Do a Twitter search on “wrong way to use Twitter”* and you’ll find all kinds of useful advice, like:

“There are some people who use twitter as a distilled Livejournal. This is wrong.”

What’s encouraging is that the number of updates that say, in essence, “there is no wrong way to use Twitter” far outweigh those that support the idea.

Norm Lanier, aka @CraftyCoach, writes “Twitter is one of the web 2.0 sites that people on Etsy really recommend for promotion. The problem is most are doing it wrong - REALLY WRONG.”

He goes on to cite the “two for one” style promotions many Etsy sellers use on Twitter. (Etsy is like an eBay designed for crafts people. I buy a lot there.) Norm thinks most Etsy sellers are using Twitter wrong, and to confirm a lack of understanding of social media among these folks, scroll down Norm’s blog post and see among the comments a lengthy promotion of one seller’s Etsy store and products.

I agree that these kinds of updates are annoying, and possibly ineffective, and maybe it’s semantics, but is it truly “wrong”? How many annoying banners and pop-ups are we presented with in a typical day of web browsing? How many of the popular blogs we visit have cheesy advertising in the sidebar? It may be cheesy, but it’s not “wrong,” and some companies are making a lot of money using these techniques.

There’s another argument in opposition to “one-way” Twitter accounts. These are usually characterized by having a large number of followers and a small number of people the account is following in return, and are referred to as using “broadcast” mode.

The “broadcast” mode is often used by large corporations. It is generally, but not always, an automated RSS feed from the company’s blog or web site. (You can do this with twitterfeed.) There is nothing wrong with this! I subscribe to many “one-way” feeds, particularly from media outlets like The New York Times (16,465 followers, following 32), Harpers, Wired News, PBS**, etc. While it would be great to chat with these media giants, perhaps to tell the folks at PBS that I want more episodes of Antiques Roadshow that focus on Navajo blankets (I don’t really), this might not be the most efficient way for either of us to carry on this conversation.

The problem of calling certain uses of Twitter “wrong” is that you can only start to make such a case when you say, for example, “Twitter is a social network,” and then you apply the etiquette (rarely are there rules) of social networking. But it’s not a social network to everyone else, particularly the people who annoy you most with their perceived misuse of Twitter.

As many (including myself) have noted, what makes Twitter so powerful and useful is that it can be shaped by each user, personal or corporate, for a particular need. It can be:

• A social network
• Chat
• Instant messaging
• A “pointer” site
• A moderated news feed
• Whatever you want it to be
• Whatever I want it to be

It all reminds me of the old complaint that “there’s nothing but trash on TV.” I’m going to let you in on my secret way of dealing with this: I don’t follow anyone whose updates I don’t find useful.

In all my reading, I came across just one use of Twitter that I could agree was simply wrong:

TheHRLawyer: Now THIS is the WRONG way to use Twitter. Argh! http://tinyurl.com/69rdnj

The link goes to a story of how a reporter for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News did a live Twitter “play-by-play” of the funeral of a three-year-old killed in a collision. Wrong. Definitely.

So just what is the absolute worst way to use Twitter? Signing up and building a list of followers so you can tell them how they are misusing Twitter.

* You may get proxy errors like I did. Keep trying.

** PBS also offers PBSEngage on Twitter, an account with “posts by real people” PBS has around a dozen Twitter accounts for various purposes

Tags: The New York Times, Harpers, Wired News, PBS, twitterfeed, Etsy, Norm Lanier, CraftyCoach