focus shifted to small business marketing strategy. GrowMap.com is listed by Cision as a Top 100 Site for Marketers and has received three Small Business Influencer Awards from Small Business Trends. Named by D&B a Top 50 SMB Influencer on Twitter, you can follow Gail @GrowMap and on LinkedIn.

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