Print This Post Print This Post

13th May 2009

Make the Best use of Twitter

posted in Strategies |

Top Twitter Tips

At the moment it seems that you can't escape stories about the latest social networking phenomenon, Twitter. With all the hype and celebrity endorsements, lots of people are asking “how do I use Twitter?”.

There are plenty of sites out there that will tell you how to use Twitter, but not so many to warn you of the pitfalls.If you take a minute to learn from this list of handy Twitter tips then you'll be Twittering away with the best of them.

DO remember to hold your tongue. Unless your updates are protected, anyone can see what you are Tweeting.Bear in mind the story of the girl who managed to Tweet her way out of a new job because a hiring manager read her thoughts on the position she had interviewed for.

DON'T confuse Twitter for a chat client.No one would like their screen full of irrelevant Tweets from a conversation they're forced to eavesdrop on.

DO make sure that you retweet other people. This can be a good way to build up a following of likeminded Twitterers.

DON'T endlessly try to sell things.Okay, we get it - you have stuff to sell.Twitter isn't a one way street - talk back!

DO follow users back, but….

DON'T be offended if someone doesn't follow you back. Users with thousands of followers are unlikely to see your Tweet through the noise anyway.

DO try to be funny, entertaining, informative and creative with your tweets.

DON’T auto-DM. This is the Twitter equivalent of spam and a faceless “hi – thanks for the follow” is impersonal and off-putting.

DO use it to ask other people for help.Once you have built up a reasonable following you’ll find it easy to find answers to your questions quickly.

DON’T tweet if your message is likely to go over the 140 character limitation.Spreading messages over multiple tweets is just going to confuse and irritate your followers.

These handy hints should be enough to start you off. If you are likely to spend a significant proportion of your online time on Twitter then there are plenty of guides on the net telling you how to use Twitter effectively.

Tags: 

Popularity: 11% [?]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 8:55 am and is filed under Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There is currently one response to “Make the Best use of Twitter”

Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.

  1. 1 On May 13th, 2009, Stephen Spry said:

    To use twitter, or any other of the social media tools for that matter, you’ve got to have the right mindset to approach it properly.

    Personally, I don’t spend a lot of time with Twitter. I’m only following 38 people, yet they generated 140 tweets overnight while I was sleeping, for me to try to digest this morning… (as reported by Twitterfox, a browser plugin for Firefox)

    So the best use of my time is to give them a quick scan when I can, and maybe reply to one or two… and that’s about it.

    I’ve got a lot more to do with product/site development and client work, so I can’t afford to spend too much time at twitter.

Leave a Reply