Dude, the Government is Following Me!

An interesting question addressed in Government Twitter etiquette: talk but don’t follow is how can a government agency interact with tweeters?

It’s a good article and the author and commenters address the issue quite well. I would like to take a look at the bigger picture. How should anyone begin a relationship with any tweeters and how do you know how to introduce yourself?

Based on my interactions and on various articles that I’ve read, I would say that the more formal a tweeter is, the more the etiquette of meeting and following should be. If I, Ulrn2Twtr, an individual decide to follow someone, I just click the button.

If I’m following someone who is new to Twitter, I like to send a reply message welcoming that person and offering assistance or information.

If I’m following an experienced tweeter, I might introduce myself but just as likely not.

If I’m following one of the Twitterrati, I don’t introduce myself because, well, I just don’t — maybe that’s a self-esteem issue, but I digress.

If I’m following a company or a government agency or a non-profit organization, I don’t introduce myself because I expect that the relationship will likely be more uni-directional. I’m following them so that I may get information. I would expect that at some point, they may ask for information from me but that situation would probably be informal and anonymous information. I would hope that they would not conduct an election on Twitter, for example. Ughghghghghg. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

As for being followed, I would hope that “just folks” like me would follow and not feel like they have to introduce themselves. It’s like being at a really big party that goes on and on… and on… and… but better than how that sounds. People just drift around in different groups, interacting in various conversations. I might like what @coolcatteacher says so I hang around that conversation and find out that @coolcatteacher is also friends with @timoreilly who also seems interesting. I decide to follow @timoreilly (not as creepy on Twitter as it would be at a real party) and find several of his friends to follow. It is an organic system that, if done in this fashion, will grow slowly and with a high level of quality. If this method doesn’t seem to suit your desires, there are many other methods for finding people to follow.

I appreciate it when bloggers let me know with a reply or direct message that they have a blog and I am invited to read it. I feel welcome. I don’t appreciate being “directed” to check out this blog, vote for this blog, comment on this blog, etc. “If you are interested” is very different from “You have to check this out” but that is just me.

I appreciate when a business lets me know that it is a business — sometimes you can’t tell just by the Twitter user name. I check the previous postings of these followers more diligently to weigh the number of ad posts against the number of community posts. If I find a disagreeable ratio, I may choose not to follow back. If I find no ratio at all, just ads, I will block the follower.

I would not want to suddenly discover a government agency following me. I am paranoid. I make no excuse for that. If I started following The Electric Company (not the PBS classic of the same name), then I would still want The Electric Company to ask to follow me and let me know what they hoped to gain/understand/learn by following me. You see, if TCE wants to share information, then I should follow it. If I want to share information with TCE, Twitter is probably not the best means to do so.

So, the less formal the connection, the less formal the negotiation for contact. The more formal — and institutional — the connection, the more formal the negotiation.

Ta.