I’ve been reading about Twitter “Best Practices” lately, mainly because I’ve discovered that getting those elusive 60,000 followers is a little tougher than I thought. Maybe it’s me. Maybe my tweets suck, or maybe I just need more time to figure out what the heck to do with Twitter.

I confess; Twitter makes absolutely no sense to me. I know I’m supposed to have an account because it’s all the rage, especially given my profession. As a marketing dude, I need to know what’s going on. I also need to use it so I can understand its value. But after a year or so of doing that, I don’t get it. Why do people want a constant feed of tweets, relevant or otherwise, delivering them links to stuff they don’t have time to read anyway?

And the followers. Oh My God. The followers. You have to be good to your followers. From what I’ve read, a typical Twitter follower is the biggest whimpering, whining, winnowing, sorry social trainwreck in the history of the Internet.

Depending on who’s written the “best practices”, you never know what followers are looking for; They’ll stop following you if you tweet too much, then they’ll drop you if you tweet too little. It’s a little like the Dylan song; “Everybody must get stoned”:

• They’ll drop you if you don’t “communicate”.
• They’ll drop you if you “communicate” in too many threaded conversations.
• They’ll drop you if you use DM.
• They’ll drop you if you don’t use DM.
• They’ll drop you if you stray from your “brand”.
• They’ll drop you if you stick to one “brand” all the time.
• They’ll drop you if you call yourself a “guru”.
• They’ll drop you if you’re not a “guru”.
• They’ll drop you if you’re not funny.
• They’ll drop you if you try to be funny.
• They’ll drop you if you don’t post a photo.
• They’ll drop you if your profile is too pretty.
• They’ll drop you if you post your own stuff.
• They’ll drop you if you post other people’s stuff.
• They’ll drop you if you still use hashtags.
• They’ll drop you if you don’t use hashtags.
• They’ll drop you if you swear like a wounded pirate.
• They’ll drop you if you write like a Victorian schoolmarm.
• They’ll drop you if you use acronyms and abbreviated text.
• They’ll drop you if you don’t use the latest cool abbreviations.
• They’ll drop you if you use a social management platform.
• They’ll drop you if you still use the Twitter page to tweet.

In the words of Jerry Seinfeld: “Who are these people?” Are there really people who have the time to surf their Twitter accounts looking for people who posted one too many funny tweets that linked to their own blog so they can nuke them?

“Nope, that’s one too many tweets about mobile marketing this week. See ya!”

“Nope, that’s the second link to your video this week. Bye!”

Douchebags. With too much time on their hands.

The bigger question is: Who has time to custom-tailor their Twitter stream to make these people happy? Not me. Here’s my theory on “best practices”: Do your thing. If Twitter is useful to you, use it. If you’re in marketing and have to use it (like me), use it. If you’re curious about it, use it.

If you don’t need it, don’t use it. If you don’t like it, don’t use it.

And if you’re the type who gets bent because you keep following people who tick you off for whatever ticky-tack nitpicky douchebaggy reason, please please please don’t use it. You’ll allow the people who actually want the thing to use it the way they want to, not the way you’d like.

Thank you.