My Twitter Policy
I re-tweeted a post once that suggested you post a link to your Twitter Policy once a day. I thought that was a splendid idea, so I’ve created this page and scheduled a FutureTweets.com to post it to my Twitter account everyday around midnight.
It is my intention with this policy to let people know how I approach my use of Twitter. That way you can decide if following me is something you will benefit from … or not.
Privacy
I will respect your DMs. Please respect mine.
Following Tweeple
First, understand that I don’t follow everyone who follows me, nor do I expect everyone I follow to follow me back. I hope that you follow me because you find my tweets interesting, helpful and/or entertaining … not merely to gain a follower in return.
That said, these are the type of folks I tend to follow:
- People who fit my ideal client profile or target market: authors, speakers, coaches, info service professionals, online marketers, preferably if they have a quirky sense of humor, are imaginative and have an active inner child.
- People who I’d really like to work with, but haven’t yet: artists, comedians, musicians, photographers and other highly creative professionals. (Well, I have worked a bit with one artist … my mother, but I don’t count that yet.
- People who tweet on subjects of interest: online marketing, article marketing, WordPress, science, science fiction, etc.
- People who have entertaining tweets that don’t seem to fit into the categories above (remember, I really enjoy a quirky sense of humor!)
- People who I want to learn from, potential mentors and teachers.
I personally vet all my new followers and make the decision to follow them back. If, when I land on a new follower’s Twitter profile page, their bio, background info or tweets grab me, I follow them back. If not, I don’t … and I don’t sweat the decision either.
Oh, and things I’m definitely NOT interested in: Network marketing (been there, done that, won’t do it again), porn (or scantily clad ladies — sorry girls, I’m a heterosexual female and your bikini does nothing for me) and “making money on the Internet” (I may make my money using that medium, but it’s not my focus).
Unfollowing Tweeple
I reserve the right to unfollow you at anytime, for any reason. I will unfollow people that are rude or annoying or obnoxious. Occasionally, I might unfollow a tweep who is not active on Twitter. (It’s hard to dialogue with you if you aren’t listening.) I also respect your right to unfollow me at anytime.
Content and Subject Matter
I do my best to maintain a balance between content, social interaction and promotion. In fact, I use SocialOomph.com almost exclusively to divvy out my tweets and keep them around 30 minutes apart. I generally tweet between 9am and 6pm my time, usually scheduling the day out in advance using SocialOomph. If I didn’t do this, people who follow me would be barraged with a lot of tweets in a very short period of time and then there would be long dry spells. My mind just works that way.
My daily tweets tend to be:
- Links to articles I found interesting — I regularly monitor my favorite key words via Google Alerts and share the good stuff with my Tweeple.
- Retweets (RT) of tweets I found interesting, mostly from Twitter, but occasionally from Facebook, as well.
- Comments and replies to people who used the @CarmaP in their posts, said something interesting in their bio, or tweeted something that compelled me to reply.
- Promotions of my products.
- Promotions of affiliate products.
I do my best not to have promotional tweets back to back, but to put content tweets in between. I do this out of respect for your time. I know your screen time is valuable, so I promise to make my tweets as interesting and valuable as possible.
On a personal note, I keep my politics to myself … only discussing them in person. I don’t like to Tweet about them … just because it isn’t my style. But, I am a geek and have fully embraced my inner child so you will see tweets about science fiction, fantasy, horror, biology, astronomy and paleontology on occasion. I just can’t help myself … those are topics I get excited about. Plus, it adds spice to my Twitter-stream, right?
Spam, Self Promotion, and Commercialization
I am not big on Twitter spam. If I see that you are a promotion-only twitterer, I probably won’t follow you. I will unfollow and or block you if you are DM spamming me or just keep following me to get me to follow you. Please see “Following Tweeple” above for the type of folks I tend to follow.
I don’t mind if you promote your content and are reasonably self promoting. Heck, I do that, too. Besides, part of the reason I followed you was to get to know you, and your business is a part of you. However, if you go over the top, I may unfollow you. But, if you are close to me, I’ll tell you ahead of time.
I have no moral issue with you using Twitter advertising services such as Magpie or TwitAd, just as long as you provide valuable content as well. Again, if you are only on Twitter to run ads, I most likely won’t follow you. Again, I am here to make friends and business connections, as well as to learn new things … not to be bombarded with advertising.
