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As many of you will know, Twitter is a truly revolutionary social media tool which can be used to disseminate a wide variety of information types, from people’s breakfast choices to the latest world news, to suggestions of interesting articles. Most people now have an innate understanding of Twitter protocol and how to tweet in an effective and accessible manner.

One form of tweeting which people regularly fall down over, however, is the self-congratulatory tweet from a professional account. You know the one: the tweet mentioning that someone has won an award, been in the media, or been rewarded in a way that will exponentially increase if they tell the public about it. And, while there’s nothing wrong with sharing your successes publicly, there are most definitely ways of doing so that are preferable to the audience and venue.

With this in mind, we created a quick Do and Don’t list for self-congratulation on Twitter.

DO be humble. “Feel v. honoured and humbled to be named part of @bcbusiness Top Women Entrepreneurs. All such inspiring women.”

DON’T be so self-deprecating that you sound unprofessional. “LOL! No idea how that happened but somehow @MacLean’s wants to write an article on boring ol’ me.”

DO use a tweet of someone announcing the news already, thanking them. “Thanks Zoe! We’re absolutely delighted J RT @zoegrams Curve wins National Award! Congrats!”

DON’T just retweet someone’s news. It looks careless. “RT @zoegrams Curve wins National Award. Link.”

DO engage in dialogue if you can. “Curve was lucky enough to be recognized with this award recently Link. If you could give an award to someone, who would it be and for what?”

DON’T forget that people reading your tweets want to feel a human connection rather than a typically corporate voice.

For more information on how to balance personality with professionalism, we recommend CIO’s article on the subject:

…Most people wouldn’t join Twitter to be spun by your corporate boilerplate statement or marketed to in traditional fashions. For individuals, Twitter can be a very personal medium, and that’s not a bad thing for business people.

Twitter can humanize you in the eyes of your followers (who might want to do business with you in the future as a result of that human interaction).

“Work relationships have always been infused with some aspects of the personal, and Twitter is no different,” Fitton says. “If you walked around the office and talked to people sitting in the cubes, people have different personality styles and quirks.”

Your personal tweets should have meaning to your audience. Tweet about issues that are fairly universal to your list of followers and that will make them feel welcome to reply to with their own comments.

“People’s Twitter streams are uninteresting if they’re just declarative sentences like ‘I’m going to the movies’ or ‘it’s gray outside,’” Boyd says. “It’s better if it’s something that people might feel interested in replying to.”

Happy Tweeting!