I’ve seen more than a few blog postings lately about social media snake oil salesmen, and so called “experts” who have all the answers when it comes to integrating social media into your business (at no small fee).

Sadly from the frequency of these types of posts from legitimate social media leaders (Jason Falls, Dave Fleet, Mitch Joel) and a quick glance through my own Twitter stream, it’s evident that people still don’t get it.

So for those who have fallen pray to these frauds and their unbelievably misguided teachings, here are few pieces on Twitter etiquette to keep in mind.

Never Retweet a Follow Friday recommendation or a compliment for the sake of self promotion. To call this tacky is an understatement. We all love to be noticed and we all love to hear nice things about ourselves but retweeting compliments makes you look desperate and in dire need of self-affirmation. It also make it look like you’ve never been acknowledge before, so next time just enjoy it for what it is and move on.

Never Auto Tweet. If you use one of these automated programs that goes out and finds people to follow and then – upon acceptance of a follow – pushes out some garbage, scripted message – STOP! The fact that I have to tell you this is mind-blowing, but your authenticity takes a nose dive when I read “Hey you, thanks for the follow. What are you working on?”

If this is what you think Twitter – or social media in general – is about, than you’re doing it wrong. If one of those “experts” told you this was a good idea, stop following them IMMEDIATELY. They’re misleading you and will cause you more harm than good. This also applies for auto-tweets. Don’t use programs that send tweets out like a conveyer belt, do the work. Building relationships takes effort.

Also, no need to thank someone every time they follow you or retweet something you said. I’m less strict about this, because your heart’s in the right place, but in my opinion, the thank you is usually implied. Exceptions for this are if they liked your blog posting and circulated it for others to read (that’s worth a thank you). - thanks to Breanna Hughes for this one

When tweeting – be yourself. I’ve talked about this a few times, so I’ll just direct you here and let you decide how much of your personality you want to shine through.

What all of this amounts to is authenticity. Developing your online persona means developing trust and if you’re scamming people or constantly trying to cut corners, than you’re destroying that trust piece by piece.

These are the things that drive me crazy on Twitter. What about you - what would you like to see less of?