During our weekly meeting with the iCMEs (Internet Conversational Marketing Experts), we went over our progress report for the previous week regarding Facebook, Twitter and blog analytics.

As I was reading off each individual iCMEs stats for Twitter, including their followers, following, klout score and updates, I realized that one of the iCMEs had lost a follower from the previous week. Knowing exactly the probable, I stated how they may have forgotten to thank that particular Twitter user for following them (2-3 days after they started to follow) and they decided to unfollow. I learned from Nate Riggs that heavily engaged Twitter users will check their accounts daily and manage their accounts to the ultimate optimization. So in that particular follower’s eyes, they followed the iCME, there was no response for 2 days, and they took it that the iCME was an inactive user and unfollowed.

Surprisingly enough, this was a type of “Twitter etiquette” that was new to the iCMEs, since they weren’t aware people would actually unfollow someone due to those circumstances. As I continued to answer the questions they had about Twitter, while also relaying dos and don’ts, as well as tips and tricks to better optimize their accounts, they suggested I actually write a blog post about this type of etiquette on Twitter to help people who may not know. I couldn’t have agreed more.

Following Meredith’s series on How to be Conversational Online with Facebook and Blogs, I wanted to make sure I could touch on the importance of the types of conversations going on within Twitter and how to properly engage. At first, Twitter can be overwhelming, and I initially thought it was much more than I wanted to do or deal with. However, HootSuite can dramatically change the way you look at Twitter. Again, there are different levels of conversation on Twitter, depending on your goal for establishing your account, so let’s look at this from the perspective of a professional Twitter user:

• Word Travels Fast: One of the most impactful things about Twitter is how easily your message can be delivered, spread and magnified. If I wrote a new blog post on how I have increased productivity by prioritizing my tasks (based on urgency) and tweeted the link, it would go out to the 785 followers that I currently have associated with that account. But, if @nateriggs retweeted (RTs) the same message and link, my blog post has now been made available to his 18,186 followers. So make sure before tweeting anything that you are comfortable and capable of delivering your message to a large, mass audience.

• Your Tweeple: The people on Twitter, or Tweeple, frequently do not enjoy having conversations with corporations or organizations. Twitter is a very personalized message-delivery network, so encompassing wide corporate tweets may get little or no response (unless using some sort of promotion). A lot of times, you will see the individual personalize themselves within the company through their account name or signature. We have @InceptResults and @InceptSaves, but we have been utilizing our personal accounts, @timothy_incept and @stephen_incept to make the connections with other content engineers. People like to feel as though they’re speaking with an actual person and be able to personalize with that person, as opposed to speaking with a company as a whole and every or anyone who may generate content  for said company. Think of this as the difference between having a technical problem on the phone solved via a live customer service rep and an automated response.
• A Lot of Content: Saying there is a lot of content on Twitter would be an understatement, at best. Whenever you send a personalized message to someone, they may not be able to respond back to you immediately (which is understandable, especially for someone who has a large number of people they follow). So once you have sent a message, leave it at that. Try not to be overly persistent. You are more than welcome to respond back in a few hours or send a direct message (DM) if there is an urgent issue. Otherwise, there is a good chance your message will be responded to after they have gone through all of their mentions. For any urgent or high priority action items that you need to get out, it’s best to stick with your primary e-mail source.
• 3:1 Ratio: Another important grain of wisdom that Nate Riggs gave me – from the vast fields of knowledge he possesses in this particular field – is to always mention and thank people three times as much as you ever mention yourself. The most powerful impact you can make on Twitter is giving recognition to someone else or for someone else. Not only does it show that you are able to highlight what someone else is doing (which can often be the most powerful aspect) but that you are putting yourself both in a position to receive appreciation for that recognition and have your recognition RTed by them to all of their followers. If the tweeted topic is popular enough, it has the potential to be retweeted several times by individuals you may not be following at all. For example:

RT @timothy_Incept: RT @Stephen_Incept: RT @PublicityGuru: The Top 150 Social Media, PR & Marketing Blogs:http://bit.ly/9pGFFP

As this increasing social network continues to boom and diversify itself from the other engagement-driven social networks, you can guarantee there will always be new tricks to learn and new ways of making content engineering more impactful on your customers and efficient for your employees. I severely underestimated the power of Twitter initially and now use it to its fullest potential.

How is your Twit-etiquette?

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