You might remember the day. After months of bashing Twitter I gave in and joined.
When I decided to jump in I knew I could only do it one way: all the way. It is why I blog everyday, and also try to update my Twitter at least 10 times a day. Trying to engage in the conversation with @replies usually makes than number an easy one to hit.
You can follow me HERE. Or sign up for your own account HERE.
Going into my dive into Twitter I knew almost nothing about Twitter other than I usually don’t care about what people are doing. As you can tell by that comment (and if you Twitter), it is pretty obvious I’ve learned a lot in the last 3 months. Here is some of what I’ve learned:
- Most Tweeps (Twitter people) are selfish. The majority of people never reply to my @replies or engage in any sort of meaningful conversation to any of my Tweets. Now I don’t engage with everyone, but I do make a conscience effort to engage with the people I follow.
- Engage in the conversation. For the people who use Twitter just to tell others what they are doing, I think Twitter has limited value or potential. Just like blogging, Twitter is most useful when you engage with the people around you. By all this I mean, reply to tweets, put links in your tweets, and ask questions in your tweets.
- If a person has more than 5,000 followers and you don’t know them…don’t follow them back. It probably means that they just add and drop people all day long to inflate their numbers and look important. I think it was Matt Singley who coined them “pump and dumpers.” I have no tolerance for them.
- Use some type of service that tells you when people unfollow you. It always amazes me that people that I think enjoy engaging in Twitter conversation with me and then unfollow me. But, I want to at least not be following them for no reason. I use SocialToo.
- Use Tweetdeck or something close to it. Don’t ask questions about this. Just do it. You can thank me later.
- Follow people back. This is subject to controversy and personal opinion, but I think if a perfectly normal person wants to follow you, it makes sense to be kind and follow them back.
- Twitter isn’t going to save the world. Despite what many people will say about Twitter, it isn’t the best thing since sliced bread. My big challenge of this was trying to help out my friend Jill to get more piano students. There are a lot of people in Portland who follow me, and only 2 or 3 tried to help me get the word out through Twitter (it was actually very disappointing for me). This isn’t to say the potential isn’t there, but Twitter isn’t going to perform any miracles.
What have you learned about Twitter?
