One of the aspects of Twitter that comes up over and over again is the importance of understanding the unspoken rules of engagement. Generally this boils down to taking care not to be too obvious when using Twitter as a way to promote your products and services. Research by Lab42 suggests that Twitter users are much less squeamish about direct marketing that has generally been thought.

Of course it always depends on who is watching. If the people reading your Tweets want and like your product, they will not be offended by hearing about it. It is a matter of balance. You might find these statistics from Lab42's research helpful when seeking to strike that balance:

Reasons for using Twitter (US):

• Follow friends - 72%
• Get a good laugh - 64%
• Get the news - 62%
• Share the news - 57%
• Following brands - 46%

Following brands on Twitter:

• Don't follow any - 10.6%
• Follow more than 50 brands - 8.2%
• Follow 1-5 brands - 30.6%

Twitter's equivalent of paid search ads are Promoted Tweets. The report shows encouraging results for the advertiser.

Promoted Tweets:

• Annoying - 21%
• Seen relevant promoted tweets - 48%
• Got a discount from a promoted tweet - 42%
• Found out about a new brand - 41%
• Re-tweeted a promoted tweet - 27%
• Haven't noticed them - 8%
• Don't know what they are - 7%