If you demand respect, then you should offer respect. Otherwise, you're just a Twitter jackass.

Here are ten basic rules of Twitter everyone should respect in order to be respected. I’m not some Twitter authority, but I strongly believe in giving your followers only the best. Otherwise, the vicious circle of bullshit will follow you allover. And if you don’t respect your followers, be sure you don’t deserve the respect of the ones you follow.

1. Stop reposting the same tweets over and over. It’s OK to publish the same link once in three days. I understand, it’s your business, but don’t post the same tweet from five to 100 times a day. It makes me nuts, especially if I’m the kind of guy that follows few. That means I consider you some important person, so I expect value from you, not the same bullshit played in obsessive rotation (yes, the term “heavy rotation” is already deprecated in this case). I will eventually block you.
2. Stop reposting the same quotes. I understand, they’re important to you, but after reading them 10 times, I’m starting to hate them. Yes, I get it, you have a few hundred new followers a day and they didn’t know those quotes. They will eventually learn them by heart. Use a blog, for God’s sake, and install WP-Quotes. It will rotate the same quotes over and over and they will be read by whoever pays attention to them. And yes, I’m talking about the “award-winning copywriter” and “e-mail marketing guru” Kenneth Yu, tweeting at @emailcopywriter. Give me value, that’s why I subscribed to your stream. Stop giving me the same bullshit! This applies to @webdesigndev just as well – posting over and over the same links to the last 10 blog posts.
3. I know you have a lot of followers and you can’t reply to all, but try to pay some attention to your followers. If they ask you something, try to give an answer. Stop posing as God, the all-knowing that never answers your prays with words. You’re just human.
4. Reply especially to those you follow. I get it, you have 15.000 followers and you follow 13.000, it’s hard to watch everyone. But once you followed me, you made me believe my tweets are important to you, they give you information you need, they inspire you in whatever way you think they might inspire you. If you’re just following me because you think you can attract new followers just because you follow everybody, then you definitely suck! Basically, you tell me “I follow you, I don’t know why, but I’m to lazy to click unfollow, so whatever, you’re lame anyway“. In the end, I’m going to block you.
5. Stop acting like you are some guru. No, you’re not Seth Godin! There are people better than you, that really know their industry, who can give me quality, not quantity. If you believe you’re some great expert and you tweet about your cat, you’d better shut up. Or just erase your description. I didn’t follow you for your cat’s life, I followed you for your expertise.
6. Stop adding “Please RT” at the end of every nonsense. Use it for the important stuff. Use it when you have a great message to send. Use it when someone said something really cool. Use it when someone needs help. Use it when people really need to retweet something. Stop using it for every “OMG, here’s a picture of my cat sleeping on the pillow! Please RT!“. I don’t care!
7. Instead of giving me crap, give me links and resources. I enjoy reading good articles, no matter if it’s about the industry or if it’s about something else. Give me examples, give me numbers, give me something. Stop tweeting about how good is to sit on the beach. I know, I’ve been at the beach two months ago.
8. Stop tweeting over and over about one single topic, Iran for example, especially if you’re a journalist. I know it’s bad in Iran and, by the way, everyone else tweets about Iran. Unless you have some breaking news or exclusives, give other subjects. I want to stay informed, but I care about other stuff just as well.
9. Lots of us use Twitter from our mobile phones. It’s not a “must”, but if you post a link to some YouTube video or to some website with lots of Flash content, please add something like “[FLA]” or “[FLASH]“. I have a HTC Touch Pro, running on Windows Mobile 6.1. I use Opera Mobile. Flash Player runs on my phone, but sometimes it blocks my browser and I have to restart my phone. And I hate it.
10. This one is a must, though: If you post any content not suitable for office or for public transportation (which I use, for instance, and people tend to stare at your phone if they can’t afford a similar one), please mark your posts with “NSFW”.

Hopefully, many will respect this list. If they will, they’ll definitely make our lives happier. Hopefully. Thank you!

PS: The title “suffix” is a joke, but I wouldn’t mind if you would actually retweet the link to this post. And by the way, feel free to use the commenting form below. Add your own rule to this list :).