Love In The Time of Social: 12 Elements Of a Healthy Twitter Relationship

People go to Twitter to hook up with audiences. They follow and want to be followed; they read and want to be read.

It’s a place for relationships.

First, people look for others with similar interests. Then they decide whether a person is engaging enough to follow. If not, they move on.

If they follow and the other reciprocates, a relationship becomes a possibility. They will size each other up and decide whether to hang around.

But for the relationship to last, it needs “romance.”

Too often we neglect our relationships, and they slowly fizzle out. We wake up one day to find the person hit un-follow and sadly, we didn’t even notice.

What happened?

Neglect. A relationship cannot thrive with neglect. People like and need attention. Hence, it’s important to remember some key elements of a healthy relationship in nurturing your virtual connections on Twitter.

Respect Mutual respect is vital in a relationship. Show your Twitter audience respect. Don’t talk down to your audience, and don’t talk above your audience. And, never be intrusive with your opinions.

Listening A good relationship requires understanding. Understanding your audience requires listening and monitoring. Use free services like Twitter search, and/or use more sophisticated methods to analyze your audience like Social Media Metrics.

Engagement You must talk with your audience Tweet, retweet, and @reply

Communication Be receptive to your audience when it speaks with you, even if you don’t see eye to eye. When you don’t agree, just be polite.

Never go to bed angry  Always leave your conversations in a state of peace.

Quality time Set aside time to devote to your audience.

Individual attention Speaking to all of your audience at once is good, but you also have to make time for one-on-one conversation. Make use of those @replies and direct messages (DMs).

Nurturing A relationship can’t survive on suave clichés. Offer quality information and intelligent conversation.

Honesty is the best policy  Be transparent!

Patience We all make mistakes or say things we wish we could take back, so be patient with others and hopefully they will extend you the same courtesy.

Making the first move  It’s OK to follow people before they follow you, but be selective. Look for commonalities. Healthy relationships have a foundation of common interests.

Remembering it’s not all about you To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy: Ask not what your audience can do for you, but what you can do for your audience.

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