Do Not Retweet That – Eleven Unwritten Rules Of Twitter

Twitter is arguably one of the greatest social networking forums, anyone can voice their opinions, within reason, about most subjects. Even celebrities are allowed to answer fans without having the threat of the being stalked or trying to obtain a restraining order. But there are unwritten rules that everyone must abide by for the general good of the Twitterverse.

1. Tweeting Out Someone Else's Material

If they wrote something funny, fair enough, retweet them. Do not take what they have written, delete their name and then tweet that out as your own thought!

2. The Attention Seeker

Tweets like "I'm so sad" or "You will never believe what just happened" should always be followed by what exactly did happen. #somepeople

3. Tweeting That You Don't Care

Generally, if you tweet about something, it means you care about it...

4. Careful with the Bio

Social Networker Extraordinaire, Ninja or simply "the greatest human being in the world, can't touch this" is only deemed by you. Not Twitter. Or indeed the people of Twitter.

5. Linking Facebook with Twitter

There is absolutely no problem if you link twitter and facebook and then maybe tweet once a month, but if you tweet about 700 times a day about everything included in your daily routine, you may find you have less Facebook friends... and twitter followers.

6. If you have an egg avatar, you will be treated with suspicion

Make sure as soon as you set up your twitter account that you load a photo as your avatar, if you don't most people will think you're a sex pest or a spambot. Don't trust the egg!

7. Try to avoid putting "official" or "the Real" in your username

Unless you are really, really famous or just having a laugh, no one really wants to follow @therealsuemurphy. You may find yourself on the pretentious side of the fence...

8. Trolling

Twitter is an open network to those who want to voice their opinion, so by all means, do that but if you are just using the network to provoke a reaction you will find yourself unfollowed. No one wants to get into a public row with another who is unwilling to listen to their side of the story. A good debate is loved by all!

9. Harassing Celebrities

"I hate you and your family and your dog and even your swimming pool, you are a horrible individual." Just no.

10. Overdoing the hashtags

#soexcited #ohmygod #youllneverbelieveit #holiday #thisguy #sofunny #ialreadyhavewaytoomanyhashtagsinthistweetbutiamgoingtokeepgoingwithitjustincasetheydontgetthemessage

11. Nice people

A general unwritten rule for twitter is don't tweet something to somebody on twitter that you would not say to their face.