How Not To Use Twitter.
Could this be the most blogger esque flatlay I've ever taken? I think so.
Twitter - the only time in which you can promote your blog in one sentence and talk about what you had for breakfast in the next (and probably get more likes for the breakfast). We all love to hate Twitter, we bitch about it, we berate the 'community' but we all rely on it for our promotion, and for communicating and connecting with like minded people.
There are definitely ways in which you can use Twitter to your advantage, and be successful at it - namely being a babe and being ace at scheduling tweets. But there are definitely some ways in which you should not being using Twitter. I spoke to my blogging gals and together we came up with a few of our pet hates to help you avoid making a Twitter faux par.
1. Automated DM's (Melberry)
The ultimate Twitter sin. Not only are they massively annoying but they're basically against Twitter's rules and regulations these days so you're literally just being a bellend. No we don't want to follow you 'babe' and this message makes me want to even less, do one.
2. Being a creep (ItsSarahAnn).
If you're a 40something man from Syria who's never tweeted and only follows 20something female bloggers then hun you're blocked quicker than you can say 'fake account'. Just leave it out, we don't like it, we won't communicate with you and if you like our Instagram or Facebook too we're going to report it.
3. Follow Unfollow.
We. Can. See. You. I see you following me every week without fail and no I won't be following you. I sussed you out the first time you followed and I don't like your content soz - following me 10 times in the hope I'll reciprocate just ain't gunna cut it.
4. Trolling.
I mean what even goes through your head? Don't send hate, don't go looking for people to prey on, don't be rude.....in the words of The Last Leg; don't be a dick. We don't like you.
5. Wading in on drama (WordsByNina).
I feel like this is particularly pertinent these days with everything going on the blogging community. If there's 'drama' because someone called someone out or someone said something offensive then it's between them, the rest of Twitter don't need to wade in and form some kinda witch hunt. And then all the 3092847 tweets after the drama is over about the drama.
6. Not communicating.
Babe we can all see you only replying to people over a certain following. We all started somewhere, we all came from 2 followers to 2K and upwards. You're not Zoella you can definitely reply to the smaller blogger who tweeted you asking a question or saying something complimentary.
7. Only promoting (HannahEmilyLane).
There IS too much as over promoting your blog content, the people lie. I promote a lot, I promote 10 times a day minimum and sometimes more like 20 - promoting is the way your blog gets seen and your products get bought. But if you're not also tweeting about life, about blogging, tweeting off the cuff and socialising the promotion is just too much.
8. Spamming.
Similar to the point above - over promoting is spamming. See also commenting on a thread with your youtube channel link for no reason, not taking part in a chat and then sharing your latest post at the end and retweeting prize winning tweets every. fucking. minute.
9. Indirecting (Sparkleberry).
(Also a bug bear of mine FYI) When there's drama is when you see the most of it, indirecting is tweeting about someone or about something they said but without @ them. It's shady, we can still see it, have the balls to have it out if you've got something negative to say.
10. Repeating (Sparkleberry)
When something goes viral don't tweet it out and pretend you came up with it. We've all seen the original cos it's got 45.6K retweets and you've had 3, you just look like a wally.
11. Not following (WordsByNina)
So sure sometimes you just won't follow us because we're not your cup of tea - that's fine, we all go through that. Sometimes you just assume you're following someone only to find out you're not - we all do that too. But sometimes we talk all the time in chats, you like all our tweets and you send us fun GIFs on our birthdays and yet you still won't follow us. What do we have to do?
12. Buying followers and using bots.
Bit of a topical one no? Don't follow 39047892374 people and then subtly unfollow a week later when they've all followed back - it's not subtle we all saw you. Don't buy followers, don't use bots, build your following organically and just be authentic ya know?
It's all common sense, don't be a douche, be nice, be friendly and share the odd photo of your pet and you'll be grand.
