What NOT to do on Twitter

VDC engages folks on Twitter for one of our clients and individually - if you are considering or already using Twitter for your organization, this list of what not to do on Twitter by B.L. Ochman is very useful. A lot of these "don'ts" apply mainly to businesses, but they are good lessons for nonprofits and activists as well.

The advice on the list I think is most important is that your main goal should be to be interesting and add value to the community - try to make only every few tweets about your organization specifically. In between promoting the work of your group, link to interesting articles about your subject and retweet and respond to folks talking about it. Most importantly, "listen" to what is being said on all sides of the discussion - you can search for key terms and monitor conversation in real time. Doing this will postition your org as trusted and useful to people who care about your cause - if all goes well, in turn, these followers will share your content and message with their friends who may not be as familiar.

Remember, principles for engaging people on Twitter are similar to all social media tools: the quality of your relationships and interaction matters more than the quanitity.