How to Write Kickass Twitter Posts

BL, you do a good job of setting up your practices for "business" and "professional" tweets. But for those of us who choose to mix up "personal" twittering throughout the dat, some of those practices will not be followed. Like reading an RSS feed, sometimes you gloss over those that have no appeal to you, but are always on the lookout for something that will be a benefit.

Randy

Ok you are right - what someone had for breakfast doesn't make a great tweet. But the brilliance of Twitter is that you build a picture of the personal lives and personalities of people you hardly know at the same time as piecing together what their professional lives are all about. I can say stuff about my business on twitter that I could not say at a live business networking event. A different culture.

Yeah, I always get attacked when I state the "rules" or even the "values" that guide effective use of a web object, blogging, or socnets.

Some people use Twitter for promoting their own crap, like Guy Kawasaki. Always tweeting links to his moronic Truemors rumor mill site.

Others use Twitter to just chat about mundane, irrelevant, private matters.

Many use Twitter to assert their alleged celebrity status, by only tweeting about what airport they're in and what stupid boring technology conference they're attending (drunkenly).

A few use Twitter to report news, share valuable insights, link to relevant sites, link to other people's blog posts, and to ask questions or express feelings that others can relate to.

The worst is primary or exclusive use fo Twitter for self-promotion. The trivia I can ignore and be happy people are connecting. But the psycho-capitalist self-promotions are really annoying.

Actually, I might want to know what Rachael Ray had for breakfast... :)

Whether it's business tweeting, personal tweeting, or a mixture, the best way to approach things is to ask yourself, "Am I making a contribution to my community?" If you're generally contributing, you you should be OK.

Oh, and don't steal; give credit where credit is due.

Also some people might be twittering to their family and close friends, who very well indeed want to know they're eating cheerios for breakfast and not doughnuts.