It happened again this morning. I picked up two followers on Twitter whose sole purpose seems to be to get me to follow their constant stream of business promos and links to their Web sites. I don’t think so. And then there were the four people whose questions on various LinkedIn groups are not-even-thinly-disguised ads for their businesses. Needless to say, I’m not checking them out.

Shannon Paul had a great post a couple of months ago about that guy, and Amber Naslund penned a post aptly titled, Click on My Junk. If you’re new to Twitter, please don’t be one of those people. Instead, find some people to follow who are in your industry, share common interests, or are just plain smart and generous with their time. And approach LinkedIn groups and other discussion forums in a similar way: add value, not spam.

For an excellent primer on Web 2.0 etiquette, check out this great post by Beth Harte. Her focus is Twitter, but her advice applies broadly across social media as she talks about being authentic and offers tips for joining the online conversation.