Twitter Faux Pas

Photographer: Tina Phillips

When you RT your friends, please don’t cut off the person who originated the info. It’s not good twitter etiquette and the person you cut off will not forget it. A few days ago, I RTd a tweep on some great photography he had researched. A friend of mine RTd me, cut off his name and just used my name. Then others who knew him ended up RTing the photographs, giving me credit for it. And although I really do appreciate the fact that they went out of their way and RTd me, I was embarrassed at the same time. Because had it not been for the originator, I would have never had that link to begin it.

A few days after that, I had spend time researching some info on the book industry. When I posted it, a magazine RTd my info and I thanked them. Then as I was going through a list of my tweeps to see if they had interesting info for me to RT, I noticed a tweep who had cut off my name and kept the magazine’s name. This was really irritating since I was the one who had researched the story.

So, why did the above two tweeple had committed a faux pas? Perhaps because they wanted to make sure that their tweets had enough room in case someone wanted to RT them. In such cases, one has 3 choices. One, if the tweet takes up too much space, then don’t RT it or abbreviate it. Two, as painful as it may be, it’s always better to keep the name of the originator of the story and get rid of your friend’s name. Three, you may choose to tweet it twice once with name of your friend and once with the name of the originator. I realize this is a lot of work but in the long run, you’ll see that it’s worth it as it adds credibility to your tweets, your name and your business. And by the way, I am guilty of doing the same thing in past and had to learn not to do this because it was not the appropriate thing to do. Cheers and happy tweeting.