This is a guest post from Ingrid Abboud.
You’re at a dinner and someone compliments the outfit that took you 20 minutes to pick out. What do you say?
You’ve written an article which took you 15 minutes to research and another 30 minutes to write. Your friend likes it and shares it with some of his friends. What do you say?
Besides the Ghost Busters tune that’s now ringing in your head, err…at least in mine, do you get where I’m going with this?
Great, I had no doubt that you would.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching on how you should live your life and this is NOT another post on Twitter Etiquettes.
Let’s face it, we’ve all read enough of those to conclude for ourselves that:
- Although there are preferred tweeting methods and friendly guidelines – there is no specific, agreed upon, set of rules.
- Your technique may rock for you and your twitterverse – but it may suck for others.
- No matter what and how you tweet – you can’t please everyone.
- Common sense and courtesy may not always be applied. But then again, you should already know that by simply being alive.
Common Courtesy
Speaking of common courtesy, how many of you say “thank you” for retweets when you think it’s appropriate?
“Joey put your hand down for Pete’s sake, this isn’t grade school! I know you do.”
“Troy, don’t think I haven’t noticed you cheers’ing me in the @mentions a few times .”
“And Danny, we all know that behind the badass facade, is the most genuine of nice guys who never takes his friends and readers for granted.”
Now, if you know me well enough, you know that I say “thank you” somehow.
I may miss a few here and there, and that’s okay. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try my best. Hell, I even say “thank you” for #FF’s, especially if someone’s gone the extra step and added a little something to it.
It’s common courtesy folks and it goes a long way.
If someone’s taken the time to read and RT an article of mine, I’m gonna take 5 seconds to thank them – either through a @reply or a DM. Although, I don’t know whether they actually read it or not, I do know that for whatever reason, they thought it worthy of sharing.
So what do I do?
@DannyBrown: Hey Bonsai Boy. Thanks a lot for the RT on my Bring IT! post. Have a great week. Cheers.
That took all of 5 seconds to type.
Was it painful? No! Was it polite? Yes! Does it express my gratitude? Yes! Will Danny appreciate it? Probably.
Now if you plan on arguing that some people get RT’d 700 times and that it’s hard to keep up then, sure…I hear you and I agree. But let me ask you this – how many of you reading this piece get their blog posts retweeted 700 times? 300 times?
Hmm…that’s what I thought; not many.
Unless you’re someone like Godin, Brogan, Clark or Rowse, I sincerely doubt that the twitterverse goes into “RT-mania mode” every time you publish a post. But in case it does, then spill your guts and tell me your potion, cause I’m jealous but I’m all ears!
Clutter, Schmutter
Do “thank you’s” clutter a stream?
Well, if you’re looking at it that way, then everything is clutter. The noise is everywhere you turn. Twitter is one big chatter box and if you don’t like it then I suggest you consider a different “non-social” information network.
Seeing “thank you’s” in someone’s stream, only enhances it. It shows they’re human; it means they interact and care. Because if they didn’t give a whoop about their posts being retweeted, they wouldn’t have a tweet button on their blog now, would they?
In his panel discussion with Joe Hackman, Danny Brown said, “You’re only as influential as your audience allows you to be.”
How long do you think your audience will stick around if you don’t show them you’re listening or that you appreciate them? Granted, there are many other ways to do so.
That being said, I don’t hold it against you if you don’t thank me on Twitter. You’re probably doing something else that I like. After all, we all have our different ways or techniques that work for us.
Suh..weet Alternatives
So, if you’re not the “thank you” type of Twitterer for whatever reason – why not consider doing something else to show your appreciation?
Here are a few great alternatives which I sometimes use that work just as well.
- Visit their blog and RT one of their posts
- Leave a comment on a post I enjoyed
- Subscribe to their blog
- Link to a noteworthy article that they wrote
- Give them an #FF shout out
- Follow them back if I don’t already (if their Twitter profile interests me)
- Vote for their blog post on SERPd
- Stumble one of their blog posts
- If I like their writing style, I can invite them to guest post for me (once I open my blog for GP’s)
Now it’s your turn to share…
Do you thank people when they RT your blog post?
Does it depend on who RT’d it?
What else do you do to reciprocate the gesture?
About the author: Ingrid Abboud aka ‘Griddy’ is a whole lot of things with a ridiculous amount of interests. For one, I’m a Social Media enthusiast with a tremendous passion for writing and blogging. I’m also a pretty cool Copywriter but a more serious MarCom Consultant. But most of all, I’m the proud owner and driving force behind nittyGriddy.com – A Kinda Social Media Journal with entertaining SM ramblings, Net News & more. You can follow Ingrid on Twitter @nittyGriddyBlog.
image: NguyenDai
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