It’s easy to get carried away with twitter: so many apps, so many opportunities. You can forget that less is more, and that over-enthusiasm can come across as spam, and lead to your account getting blocked, muted, or simply dismissed. These are obviously not helpful when trying to conduct a business, so here are 7 tips to upgrade your account from spammy to classy:

1. #Go #Easy #On #The #Hashtags

Hashtags are great, but avoid hashtagging every word, or cramming a whole sentence into one (unless it’s for comic effect). You need your tweet to be readable.

2. Do not send an automatic direct message to new followers

Don’t be that person who direct messages a new follower. It comes across as spam, and will often result in a direct block.

3. Tweeting too much @ people

Don’t involve people in your tweets for no reason, especially repetitively. You will clog up their notifications and land directly in their bad books.

4. Subtweet

Subtweeting is the act of making passive aggressive comments about people or businesses that you’re angry with – it doesn’t look professional.

5. Don’t just promote your business/yourself

This should go without saying, but to do this is to fundamentally misunderstand the point of twitter. Engage with other users, retweet them, share aspects of your business beyond the hard sale.

6. Unfollower shaming

This one’s related to 4. There are quite a few apps to keep track of people unfollowing you, but I wouldn’t recommend letting them post on your behalf – it’ll just increase the exodus.

7. Edit!

Try to treat twitter like you would a blog: check your tweets for spelling mistakes before pressing ‘send’ and avoid sharing sensitive or private information.