Another video highlight from 2009 I am now posting on this blog is my "How (Not) to Behave on Twitter" video. I taped this when I was in a bit of a pissed off mood about some common misbehaviors on Twitter I find particularly annoying. But after the fact, I thought there was some decent stuff on this video on the best ways to use Twitter to your advantage if you’re an SAP professional, and maybe a few laughs besides.

When I posted this on the SAP Community Network, I said, about the video, "In this unforgiving yet low key rant, Jon Reed of JonERP.com presents, for Twitter users, ‘how not to behave’ on Twitter if you want to use it for business - either for your employer or yourself." That’s a pretty good summary of what you’re about to see. Oh, and if you want to track me on Twitter and ask me quesions in real time, find me at @jonerp.

If you have any Twitter "dont’s" you’d like to share after watching this video, feel free to post it in the blog comments here. There’s one thing I maybe didn’t make perfectly clear in this video either, which is the issue of replies. So, for clarity: if you want to promote someone’s work, starting your Tweet with @username is not the best way to do it, because the only people that will see this reply are those who follow both you and the person you are replying to.

This can be confusing because if you go to my Twitter profile for example, and look at my JonERP timeline, you will see the replies I have made to other people on my timeline - including people you may or may not follow. All my replies are there. However: if you do choose to follow me, when my new Tweets come out, you will ONLY see the replies to those you are following also. I believe this is the source of the confusion on this feature. It used to be that you could configure Twitter to show you all the replies of the people you are following, but no more.

The lesson to be derived is this: if you want to promote someone or thank them for a good piece of content or a good piece of advice, don’t start the Tweet with an @username reply. I get around this in a number of ways - for example, I might just begin a Tweet with "Hey @username - I really liked your…." This ensures that all my followers will see the Tweet in question and know that I respect this particular user.

Also, I don’t personally like the new auto-ReTweet that much. In moderation it’s ok, but I don’t really like seeing weird people in my timeline I don’t follow personally. But more importantly, I like some context with my ReTweets. I like it when people add their own little tweak or comment to a ReTweet. Note also that if you do a manual RT (the old fashioned way), it’s easier for the person you are ReTweeting to see that you are ReTweeting them because it shows up in their replies. There’s a couple different formats I’ve seen for adding context to a ReTweet. One is to put your own comment first. The other is to put your own comment at the end.

I like the format of putting your comment at the end. Two reasons: first, we are accustomed to reading forward, not backward, so why not put the concept you are riffing on first? Second, putting your own comment first, to me, goes against the spirit of the ReTweet, which is not to showcase your own view but someone else’s. I do follow some folks who put their own takes first, but I must say it tends to grate on me. But hey, at least it’s a manual ReTweet!

Here’s the contrast. Putting your comment first (the format that grates on me)

Like I said, experience matters. RT @jonerp remember that SAP certification is most effective when combined with hands-on project work.

The one thing about this format is that it’s more efficient, as you don’t have to use any extra characters. To ReTweet the way I prefer, you have to use some characters to mark your text from the original Tweet. For quite a long time now, I’ve been using @dahowlett’s simple >>> format.

Here’s an example of that format, same content as above:

RT @jonerp remember that SAP certification is most effective when combined with hands-on project work. >>> like I said, experience matters.

Notice how conceptually this flows better. I put the person I want to ReTweet as the focal point, and my snide comment or reaction comes after. Some people have fancier symbols than >>>, whatever your smartphone can handle easily seems to be the key for many.

I’m also not crazy about those who work in a lot of article feed blasts into their Tweetstream. I like following people who use a filter and send only the best information out. In my case, for example, I only Tweet the very best blogs or news items on my Twitter stream. I do, however, have a separate "JonERP News Feed" where I share a broader range of breaking ERP and Enterprise 2.0 stories as I am tagging them. This is still a selective feed, but more than I would want to impose on my followers unless they were choosing to opt into it. For more on why I did that, read my blog post on why I decided to share my annotated Google Reader ERP news feed.

There’s a great SAP community on Twitter, for more on that, check out my previous blog on "How Do You Track SAP Conversations in Real Time on Twitter?"