In this post Crystal N Woods (follow her at @crystalsquest) shares some great tips for those starting out in Twitter.
The buzz this year is all about Twitter, the ‘microblog’ service.
Both the web and twitter are full of pleas from people who say they don’t ‘get it’. In a nutshell, the point of twitter is to post very short updates – no more than 140 characters. It’s a bit like a txt msg for the web, on ‘what you’re doing now’. These tweets can be links to cool sites you’ve found, conversations with other twitter users, questions you want a quick answer for, what you’re having for dinner or even haiku poetry.
The main difference between twitter and txt is: when you send it out it goes out to everyone who’s opted to follow you. On the receiving end, you’re getting these updates from everyone you’ve chosen to follow. This constant flow of short messages to and from is called the ‘twitter stream’. It can be a bit overwhelming at first. Just like modern life. In fact, it occurred to me that the people who ‘get it’ and rave about it the most are the very same people who have achieved vast levels of success in this information age. So, here’s my take on the top 10 success tips for twitter… and Life!
1. Fluff and filler are no longer an option. Nobody has time/interest in reading them. Get to the point.
2. Be real. 140 chars is cut to the bone – you can’t wear a fake character on top and still fit.
3. Pick what’s important. You could use twitter to talk about your day down to the bowel movements, but then you’d have nobody following you. People follow you on twitter because what’s important to you is a match with what’s important to them, so share it!
4. To keep the relationship alive, feed it. Share yourself, and your interests, and give stuff that matches the other person’s interests.
5. Don’t take following/unfollowing personally – as interests change, people will come and go. Faster than in real life, but no different. Accept it.
6. Don’t get overwhelmed. You don’t need to drink the river, just drink FROM it. (this is a major difference between big & small fish)
7. The big fish swim in big streams. They don’t try to control them, just swim in them.
8. Being part of that big stream is NOT a guarantee you’ll have their attention: a fish doesn’t swim through every drop of water on it’s way upstream.
9. To catch the attention of a big fish, you need to:
- send something past them just when they’re looking at that part of the stream;
- send something they’re looking for so they hunt it down; or
- send something so catchy/helpful/viral that others keep putting it in front of them for you.
10. Practice. Start small with a few friends, and gradually grow your circle of influence. Even if you could jump in with 10,000 followers, you probably wouldn’t know how to keep them long unless you’d developed the skill of catching and keeping interest. That skill will serve you well online and offline in ways you can’t imagine…
11. Have fun! The people having the most fun are the ones you most want to hang out with. Be one. (yes, I overdelivered again. Oops)
@brandonacox
Excellent list – true on both the Twitter front and the life front. I especially like #11.
@mathechr
Great tips! I’m getting to the point where it’s becoming impractical to read every single tweet that comes my way. Thanks to TweetDeck, though, I can filter them into groups and focus on the groups I’m most interested it.
@logicus
Really great tips.. Thanks !
@NLPerry
I love it! “You can’t wear a fake character on top.” I should incorporate that more — I probably talk about insurance waaaay too much
@martinschiele
Briefly, concisely, helpfully. Thanks !
@ScottWilliams
{Fist Bump} for a good list! I think the most important thing is to be yourself… stop trying to be like everyone else.
@barcelonaphotos
Good, fast 10 important tips for the road on Twitter and as you well say in life. From them all I mainly enjoyed the fish parallelism with twitterers’ behavior, specially the part of keeping the goals within your possibilities (you don’t need to drink the river!). The suggestion of throwing the bait in the big fish direction as the only way they can see it is great image too
I wonder do we really need their attention that much? Well, obviously if you are into fishing you always want to take home the best catch. Yes, basically friendship, centered tweets and interest match is essential, specially if you only have 140 characters to gain your audience’s acceptance. Great post @crystalsquest
@visionsxpressed
Thanks for the great tips, especially helpful for a beginner twitter like myself.
@VisionSphere
Hi Darren,
Really is Great Advice, and Thanks again for Your Thoughts.
I’m still taking the time to read the person’s Bio on Twitter and Click
the Link when it appears that I’m going to follow their Tweet Stream.
Helps in so many ways to really Understand what the person has for
Delight and Endeavors to Accomplish Online. That’s a nice guide to
Arise and Shine on Twitter, really taking the opportunity to next
level and really enjoying the blessing! Thanks Again!
@SusanMazza
Great advice! Twitter has begun to satisfy my desire for community interaction on a daily basis. As someone who is self employed working with clients out of state and mostly virtually I have missed the energy and sense of community that going to an office can provide. The best part about a “twitter office” is that you don’t have to commute and “your office” is full of people you enjoy being around (after all you chose them!).
Problogger—This is awesome and very to the POINT! 140 is short, but in the few shorts months I’m learning –you’ve had a lot of great tips that have helped me in past few months. Thank you!
@rahuljrark
Great tips…i agree with the blog post. We have to be what we are and not to show some fake image
@irunabiz
Twitter is a like being a cocktail party, where you can chose listen to any conversation, and anyone can listen to you, if they choose.
@dcrmom
Excellent points! I’m going to forward this to someone I know who is saying “I want to do Twitter but I don’t know how.” I think the key factor is #2 — be real.
@wpdude
Like the list, but I want to add my 1 tip for life which is no use for twitter
communicate deeply and verbosleyy with the people you love in more than 140 characters
Is technology killing the verbose?
@josephgelb
those are some really good twitter tips. i especially like the choose your battle type of suggestion
@hightechdad
Great tips! AND I’m really glad that you “continued” my “Using Twitter is like Fishing” post. The fishing comparison really works well, don’t you think?
My Fishing=Twitter post is here.
Keep the tips coming!
-HighTechDad
@jmaclay
Wow, this post is like an oasis in the land of Top 10 Twitter Tips. Its zenishness actually eased my mind and relieved Twitter any twitter anxiety that I’ve been carrying.
No Bull and I’m not sucking up. This really was a great post. Thanks!
@tkrysak
Great post with lots of good tips.
I stopped auto-following people who followed me about a week ago mostly as many of them were tweeting the “what I had for dinner stuff”, and honestly I don’t even want to know that from my closest friends.
Tweetdeck has also helped out quite a bit too.
I also check people out carefully before following them as well, reduces the need to unfollow someone in the future.
@lalorek
Hi Darren,
I would add one piece of advice from James D. Watson “Avoid Boring People.”
If only it were that easy, eh?
@AlpacaFarmgirl
Great post! I appreciate the part about drinking from the water and not having to consume the whole river. When I was new to Twitter it was overwhelming!
Jeff @irunabiz had a great point about it being like a cocktail party.
@Rajasekharan
You hit the nails on #5, 9 and 10.
@hendrylee
I like the way you put it. Certainly a lot of these have to do with life.
@SoniaMMiller
As a twitter baby chick, I’m so grateful for your post. A great gap filler for my level of understanding. Thanks!
Sonia : )
@thebenchs
Good pots thank you a lot.
@JohnEi
A very interesting list, indeed.
I work as a journalist – and tried to research what are the best tools to use for that profession.
This is my preliminary list of 5 great Twitter tools for journalists. Any suggestions?
@kayleighford
Great list..never get sick of reminding myself of these tips! Re: number 3. though, my current favourite twitterer (@ChrisSylvester) often tweets about nothing of much consequnce, but in a hilarious way! I say, if you are going to be trivial, be funny with it..
This one’s going in my TwiTips file of useful info..thanks again..
@mssinglemama
Thanks so much.
I’m going to share this will all of my readers who just joined Twitter. I’m a single mom blogger and I finally got them to join Twitter by highlighting the Top 5 Sexiest Dudes on Twitter. The post quickly went viral (and the dudes linked back, many of them BIG fish) and my followers jumped by 100 in one day and I had well over 300 new visitors to my site.
Twitter works! Definitely… you do have to make a splash though. And that’s just by having fun, sharing good content and making people smile.
@MarlisaOK
Totally Agree! Thanks for posting this on twitter too. I started using Tweetdeck to sort out the different topics from those I follow. I know sometimes I will get both great content and “bowel movements” from those I follow so, I don’t un-follow all the poop talk but, I do sort them.
@breatheagain
Thank you for those tips. Short and to the point.
Useful tips to be more effective on twitter for the busy person.
Thanks again
@CrystalsQuest
Thanks for the wonderful comments, guys. Yes, Darren’s collected some great stuff here, and I’m honoured to have been one of his guest posters.
@ScottWilliams – I think that’s a secret way too many people forget IRL, to be perfectly honest. Bottom line, we all have something unique to offer, if we let ourselves be unique and offer it, right?
@barcelonaphotos – yes, you’re right. We don’t always need to catch the attention of the big fish, and it’s important to work towards what your own goals are – even if that involves using twitter differently to everyone else and not trying to get on the radar. It’s all good.
@SusanMazza – I’m with you there! I do love the ‘watercooler chat’ aspect of twitter.
@dcrmom – hope your friend enjoyed it too…
@wpdude – you’ve got an interesting point. I did something on it a while back, asking if txtspk was having that very effect. Here’s that post…
@jmaclay – your comment got me thinking. How much ‘twitter anxiety’ is out there, I wonder?
@mssinglemama – no wonder your post went viral …Looking it up myself! *grin*
@ullahelgesson
Hey,
I agree in full in this. It is really important to hold things short and sweet, straight to the point, no fluff, no fillers, just plain…
I think it is the same with ebooks… I bougt several ebooks, but I have one that are really long and filled with fillers… I bought this one 2 year ago,, I stoped read it on page 357… it is 197 more pages… but I lost interest in reading it…
but perhaps one day i do it… but not now,,, as I have more important things to do..
Thanks for good information, without fluff and fillers…
@CrystalsQuest
LadyMadonna, if you’ve only got one overly long fluff-filled ebook, you’re doing well!
I have plenty of them gathering digital dust. Life is just too short to chase down things that don’t catch your interest, right?
I did get one tip from an internet conference I attended a few years back (being in Australia I don’t get to many) – that I think you might appreciate: read with an end in mind. If you have an idea what you’re trying to learn from your books, you go through them way faster because you can filter out what’s not relevant. Plus of course it means you don’t buy as many in the first place!
Crystal