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The 6 R’s of Twitter

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After getting inspired by a blog post of a great guy I know on twitter @DannyBrown who wrote about I’s of social media in his blog post Putting the I in Social Media. I decided to write my own personal version of twitter. “Putting the R in twitter”. I’m just kidding, mine is about the R’s that personally helped me a lot in twitter and I feel it is something all of us should have. Sure we don’t have to follow all the R’s of twitter. However I think that there are a few that we should all follow. The three main R’s. Respond, Respect and Retweet.

Respond

Respond is one of the most important attitude which is a MUST have on twitter. I talked about this more in a blog post by @BarryckR at How Twitter Giants Manage Their Time Lines. I mentioned “IF you don’t have the heart or the attitude to talk or engage. Don’t be on social media”  Sure sometimes its hard to respond to every single tweet however it is better to reply to ONE tweet than ignoring all but try your best to responds to them as soon as you receive them. If its too late, try sending them a DM answering their questions or so. By using DM it makes your feeds less cluttered and avoid annoying people.

Respect

Respect every single people that follows you. Respect is as important as responding to your followers. Everyone wants to be respected, you have to earn your respect by respecting others first. Don’t try to earn them, instead give them with your heart. People will notice it. However don’t try so hard to please everyone. Its hard sometimes as people don’t always see things your way. Stick to what you say but don’t ignore others either.

Retweet

My personal favorite of all R’s, retweeting. Retweeting is important. Why? Because by sending ONE retweet you help TWO type of people.

  1. The Original Source – Most of them appreciate when you share their blog post. They will even send you a tweet or a DM. People on twitter are friendly.
  2. The People Following You -They love when you share with them something useful that they can connect with. Sometimes they will RT it if it is something they think can benefit people who are following them.

Ohh… Did i mention you get Retweets in return if they find your blog post entertaining or beneficial? They will even help you retweet your other tweets too.

Research

Want to know bout something? Research them by asking your fellow followers. People on twitter are extremely helpful. I sent out a tweet the other day asking information about linkedin groups. Within 5 minutes I’ve gotten a few replies from people recommending social media groups on linkedin. One of my followers who took the time to help me in linked in was @AskDebra which recommended me to join a group.

Relax

After a long day of work, you should relax by using twitter and connecting with your family if they are on twitter, connecting with your friends, and networking with new people. Of course don’t forget that you have people around you that loves you too. My tip to all this is, if you don’t feel like going on twitter, don’t force yourself to. If you feel exhausted, don’t worry, we all have those days. @AdamConsulting wrote a blog post on how to overcome social media burnout. Twitter is about having FUN FUN FUN by connecting and sharing.

Repeat

Repeat the R’s everyday if you have time to spend on twitter. It takes 5 minutes to reply people, 5 minutes to retweet and the others R’s might take you another 10 minutes if you have a busy schedule. Get applications for mobile to take your twitter on the go. You can even reply people while waiting for the bus or get latest news to retweet while waiting or if you have time on your hands.

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Comments

  1. Ok, A great post we have in here, 6 R's of twitter, I love the Respond, Respect and Retweet specially. The 6 Rs are more like a chain, if a link is missing the Chain is broken.
    Great Work buddy, you still owe me 1$ 😛

  2. Nice R's .. I would prefer 2 R LOL! Just kiddin..

    Besides that, Yes are truly the “R”s everyone should keep their mind on when they tweet! Nice work.

  4. It feels good to follow the R's of Twitter and you have come up with 6 R's 🙂 Good one's 🙂

    By the way, I guess you have just misspelled the Twitter handle of Diana , it's @adamsconsulting buddy 😉

  11. I would like to add another 'R' if you don't mind. Read. The reason I say this is that when I first started using Twitter I would RT like mad but mainly because I was trying to impress the person who had Tweeted rather than because of the quality of the content!

    Now that I am a bit more relaxed about the whole thing I find that it's much more satisfying to actually read the post first and then RT if you think it has value. I guess that the author of the post appreciates the fact that I have taken the time to do that and to add a comment as well. (Like you do now hopefully!)

    Interesting post Aaron, thanks

    Tony

  12. Thank you Tony, that is a great “R”. I will be adding that in the future and crediting you too. Yes I do agree that it is better to read first before retweeting them, I do that most of the time and it helps. One of my best strategy is actually to read the blog post, commenting on them, as well as tweeting the person and telling them that I enjoyed reading the blog post or tweeting them what I thought about their blog post. It helped me a lot in terms of networking.

    Thanks for the new R Tony,

    Cheers,
    Aaron

  16. Hi Aaron.

    This post is very refreshing! I liked how you put it all into one great outline and branch off on each. I agree with @Tony that reading is something that's needed as well. I'm just going to have to REWIND this process when I go back out on twitter. 🙂

  17. Great post! I definitely agree with Tony's seventh R: Read. I find that I go to my Google Reader a lot less often now that I've divided twitter people that I follow into areas of interest. I rely on them to point me to relevant information that I want to know about. (Maybe Relevance is another R?)

    In terms of respect, as you have a lot of twitter followers, how do you personally respect all of them? It seems to be that twitter becomes unmanageable after a while if you try to develop relationships with most of your followers. I'd like to hear more about how you create relationships with large number of followers. In some ways, I see that as the biggest “respect” challenge, and one I personally struggle with as well.

    Thanks, also for the nice shout out in the post. Hope you're enjoying the group 🙂

  18. Great post! I definitely agree with Tony's seventh R: Read. I find that I go to my Google Reader a lot less often now that I've divided twitter people that I follow into areas of interest. I rely on them to point me to relevant information that I want to know about. (Maybe Relevance is another R?)

    In terms of respect, as you have a lot of twitter followers, how do you personally respect all of them? It seems to be that twitter becomes unmanageable after a while if you try to develop relationships with most of your followers. I'd like to hear more about how you create relationships with large number of followers. In some ways, I see that as the biggest “respect” challenge, and one I personally struggle with as well.

    Thanks, also for the nice shout out in the post. Hope you're enjoying the group 🙂

  19. Excellent article and references.. I've read them all.. and also agree w/Tony. READ!

    And in some ways that leads to a related “R”, Responsibility… at least that's the way I look at it.. I have a responsibility to read what I RT, otherwise.. I shouldn't be passing it on.. it's not a true “reference”/”referral” then.. and I have to respect the readers of my feed/followers, & they trust that what I post & share & RT has value and that I'm not posting crap. And to that end I use the “original” RT #TR pretty much only (unless no other option), & add a comment/”reflection” to provide some insight/reason why I am sharing, what I like/dislike, etc..

    Hmm.. I think I've inadvertently added about another 4-5 “R's” here… might be time to write that blog on this topic that I've been meaning to and add & build upon what you & everyone has already shared!

    Thanks,
    Michelle.

  24. I really love this post! One “R” that I wish more people on Twitter were that you do very well Aaron, is to be REAL. I love when people are REAL on Twitter and not pretend to be someone they are not. You showed me you were REAL one time I was in need of a friend and I will never forget that.
    Thank you for all you do.
    your friend,
    Blanca

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