When people say they don’t get Twitter — it’s because they need to be more proactive. Twitter doesn’t work if you lurk, post updates, and do nothing else.
What I’ve learned after using Twitter for a month:
- Follow unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- @comment others to make the most of the experience.
- Link to your stuff — smartly. Frequently linking to your stuff leads to unfollows. Besides, it defeats tweet purpose.
- Don’t take non-responses personally. Conversations fly on Twitter, so people might miss it or simply receive too many @replies to respond to every single one.
- Be patient in getting the hang of Twitter. Twitter’s help is helpless and it has a few quirks for a simple app.
- Avoid addiction by taking care in using addicting apps like Twhirl and other cool Twittapps or else Twitter will suck you in for more time than you can afford. I curb addiction by checking in twice a day (start and end of day) and no in-between (except weekends).
- Use your name or else people won’t know who you are. I started with Content Maven and no face photo. Hey, I didn’t know better at the time.
Does Twitter help your business? Well, I haven’t landed clients or talked much shop through Twitter. But Twitter helps freelancers and solo enterpreneurs feel like we have a little office environment, which produces noise that makes you feel like you’ve got co-workers nearby.
Twitter also offers a nice way to connect with friends and colleagues while meeting new folks. I’ve asked and answered personal and professional questions, which can be valuable or simply fun. I asked a question about examples of good online help and one person responded not to use Twitter’s as an example of how to do it. The irony.
Will check it out 🙂
Oh thanks for the write up too
I think we were all there at one point or another – when we “just didn’t know any better” in regards to Twitter.
I recently reread my MySpace blog post when I 1st got involved with Twitter more actively, and I made so many faux pas, it’s “almost” embarassing.
But – to the early adopter – it’s all about being where the puck is going – not about following the puck – that keeps us ahead of the game all the time.
How can it be that I’m the first to Stumble this awesome post!!! I like the office environment comment, think I’ll start following you.
You should read my blog entries from the early days… I’m embarrassed by them. But at the time, I hadn’t started my business or thought of doing so. So I was doing what people did at the time… talk about our own lives.
Skydiver, I’m not. World traveler, I’m not. Thus, the posts… ew. I’d love to delete them, but that won’t happen because they’ve already been out there and for a long time.
Thankfully, I didn’t do anything like drunk blog.
Note to self… more twitter resources:
Tweetburner
http://tweetburner.com/
Twitturly
http://twitturly.com/
Summize
http://summize.com/
Twittersearch
http://twittermap.com/search
Terraminds Twitter Search
http://terraminds.com/twitter/
Tweetscan
http://www.tweetscan.com/
60+ Twitter Tools
http://mashable.com/2007/09/29/twitter-toolbox/
21 Terrific Tweets
http://www.thespinningdonut.com/21-terrific-tweets/
50 Best Twitter Guides and Tips
http://www.etienneteo.com/2008/05/50-of-best-twitter-guide-and-tips-made.html
Hi.. love this post. But fyi, when I clicked on subscribe to your email updates, it took me to a new window, and when I closed it, this page was gone…so I had to retrace several steps to get back to you here. Open a new window and I could keep reading! Thanks for the great content!
Thank you, Robin. I don’t know why people have trouble subscribing by email from time to time — every time I test it, it’s fine. Strangggeeeee…