How good is your etiquette on LinkedIn?
This greast infographic by Top Dog Social Media gives you twenty do’es and don’ts!
What are your take-aways or what would you add?
Most of us have taken to utilising common courtesy when it comes to Twitter etiquette, while others feel there are many unwritten laws. This post is just some thoughts of mine that I hope helps you in your journey of this platform. Please add your examples in the comments…..
Use your profile to tell people who you are, what makes you tick and add an image of you, never something else. Before you start Tweeting let people know who they’re listening to. When someone discovers your carefully written and deeply valuable first Tweets, they’re going to come to our profile to learn more and decide if they want to follow you. If you’ve got the default icon and no info they may wait until later. Except there is no later. They’ll forget you.
Choose who you follow carefully. Look for the value add to your life, both from a personal aspect and business synergies. This is about building relationships that will in time, I promise, bear fruit.
Do not feel that you have to follow everyone following you. As I mentioned above its about value and relationships. Take time to understand who they are and if they fit into your goals. It will take time to un-follow, if they do not. In this scenario I utilise lists, thereby screening a persons content before being added in my main stream, this may work for you too.
Only direct message when absolutely necessary, do not DM someone saying “Thanks for the follow, check out this whitepaper”. When this happens to me they loose me as a follower immediately. If you really do have a fantastic white paper tell me in public and I just might re-tweet the link.
It’s not about you, you, you! Share your Tweets about people you admire (If you don’t have any find some. ) Send out links to blogs, web sites or Tweets from people that are just as smart as you. Better yet, even smarter.
Don’t keep all the good stuff you find to yourself. Add value. Share information through links. Add a very short and clear description so we know what to expect when we get there. When you write a Tweet make sure there is room for it to get re-tweeted. That means leave at least 20-40 characters at the end so when someone re-tweets it to their network they don’t have to shorten your Tweet.
Say please and thank you. Always thank people for re-tweeting or mentioning you. It doesn’t have to be a reply, it can be a direct message or even an e-mail or a phone call. Let them know you appreciate their time and sharing your Tweet with their network.
Give credit to the source. If you have found a great article find the author on Twitter and say something like “Awesome post from @chrisbrogan. Same thing with re-tweets. Give the Tweeter credit, either say RT @markwschaefer and then quote the tweet verbatim, I for instance choose to get the information to the reader quicker and take to adding “via @markwschaefer” at the end of the Tweet.
Be personal, but remember you’re in public. Don’t say things you’ll regret and never in the heat of the moment.
Be transparent. If your Twitter persona is for a corporation or your looking for a job, let people know either in your profile or by your tweets. The more open you are about who you are and why you’re on Twitter the better.
Be open minded. When you create your new Twitter network of pals think out of the box. Listen carefully for people talking about things that interest you in other niches. If you only talk about one subject with people they get bored with you. Branch out. Talk about your hobbies and follow people doing things you always wanted to do. Someday you might get the opportunity to do something through one of your new buddies.
What other hints and tips do you have to share with the world.
When I am presenting to teams about the use of LinkedIn one question that always gets asked is “How do i sync my Twitter account with LinkedIn?”. So I thought I would write a quick post.
If you are not familiar with this option on LinkedIn, it basically allows you to connect LinkedIn to your Twitter feed and then automatically post all of your tweets to LinkedIn as updates.
Here is what it looks like when you send a tweet to LinkedIn…
You’ll notice that next to the name it says “via Twitter”. If you scan through your updates, you will probably see quite a few of these auto-posted tweets.
Like many things in social media, there are no steadfast laws or rules about what you can and can’t do in situations like this, only opinions and best practices. That said, I personally don’t think people should auto-post tweets to LinkedIn and here are 3 reasons why:
Frequency
The number of times most people tweet on a daily basis are far greater the number of times most experts say you should post updates on LinkedIn. The recommended frequency for tweeting is about 5-10 times per day according to some experts, while many LinkedIn Gurus agree that you should post updates no more than 1-2 times per day.
If I wanted to sift through 1000s of tweets per day from my connections, I would follow them on Twitter and do it there. I want my LinkedIn update stream to be clean and uncluttered so I can interact with my connections on a more personal level, which is why I generally will hide updates from my LinkedIn connections if they are auto-posting more than a few tweets a day.
Etiquette
The etiquette and terminology on the two platforms are completely different. Many people on LinkedIn don’t know what a hashtag is or what RT means. They aren’t familiar with #followfriday or #musicmonday. They could be confused when they see me referred to as @social_ben instead of my full name.
Twitter has a language of its own and doesn’t always translate very well for non-twitter users, which make up a majority of LinkedIn’s demographic. Heck, I’ve been on Twitter for 3 years and I still don’t understand what some peoples’ tweets say.
Shareability
This is my #1 reason not to auto-post tweets to LinkedIn.
Why would I want to Favorite, Retweet or Reply to your LinkedIn update on Twitter? Many auto-tweets I see have good content, usually an article or quote that I WOULD like to share with my LinkedIn connections… but I can’t because they are tweets, not direct updates.
A Few Alternatives
It only takes a few extra seconds to jump on LinkedIn and post an update directly. I suggest you pick 1 or 2 of your best tweets each day, remove all the # and @ twitter references and update your LinkedIn profile like it was meant to be updated, directly from LinkedIn’s homepage.
You could also use a Social Media Management Tool like Hootsuite to send updates to both Twitter and LinkedIn at the same time. Just remember that your update is going to LinkedIn as well so try to limit the tweet-speak.
If you just can’t live without tweeting to LinkedIn, you could at least change your setting so that only tweets that include #in or #li will be shown in your LinkedIn updates. I’ll make it VERY easy for you to do this… just click here to go directly to your Twitter settings in LinkedIn and check the box that says “Share only tweets that contain #in (#li also works) in your LinkedIn status.”
Do you agree with me? Can you think of other reasons why you should not (or should) auto-post tweets to LinkedIn?
I am addicted to Twitter.
In fact my addiction is bigger than just this one site. If I had the time I would be everywhere. Why? For me its the buzz that someone somewhere finds the information I provide of value. So how do I get my fix? These consist of ReTweets, Comments and mentions.
But lets get back to Twitter, I love it, it has given us all a way of communicating in a completely new fashion. But what is the etiquette for this fast paced, communication platform.
Whilst its seen that newcomers to this platform can often make choices that could be perceived in a negative manner that could result in an unfollow of a block, believe me, the most experienced users can often trip up too.
So with the above question in mind, what is Twitter etiquette? Here are some guidelines, not law and least of all dont take my word for it.
-A complete bio and picture – yours (everyone likes faces) is always a good move. We like to see whom we are talking to. As a side note, make sure its the same in all your other platforms, consistency folks.
-If your Twitter is going to have mentions of your day job, list your employer in your profile.
-Don’t worry about the new stalking law, its ok to follow people you don’t know.
-It’s ok to unfollow, your not saying “I don’t like you”.
-Keep the conversation open, to a point, use the @reply function, you will find others may share their opinions or perspective.
-Use direct message when the conversation is more focused, personal or evolves to 1:1 planning.
-Don’t direct message someone you hardly know with automated messages. They may see it as SPAM.
-Remove auto update from location notification apps. You know the one I mean.
-We don’t like to see that you’ve gained 300 followers by using something.com services. Better to gain followers from valued content.
-Promoting others and talking with others is a great way of raising you visibity.
-That goes for blurting your information all the time it is not considered community sharing.
-More information on replies. Turn “Yes” into “Yes, I enjoyed the latest Bond movie too”.
-You don’t have to read every tweet.
-You don’t have to respond to every mention.
-The more you can respond though the more people tend to stay with you.
-It’s ok to have multiple twitter accounts.
-It’s OK to actively BLOCK followers you don’t want following you.
-If you’re running a customer service Twitter account, it’s polite to follow back the people following you.
-Check your links before you tweet them!
So these are my thoughts on guidelines. I look forward to seeing the comments on your advice to Twitters old and new