I have been making a concerted effort to understand and use Twitter lately. I posted just a few weeks ago about how I didn’t get Twitter at all. That was sixteen days ago. What have I learned about Twitter in the last 16 days?
I have learned quite a bit, but these 5 simple rules will help you go a long way towards finding value in Twitter.
- It’s all in who you follow: My Twitter account had been neglected. I had several people I was following and when I looked at my feed, the noise turned me off to the service by giving me a negative impression of how useful it was. At that time I think I was following about 10 people and two of those posted so many tweets it dominated the feed with nonsense that I really had no interest in. Today I am following just over 30 people, these people post interesting things that I either find useful or humorous. I find myself checking the feed on the web and my iPhone regularly to see what’s up. I purchased Twitterific for iPhone and OS X and am enjoying the interaction. Don’t just follow, if you find someone cool, recommend them to your followers, the more you help promote others, the more they will help promote you.
- You get out what you put in: If you resist the urge to just friend collect and get as many followers as humanly possible, and instead spend that time tweeting, re-tweeting and replying to people on Twitter, you will quickly find yourself knee deep in conversations. Although the point of twitter is 140 character blasts of information, the community has built a way to both keep conversations directed and allow other users to follow conversations. the @syntax for messaging to a focused user and the #syntax for specifying a subject add tremendous value to the service.
- Think before you Tweet: Twitter is another place where what you say is public. Your tweets are your image. Be smart about what you say because you can’t delete it.
- Don’t use it for shameless promotion: Notifying people of blog posts is fine, I do that too. Don’t make every tweet you post “go read my blog.” This goes back to #2, add value. If your tweets are always links to your blog or site, you will lose followers quickly.
- Snazz it up a bit: Add an avatar that is interesting and unique. Modify your Twitter template to something that’s pleasing and interesting. If you look boring on Twitter, people will assume your tweets are boring too.
Tweet
I have definately noticed you using your twitter more
I like that it comes directly to my phone, I rarely log into the web portion of it anymore, although I am sure I would find more value in it if I used the reply functions to the tweets I get.
I would definitely agree that Twitter is all about being selective about who you follow, building a rapport with them and giving as much as you take. It can seem a bit of a challenge at first but once you get to know a few people you won’t want to leave! Spend a bit of time getting to know people and replying to Tweets and you will reap the rewards for your patience.