If that reason isn’t compelling enough and you think I want to just sit around and hold hands with all of my digital friends, singing Kumbaya and roasting S’mores over some UGC campfire, then consider this: what you say online today will likely be searchable (and therefore discoverable) forever.  You may not care about having an outburst on Twitter right now because it doesn’t affect you, but down the road you may be in another position altogether, perhaps looking for a job.

Both of these are reasons enough for me to watch what I publish, so I have adopted these three basic guidelines.

1. No Swearing. That’s right, I just don’t do it online.  I can’t say that I am quite this controlled in real life, and no doubt I have said some things that could make the most hardened sailor blush, but I refrain online.  A casual glance at my Tweetdeck at any given moment usually reveals an F-bomb or two..or ten.  Good enough for you, and have at it, I am not throwing stones.  I chose not to do this, however.
2. Keep Public and Private Life Separate. This one is tricky.  First of all, I recognize that the very nature of social networks is to get to know each other better, to interact…and who wants to do that with a robot?  I certainly don’t keep everything in my private life off the computer screen, but I would say that I keep a good 90% of it to myself, and I’ve been operating this way for many years now. Probably the most personal I get is occasionally putting up pictures of my kids on Facebook, but that is the only place that I will do that.  It’s a somewhat private place (barely), and I only had to have a couple of odd emails from strangers asking me to “put up more videos of your kids playing in the mud” to realize that what we do online can and will be seen by perverts, scumbags, creeps and stalkers.  I do my best to keep the stalker-fodder to a minimum.  Also, and this is a very important point, I think it’s annoying at best and inappropriate at worst when people share intimate (and often gross) information about themselves in public forums.  It feels like the social media equivalent of exhibitionism, and I don’t like it.
3. Stay Positive. I haven’t always been able to maintain this one, but I think I get it right about 95% of the time.  There are plenty of people that get a nice bit of attention from being constantly sarcastic and negative, but based upon my two reasons above for having these rules in the first place, I do not want to be one of those people.  I do have a couple of categories in the “stay positive” area.  First, it’s almost a non-negotiable that I stay positive with real people.  What I mean is that I refrain from saying anything negative about another person online, even if that person is saying rude or aggressive things about me (which happens more than I would like to think).  Typically I will just ignore them, as well as blocking or unfollowing them.  What isn’t a non-negotiable is how I interact with brands. I have been known to go on a rant after particularly bad customer service experiences, a social media temper tantrum of sorts.  While I try to be constructive with my criticism, sometimes this isn’t always possible…you know the companies I’m talking about.

Do you know how I came up with these three rules for social media? I simply considered what is expected of me in real life.  If I go to a networking event, cocktail party or conference where I am with anybody but my closest friends, this is how I would act.  Why then should it be different online? I don’t think it should.  Online communities may allow us to carry ourselves somewhat differently, and it sure is easy to hide behind a keyboard and monitor…but in the end they are real communities of real people, all trying to get to know one another a little better.  That, my friends, is why I try to behave.

Do you have any self-imposed rules or guidelines that you follow for your online communities?

Photo credit: DanBrady used under the Creative Commons License

Tweet and Retweet: A great way to share information with others

UPDATE:  I changed hosting companies since originally publishing this article, and ironically it removed the number of reweets from the plugin at the top of the post. You have to love technology sometimes!

One of the fastest and most effective ways of spreading information through Twitter is to retweet somebody.  When you see “RT” followed by a username in an update by one of your friends, that means they are retweeting somebody else…taking that person’s post and redistributing it to their own followers.  It’s rampant on Twitter, and one of the most common questions I get asked is, “what are some guidelines for retweeting, and how can I get retweeted more?”  I want to address both of those with some simple guidelines and suggestions.

How To Retweet

Retweeting somebody’s thoughts, links or pictures is the ultimate compliment on Twitter.  It says that you think enough of what they have written to share it with your followers, a pool of people that may be completely different than those of the original tweeter! It is a fantastic way to share information and ideas.  Of course you are free to retweet whatever you want, but here are some general guidelines that I think make it easier for you and those that follow you.

1. Keep it short. No need to write out “retweet” when RT will do just fine and most people will understand it.  The etiquette for this is “RT @username: the content of their original tweet”.  I very strongly recommend using a 3rd party app for Twitter as most of them let you retweet in just one click, you won’t have to retype everything like you do in the web interface.  My favorite desktop application is Tweetdeck, my favorite iPhone app is Twittelator Pro, and my favorite mobile browser “client” is Dabr.
   
2. Read what you share. Truly, this is one of my greatest annoyances…it’s very obvious when people don’t read what they retweet.  The two most painful cases of this are, first, when a person tweets a link to an article they liked and somebody retweets them within a minute or two; this isn’t nearly enough time to actually read the article! Second, I see a lot of people retweet others for #followfriday and they often are “recommending” people that they themselves do not follow.  It happens to me almost every Friday.  Please, read what you retweet, otherwise you are adding too much noise to the already busy Twitterverse.
3. Know your audience. You should have a good feel for what your followers are like…chances are, they are like you.  Naturally you are going to want to share things that are interesting to them, but in a global sense.  If all of your followers are your close, personal friends then this probably doesn’t apply to you; have at it and retweet whatever you want.  A lot of people have a mixed bag of followers that include personal friends and acquaintances online, as well as work colleagues and potential employeers.  Keep it real, keep it relevant.  Don’t retweet your 11 year old cousin’s rantings about the Hannah Montana movie just because you think they are cute…chances are nobody else will. (Confession: I saw the Hannah Montana movie this weekend and liked it.  Don’t judge me!)

How To Be Retweeted

1. 

   Some people, like @mayhemstudios, have tremendous RT power. Check Retweet Radar for others.

   Write good content. This is the number one rule for being retweeted, everything else can be worked around.  If you want to be retweeted, then write things that matter to the people that follow you.  Think about what you are interested in, what you are an expert at, or something that you have read that would be helpful to others. Short life updates, although they keep your followers informed about your daily goings-on, don’t make the rounds too often. “I just took my dog out to poop” probably isn’t going to get much retweet time.

2. Include links. Earlier this morning I saw a tweet that interested me, it was about a marketing survey. The problem, however, is that the tweet did not include a link to the article, only a vague reference that wasn’t even enough to Google.  If it had included a link I probably would have retweeted it, I think my followers would have found it very helpful.  As it is, I don’t even know if the statistics included in the tweet are true…a citation would be good.  Make sure you include links when referencing something that includes numbers, or is just interesting.  The best way to include links, since you are limited to 140 characters per update, is to use a URL shrinking service.  It takes a very long URL and makes it short.  I use Cli.gs the most, but also use TinyURL and Is.gd.
3. Know your RT character count. What do I mean by this? This is imporant, so please pay attention. Since Twitter updates are limited to 140 characters, it only makes sense that if you want to be retweeted you will need to write shorter updates than that to accommodate for “RT @yourname:”.  For example, if somebody clicks one of my post to retweet I know that it will take 17 characters (including spaces) to write “RT @mattsingley: “, so I need to keep my updates to 123 characters or fewer (quick math for you if you’re new around here: 140 (character max) – 17 (my RT count) = 123 (length of my posts)).  Just to test my theory about this, some time back I put up similar tweets with content and links, but with one set I exceeded 123 characters, and in the other I stayed under the limit.  I was retweeted 60+% more with the sub-123 character updates!

Good luck!  If you want to see some of the top retweeted info, my favorite site for this is Retweet Radar.  It lists trends, links and people that are being retweeted, and I’ve found some good information there.  If you have any retweet tips or tricks, I would love to hear about them.

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