From my blog

Five ways to boast discreetly on Twitter

Feeling pleased with yourself? Want to tell someone? Well, Twitter always listens. But shameless self-promotion might not endear you to your followers. So use these five proven techniques to burnish your rep without burning your bridges.

  • Creeting. Creeting, or ‘creepy tweeting’, means retweeting a high-profile Twitterer so you can bask in their reflected glory. So what if you didn’t really understand (or even read) that abstruse piece on A/B testing, canonical URLs or Facebook user profiling? Retweet it anyway, you’ll look incredibly clever and might get a mention from someone with 100,000 followers.
  • Busyness. Want to show how indispensable you are, or how many clients you’ve got? Simply disguise your boast as a moan about workload, information overwhelm or client pressure. Don’t worry, everyone will get the message: only the talented are as busy as this.
  • Proxy boasting. Sometimes others say the things we think, but can never say. So if your offspring, colleague or client has paid you a glowing but perceptive compliment, get it on Twitter. It’s reputational gold and, after all, you’re only quoting.
  • Egocentic gratitude. If you’ve been RTd or #FFd by multiple Tweeters, make sure you thank them all in one monster tweet. It makes you look incredibly popular and, if you’re thanking RTers, you’ll probably drum up extra interest in your past Tweets. (And yes, I do this all the time.)
  • Reflected enthusiasm. No-one really needs to know that you’re loving Alain de Botton’s latest whimsical fluff, or how much your guests adored your summer berry sabayon. But cultured interests make you look fantastic, so Tweet away. Your all-night Steven Seagal marathon, fuelled by Stella and Wotsits*, you can keep quiet about.

* US/Canada readers, please substitute ‘Coors and Cheetos’

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Comments (7)

  1. Hey Tom,

    Interesting post. Personally I think you can see straight through Twitter boasting.

    Creeting (a new one on me – the word not the concept) I kinda half buy into what you’re saying but what if you’re seriously into all them stars ‘n’ space ‘n’ things in the sky and you RT man of the moment, Coxy – I’m not sure that’s boasting. Isn’t it just taking part in a chat?

    Busyness – not discreet in my book, in any way. And, call me a grumpy old bugger, but I actually find this one the most distasteful and transparent. Personally I don’t give a monkey’s how busy anyone is and I really don’t want to hear it – if you’re that busy, how come you’ve got time to crow about it through SM?

    Proxy boasting – I actually don’t mind it that much, especially if you’re on Twitter in any kind of professional capacity, which let’s face it, many freelancers are. This is just a real-time extension of testimonials and at least it’s more up front than the vulgar ‘busy’ tweet.

    Egocentric gratitude – another one I only half buy into. I was under the impression that the correct etiquette, and just simple good manners, is to thank people for their endorsements. After all, Twitter is about having conversations isn’t it? Mind you, with only around 140 followers I could hardly be called a Tweetspert. More like a Tweetsquirt!

    Reflected enthusiasm – yeah, I have to agree with you there, Tom. But again, I don’t find it discreet. It’s blatant and rah, rah, yah, yah shouty – almost as repellent as busyness. Mind you, I’ve never ever been a fan of people forcing me to know what kind of music they’re into on any sites anywhere. And then again, that might be the grumpy antisocial old fart coming out again.

    As for leaving outstay-your-welcome smartarse comments on others’ blogs? What the hell, that’s all fine ‘n’ dandy of course!

    Keep up the good work Tom – good to stalk you on Twitter!

    PS. You forgot the exciting news teaser Tweet: “Just got a very exciting this morning. It’s made my week! More later… woot woot!”

    “Woot woot”? Yawn, b!oody yawn.
    .-= Larner´s last blog ..Communication letting you down? =-.

  3. I’m always sceptical about people who always claim they’re busy. They remind me of the idle, brown-nosing backstabbers I used to work with – lazy and dull, but prone to sending pointless work emails at 4am or midnight.

    A bit like Chaucer’s Sergeant of the Lawe:

    Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas,
    And yet he semed bisier than he was.
    .-= Ben Locker´s last blog ..Rule breakers: when to break the rules of copywriting OR was Charles Dickens any good? =-.

  4. Thanks, Tom, for nailing some of the most annoying Twitter habits. Would the term “Twaggadocio” be stretching it too far?

    Being a tech-wannabe, I’m probably guilty of creeting: I often retweet geeky links with the the intention of reading the linked post and mastering its subject…

    But I find overachieving Twits’ “busyness” terribly irritating–especially when the tweets includes impossible accomplishments: “Just wacked out content for eCommerce site, oncology brochure and 3 client blog posts. 6am–time for a latte then on to landing page copy.”

    I rarely tweet about client work. I work for a number of clients who still want to “control the message.” Though they’re not on Twitter, I don’t think they’d appreciate me blabbing about work until after they publish it.

    Plus it does seem like Twaggadocio…

  5. Thanks to everyone who commented. Looks like ‘busyness’ is the one that gets copywriter goats around the world. I must admit, it’s the one that makes my teeth grind too.

    Kudos to Lorraine for the neologism ‘Twaggadocio’ – whatever it means, it’s a blast to say out loud…

  6. How about writing a blog post about ways to stand out on Twitter … oh wait, you’ve done that. I guess I need to RT it then. 🙂

    By the way, there are many of us in the U.S. who prefer Stella over Coors. 🙂

  7. I love that one about moaning about how terribly busy you are. When ever I see one of those, I wonder what I’m doing wrong. Maybe these people are not that busy after all?

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