I don’t post a lot of lists of don’ts on my blog. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a list just of what not to do (please correct me if you remember one), though suppose I’ve probably tempered some tips posts with advice on what not to do.
I certainly could compile a list of journalism or social-media practices I don’t recommend, but I often think that someone smarter than me — or perhaps someone with different goals — could use those practices successfully. They may use the practice in a way that I couldn’t foresee or in a unique situation that turns the potential annoyance some people feel from that practice around, giving it appeal (or using the annoyance in a creative, positive way).
Christoph Trappe, a friend from Iowa, probably falls into both of the categories above — someone smarter than me, with different goals. I highly recommend his Authentic Storytelling Project and think it could benefit people in various fields of communication.
In a tweet last night, Christoph referenced a post from October about his Twitter pet peeves.*
I couldn’t exactly see what prompted his calling attention to an old blog post, but I’ve done it before (today, in fact), so I read with interest a post that slipped past me the first time.
I commend the post to your attention without endorsing all his peeves. I share Christoph’s annoyance at most of the practices he listed. For instance, I, too, am peeved when people send automated direct messages thanking me for following them (I welcome personal messages, though) or post only teasers and links.
But in some cases, I’d say creative users of Twitter should not use Christoph’s peeves as a don’t-do list, but as some cautions to be aware of in your creativity: Not that you should never risk peeving Christoph or me or others, but that you need to be aware of the risk and use your creativity to overcome the annoyance or use it to your advantage.
For instance, one of Christoph’s peeves is “back-to-back posts within seconds of each other.” I wouldn’t say that’s a good thing to do all the time, but it’s an excellent thing to do sometimes. For instance, if you just tweeted something that was unclear or erroneous, you should address and correct or clarify in seconds. Or a tweet elaborating quickly on another tweet can also be an excellent practice.
If you’re going to be livetweeting from an event (something Christoph does well), you should usually pace yourself and avoid becoming just a firehose transcribing everything that was said. But I wouldn’t hold back from tweeting back-to-back important or interesting remarks or happenings from the event. In fact, I tweeted so much from a Woodward/Bernstein appearance that Twitter cut me off (and I don’t apologize for being a firehose that day).
But people who livetweet or have other reasons to tweet in rapid succession should know that you might be peeving Christoph (and others, I’m sure) a bit. You might take the edge off with an up-front warning (the context and courtesy both help) or an after-the-fact self-deprecating acknowledgement of your possible offense or explanation of what was up.
This morning, I posted several rapid-fire tweets with advice for New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet on addressing the overuse of unnamed sources by Times staff. I wanted to use the tweets in a blog post and wanted them to appear close together in peoples’ Twitter streams to draw attention to the issue and perhaps to build some intrigue and interest in the post.
I was aware of the risk, but I hoped the result would offset any annoyance, with the accumulation of tweets and their swift curation into a blog post stimulating discussion of the issue at the Times and beyond. I’m willing to risk some peeving for that. (Let me know how I did, Christoph, and other readers.) The initial response (before I even published the blog post that provided more context) was positive:
Read @stevebuttry on why Dean Baquet needs to get tough — and go public — on misuse of anonymous sources at @nytimes. http://t.co/w5vsM9nPcM
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 5, 2015
@johnmcquaid @stevebuttry Amen, as it were. — George Frink (@gwfrink3) January 5, 2015
To @AU_CMJN students, others: Good thoughts from @stevebuttry on confidential sources. Check timeline and FOLLOW HIM.
— John Carvalho (@John_P_Carvalho) January 5, 2015
@stevebuttry Best practices, all. Good post, Steve. Here’s hoping it nudges change. #journalism #anonymice — Alan Stamm (@APStamm) January 5, 2015
And I did try to minimize the annoyance by prefacing my suggested tweets for Baquet with a couple of scene-setters that I hope gave the coming tweets context (and warned my followers that a string of tweets was coming):
In a blog post this morning, I’ll suggest that @deanbaquet needs a temper tantrum about @nytimes use of unnamed sources. #nytsources
— Steve Buttry (@stevebuttry) January 5, 2015
The tweets that follow will become part of that post: My suggestions for the Twitter version of @deanbaquet’s tantrum on unnamed sources. — Steve Buttry (@stevebuttry) January 5, 2015
Other Christoph peeves are valid peeves that I’d encourage risking occasionally:
- “Tweets with two links.” If the links are related and you can make the relationship clear in the remaining characters, I always welcome posts with related links in one tweet (and I’ve done that, so maybe I’m justifying here). It’s challenging, though, to make the relationships clear with your remaining characters, especially if you’re going to try more than two links. I also suspect you don’t often get many people clicking both links. Might be better to risk back-to-back tweets.
- “Too many hashtags in a single Tweet make that Tweet unreadable.” Humor is a good creative reason sometimes to risk peeving.
Using #toomany #hashtags in a #single #tweet could #helpyoumakeapoint about #hashtagoveruse.
— Steve Buttry (@stevebuttry) January 5, 2015
A clear tweet followed by two or three relevant hashtags is always readable and not annoying to me (perhaps a sports conference hashtag and two team hashtags). And using the team hashtags in the context of the sentence wouldn’t bother me. Or if an author uses a book hashtag in a promotional tweet, with a couple genre hashtags at the end, I don’t think that’s unreadable or annoying. So don’t take Chris’s peeve as a caution to never use multiple hashtags, but as a caution to know the risk and check the readability of your tweet before posting. I’d check the readability of the hashtags, too. One clever hashtag combining multiple words is usually readable and often funny.
#Multiplehashtags #combiningwords #canchasereadersaway.
— Steve Buttry (@stevebuttry) January 5, 2015
I’ll invite Christoph to respond to this post and add any response he might send. But I also invite your response. What are some of your Twitter pet peeves? What are creative ways you’ve risked peeving your tweeps, and how did those efforts work out? What made them successful (if they were)? How did your tweeps respond?
* For the record, I’ve never listed pet peeves on my blog, but have confessed here to three pet peeves: airport lounges without sufficient power outlets and shaky journalism ethics and hypocrisy in the name of religion.
Earlier #twutorial posts
This post joins my #twutorial series, which launched in 2012 and slowed down last year. I’ve tried to includes all of my Twitter advice posts in this #twutorial index (which might need updating; maybe that’s next on my to-do list).
Hello from Facebook, appreciate the educational posts.. sharing.
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Hi Steve and thanks for the post.
Very good. I stand by my original comments. Ha. Sorry, always wanted to say that. 🙂
I think this is very thorough and interesting (in a good way). Nothing on Twitter is really written in stone anyway, which is why the post is called my “pet peeves” and not Christoph’s Rules for Twitter.
For example, one of my pet peeves is:
Those “The Daily … ” is out Tweets.
I can’t stand them and I will unfollow people who do them (unless I have a deeper relationship with them already). But they obviously must work for some people. I see a lot of people doing them.
Re: Tweeting from conferences. I do that all the time: http://authenticstorytelling.net/tweeting-from-conferences-add-value-not-boredom/
I post updates within seconds of each other. Same during Twitter chats. I think those instances are different from the daily postings. I think people understand the difference. I’ve made great connections during conferences Tweeting quickly and offering my thoughts on what I just heard.
To answer your comment on why I posted the Tweet sharing a link to the post at this time: I regularly reshare old posts and Tweets and this one had just come up for one reason or another. I know Twitter moves fast so resharing things later always seems to reach additional people.
What do you think, did it work? 🙂
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Worked for me! And anyone reading this post
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[…] Jan. 5, 2015 update: Veteran journalist and thought leader Steve Buttry commented on this post at length on his blog. You can read his thoughts here. […]
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Steve:
Tweeting is a bit like long-form writing — you have to know the why behind the “rules” before you break them, and then you need to break them judiciously.
I did a tweet last week that had a link for the last column of a long-time newspaper columnist who died. So I also included a link to her obituary. I wouldn’t do that often, but I thought it was appropriate in this case.
And when I run the American Copy Editors Society Twitter chat, I always warn my followers that I’m about to annoy anyone who isn’t interested in that chat. (And I always get two-three random comments or retweets from people not participating.)
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My two cents worth of Twitter peeves. When the only words in the post are “I’m hungry”, or “So sleepy” or obviously tipsy tweets.
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Reblogged this on Online in Eastern Iowa.
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