7 Deadly Sins of the Twitterverse

Avoid the seven deadly sins of Twitter or you’ll surely go straight to #TwitterHell in a hand basket.

#7. DRUNK PICTURES

I like to have a good time as much as the next guy, but don’t give free fodder to those who may want to crucify you later.  DUH.

#6. RETWEETING IMPERSONAL LINKS

Sharing relavent articles is great. Go for it—SOMETIMES. Show your sparkling personality inbetween the blurbs of hard news. Just spare us the talk of laundry folding and toilet scrubbing.

#5. DIRECT MESSAGE (DM): LINKS & FREEBIES

A.) Your profile byline should contain important link(s), so do not send links in a direct message the minute someone follows you. This is SPAM.

B.) If  you send free stuff to people who don’t know you, they are less likely to place any value on the items, (i.e. free books). Interact with your new followers/friends, provide meaningful content on sites & blogs and people will not only WANT to read your stuff, they’ll PAY for it.

#4.  CONTROVERSIAL & POLITICAL VIEWS

I’m not 100% opposed to this one, as I think it’s important to take a stand for issues that speak to you. However, be choosey in your political tweets.  If many, many of your tweets revolve around controversial topics, you may alienate a great group of people that do not share your ideals. You may become viewed as narrow-minded and, consequently, lose friends and followers.

#3.  BAD MOUTHING PROFESSIONALS

I know you’re dying to cuss someone out who did X to screw you out of a contract, who rejected your shining, perfect MS, or who dissed your query posted on a forum. Resist. Be an adult. Trashing someone IN WRITING is a very bad idea. Don’t forget all of your tweets are logged somewhere in electronica and may come back to haunt you. Besides, people talk.

#2. RT, RT, RT

Do not Retweet every single Friday Follow (#FF) mention you receive, for Pete’s sake. Or at least for my sake. It’s  WHITE NOISE. Junking up the Tweet stream with 8 million retweets of mentions will get you DELETED.

#1. PLATFORM SPAM-O-RAMA

Go easy on selling yourself; talking up your novels & short stories, posting prices of your ebooks, begging people to follow you so may reach X number of followers, etc. Once per day for these types of posts would almost be too often. You’ll be deleted faster than you can order up a fried spam sandwich.

 

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