Twitter Etiquette and Me

The definition of etiquette is proper social behavior, and according to Derek Blass (thank you Derek for all your helpful tips) in his blog post a while back, one should always thank another when they retweet your tweet—but I had to give up on that. I was spending most of my time thanking folks, and didn't have time to do much of anything else while on Twitter. So, what I decided to do was retweet, retweet, retweet. That's my way of saying thanks. I hope y'all don't think it's rude of me. And if I miss retweeting for you, I will catch you later. Also, I read the tweets, and then I click over to blogs, websites, and whatever is of interest to me. Isn't that the point? I don't just retweet for the sake of retweeting. I do it because I think you have something worth reading that others might also like. So, that's my excuse for not saying thanks anymore to all the folks who retweet for me. I do appreciate it, so please don't think I don't. My thanks will be in the form of a retweet for you.

Now to the subject of who I follow. I follow people who interest me, so if I don't follow you, feel free to unfollow me. If you speak a foreign language, I don't follow you. I can count to ten and I know one sentence in Spanish, and a few words in Latin. That's the extent of my understanding any language other than English. And... I don't follow people who use really foul language. It's not necessary, and it's not fun to read. I did not follow the funeral home that was following me. Sorry, but I don't want to read your tweets about coffins and planning my last goodbyes. Life is hard enough as it is without reading that stuff first thing in the morning.

To be honest, most of the people I follow are writers (*but not all). They post great tips on everything from improving your writing skills to telling you about a great book they've read. I take what I've read, bounce it around in my head, and then decide for myself if its for me. Like the time a guy posted on his blog that you should never sell your books on your website. What? For several years I've been selling my books through my website, because that's where the traffic goes. Remember the purpose of the internet highway? Now, I wouldn't sell my books on my blog (don't even know if I could). That's why I have a website. My website is my livelihood. My blog is for fun.

Just like Twitter. Twitter should be fun, entertaining, and a way to meet people. When it becomes a chore, I'm done. And, when I'm on Twitter, I'm live. I don't do pay-for-tweets. Where's the social connection in that? It might work for others, but its not for me. I guess if I had a gazillion followers I might do it, but since I don't, when I tweet, I'm there in person.

Think I'm a Twitter snob? I'm not. I'm just honest. I want to have fun, talk with people, and then move on to something else. Fighting or arguing on Twitter? No thanks. I have better things to do.

To all those who are following me, tks for the #follow, and I hope you enjoy what I have to say. I want to learn something from you and hope you'll learn something from me. My Twitter etiquette might not be the best, but my social behavior will always be proper. So... let's tweet and enjoy the moment.

P.S. The photo above was a photo shot. I don't really do my writing outside on my laptop... and my dogs don't usually sit still like that. Thanks, Alex Carrier, Photographer/Journalist for being able to get my dogs to do what I couldn't.