whytwitter™ “Don’t spam people” advice

It’s no secret that one of the keys to Twitter monetizing their service is charging businesses for a premium service. But now we have TwitFilter. First read on. Twitter took a step in that direction by launching Twitter 101.  Twitter 101 is primarily targeted to businesses who are new to Twitter.  It includes tips for getting started on Twitter, tips on Twitter lingo, best practices, and several case studies. But hey – suddenly we have messages we certainly haven’t asked for.

The Best Practices section contains specific guidelines about Twitter Spam:

Don’t spam people. Twitter’s following model means that you have to respect the interests and desires of other people here or they’ll unfollow you. The most common way to run afoul of that understanding—and to thus look like a spammer—is to send unsolicited @messages or DMs, particularly when you include a promotional link.

Of course, if you run an account that focuses explicitly on sharing exclusive coupon codes or sale information, you’re probably just fine posting promos. But tread carefully, and consider explaining in your bio or background how the account works.

Luckily, even the Twitter technology has moved on; trying to be a ‘Spam Free Zone’.  Masterminds of Internet and Social Marketing – including Orangeleads, I-Net, Digg, Facebook, etc said: “Marketing is ok – spamming is wrong!” “Marketing Gurus”  have agreed that it is not in their interest to send, duplicate, re-tweet or even twitter useless messages which actually only damages reputation and confidence in their potential customer base. That’s new, too.

If new, there are a few a tips: Test the waters by sending just a few promos to start, and then continuing only if people show interest.

To make sure you’re not spamming folks, we also suggest you avoid the following:

• Posting duplicate updates to an account: Posting the same update over and over throughout the day is considered spammy and a possible violation of our terms of service.

• Cross-posting duplicate updates to multiple accounts: If you post the same update to multiple accounts, you could violate our terms of service.

• Following churn: Following and unfollowing the same people repeatedly, as well as following and unfollowing those who don’t follow back, are both violations of our terms of service.

Some people are sceptical about Twitter 101.  Robert Scoble posted this comment on TechCrunch:

I thought that Twitter was so simple that it doesn’t need an instruction manual. Is this why twitter is going to beat Facebook

We rather do what Apple is doing: Focus on featuring the best uses of Twitter (in a directory/store) and stop with trying to make a guide. Is there a guide like this for the iPhone? No.

Twitter has a control problem: They seem to want to reward people for certain behaviours (ala the Suggested User List, which has mostly brands and celebrities on it) while trying to get the rest of us to “behave” and “Twitter properly.” That isn’t the attitude of a mature platform.

“Oh and why aren’t they fixing search instead of doing this lame stuff? Search isn’t indexing old tweets and is full of spam and noise. Fix that stuff and businesses will figure out the model on their own. Look at TwitFilter!”

We are less sceptical.  Some businesses don’t get Twitter right away and we are in favour of any efforts that point businesses in the right direction.

But, as said before – new technology kids are around. TwitFilter is definitely the way forward. Eliminating all sorts of nonsense on our phone, Laptop or Netbook – TwitFilter is bringing it almost to the level of “text message” from people you know. Very impressive and highly recommended. Considering that the same technology has already been integrated into the Google Wave module, we might have a “win-win” situation  – that is – if you are not a spammer.

Comments welcome. @why_tweat