Being good at social networking takes time and practice, and we’ll give you some suggestions in future articles about best practices — but while you’re learning, here are some sure-fire ways to stick your foot in your beak on Twitter.

1) TYPING IN ALL CAPS

Ferthaluvvagawd — stoppit.  We know you’re excited. We can read your tweets from space.  Just like turning the sound up at a gig when the audience is talking over you, you just end up distorted and people either talk louder to be heard over you or get up and leave.  You can’t make a crowd like your music if they don’t, and you can’t make an audience listen to you if they’re not interested in what you have to say. Shouting never solved anything, just like your gramma said. Unless you’re a death metal band, in which case, ignore me. But for the rest of us, lay off the caps-lock and focus on being more interesting instead of more insistent.

2) We Know How You Feel, We Just Don’t Care

I know. That’s harsh. But in a lot of cases it’s true.  Marketing is not a good career choice for people with rejection issues.  Truth of the matter is, it’s hard to get people’s attention on social networking sites, and once gotten, it’s even harder to keep it.  Repeat Offenders (folks who simply repeat the same tweet over and over and over again in case someone missed it since they posted it 36 seconds ago) don’t really help themselves.  Playing the same song over and over at a gig won’t make anyone like it any more, and tweeting the same message repeatedly won’t help either. It’s OK to repeat a tweet once a day, providing there is additional interesting content in between – but knockitoff with the every-hour-on-the-hour update.  If we didn’t care the first twelve times, were not going to care the next.  Focus, instead, on making your tweet more enticing, re-phrasing, or changing your offering all together.  You can learn more from what doesn’t work than what does.

3) Think of That Yourself, Didja?

Some Tweeters don’t really know what to say, and as a result, their twitter feeds consist of nothing but ReTweets of other users’ more interesting, original content.  That’s all well and good if the RT is actually relevant, but should only be used as a side dish to the main entree of your own thoughts, feelings and ideas.  Cover bands are great, but the same principle applied to Twitter doesn’t really do you any good. Ultimately, that behavior serve only as an advertisement for other people’s websites.  This is a great tactic for making friends on Twitter when used sparingly, but should never be the main thrust of your feed.  It makes you nothing but a conduit. You want to be a destination.

4) Your Vampire Ate My Werewolf, Which then, In Turn, Started a Mob War.

Really? How is this relevant to, well, anything?  I don’t care if your mafia character just took out a hit on your brother-in-law, or if you’re now a top level spymaster, or if your cow just expelled 3 grams of methane through its left nostril.  It’s not interesting. In fact, it’s annoying. I have approximately 23 minutes of my day to devote to Social Networking, and you just took 5 seconds of it.  Give it back.

5) Inauthentic Sucking Up

So, I followed you.  You seemed interesting. And within 12 seconds, I have an annoying sales-pitch Direct Message in my inbox.  If you’re going to suck up, at least take a second to make it personal. Look at my account. Go to my website. Find something relevant to say to engage me as a human being.  If a fan walks up to you at a gig and says “Hey, man! I loved your show!” You say “Hey, thanks! It means a lot that you took the time to say that!”  You don’t say “Hey. If you liked my show, you should totally buy this CD right here. Here’s a link to the cash register.”  A follow is a first date. It’s not an invitation to feel me up. You gotta earn that. I’m not that kind of girl.

As with any kind of networking, this stuff takes some finesse. Be interesting, be relevant, be patient, be genuine, be authentic, be yourself.  Unless you’re annoying.  And then don’t be.