Twitter Etiquette

I love the Twitter community.  I often find myself refreshing my browser, excited to see interesting articles people have stumbled upon, small tidbits of wisdom, or fun, character-building status updates.  In my 3 months on Twitter, I have been pretty happy with those I’ve followed.  That is, until recently.

I am admittedly a newbie to Twitter, but I already have developed a pet peeve that I believe should be considered bad Twitter etiquette – noisiness.  What do I mean by noisiness?  When someone posts a tweet every 10 minutes, I consider them to be too loud.  Essentially, they are spamming my Twitter feed.  I recently had to block someone because they were posting so much, I couldn’t read anyone else’s tweets.  This behavior is a little rude, in my opinion.

One of my favorite users on my feed is King County Executive Ron Sims.  Yes, our county executive is active on Twitter!  Better yet, he is a model Twittizen.  (Note: I thought I was clever when I came up with that, but Urban Dictionary tells me otherwise…)

So what makes Ron Sims so great to follow?  He is very active (5 or so tweets per day), but not overwhelming.  Most of his posts include a short thought followed by a link to a relevant article.  I am always learning from Ron Sims, and I feel like I know him better as a person.  If I saw him on the street, he might be a little creeped out, because I’d probably try to give him a fist bump.

In addition to his informational posts, Ron (Like I said, I feel like I’m on a first name basis with the guy) sprinkles in personal tweets that reveal his character.  One of my favorites: “Our Christmas tree is decorated and the lights are on. The tree is framed by our windows and there is snow outside. Perfect!”  I also learned he enjoyed Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Maybe I should check it out.

So thank you Ron Sims for being such a great Twittizen!  I look forward to your future tweets.