Twitter and Tweet from the Trenches

Foreword by Murry Shohat

YouTube will get you on Twitter fast

By Bernie Borges

How To Get on Twitter FAST

Hi, everyone. Thanks Murry

It was great to finally eat something other than bananas after three days. I hope the high price I paid was worth it to you. The bananas were refreshing. Here you go, some of my favorite Twitter tips:

1    Change your name

Change your Twitter name from something cute and catchy to a form of YOUR NAME.  Don't be too cute. That's Twitter's job. If people want to follow you, to hook up for mutual business benefit, they'll search for you by different combinations of your name. Maybe they heard you speak and jotted down your last name. Maybe they had a conversation in an elevator or with a friend, noting what they think is your name. Maybe it was on the public restroom wall. If you are Bernie Borges but go by snapgator on Twitter,  you won't be found. If you want to exploit the power of Twitter as a business tool, it’s critical to be easily found. Search  “borges twitter” and you’ll see my point. Now search "bernie borges twitter." No doubt you've got the right person.

If you've been Twittering as snapgator, contact each follower to let them know your new Twitter name, your real name and to follow you there. Note, you can change your Twitter name in the settings area and still keep your current followers, though I've never done that so I can't claim it works as advertised. 
 

2    Customize your Twitter Background

This is a visual look and feel tip, not a profile tip. Get into Twitter's setup pages for a few minutes. Your visual twitter background should say something about your personality and your accomplishments and the type of followers you want to attract as well as the type of people you want to follow. Here are just a few examples.

 http://twitter.com/mvolpe
 http://twitter.com/berniebay
 http://twitter.com/SusanBratton/

As you can see, backgrounds can range from simple (Bratton) to fairly complex (mvolpe). Hire a designer to generate a background in Illustrator, or go it alone with one of Twitter's standards. Or tweet me to build one or three or six.

The key is to create an image that projects not just a message, but THE message that conveys something about you. You've heard the phrase elevator speech. For Twitter you need an elevator image: are you all business, serious; are you also fun loving, playful, creative; are you information centered left brain or right brain abstract etc? And, you can have more than one background. As your exploitation of Twitter grows, you might perform an image refresh from time to time, selecting from half a dozen customized backgrounds. Your background image helps tell a story about you. Give it the attention it deserves.

 

3    Selectively Follow

As you build a data base of connections on Twitter, you'll follow people and people will follow you. It's uncanny how this works, and boy does it work. My third tip is to closely monitor who is following you, and to selectively follow some of them back. My school of thought on following is retail, not wholesale. Some will tell you that it's rude not to follow someone who is following you. That's nonsense for business use. Sure, you can use Twitter as a popularity thing. I choose to use it as a business connection builder, a social network that creates and maintains a productive relationship environment. That means sending tweets containing real meat, and receiving the same. Pragmatic, useful, social, productive, enlightening, action calls, interesting. All of these adjectives help you decide who to follow. In turn, you'll get followed by similarly predisposed folks.

Once or twice a week, I get my mind into follow mode. I'll search for new connections, possible vendors and clients, people I may have read about and would like to follow if they use Twitter. As I write this, I'm following about 1,100, and am being followed by about 1,700. I hope none of them are detectives or tax agents.

BTW, the popular thought in the Twitterverse is the more followers the better. My sentiment is quality is more important than quantity. I don't want thousands of followers whose interests are not aligned with mine. I'd rather have 1,700 relevant followers than 17,000 irrelevant followers.
 

4    Be Interesting

My fourth tip is to be interesting. Twitter is the epitome of social. If you get together with a group of good friends, people with whom you're comfortable, where you can  just be your great self, it's likely that all of them would rate you "interesting." Twitter is a group of friends, too, usually people of a like mind (birds of feather stuff). Twitter itself is the agenda, so you don't want to be seen as an aggressive advocate or evangelist. You don't want a reputation of "look out for that guy." You do want to be seen as a trusted commentator who packs a lot into your Tweets. You give as good or better than you get, and that makes you interesting.

Tweet comments with your insights and with links to interesting articles. Point out new videos that make a point. Include significant tidbits about yourself (but not too much). Your followers want to hear from you when you are interesting. But if you only talk about yourself, you may be perceived as an incorrigible narcissist.

If you're inclined to be humurous, go for it (in good taste of course). Making people smile or laugh is a good thing in social media as well as in person. Be interesting, be informative, be entertaining. Be all of the above.
 

5    Re-tweet is the real power

If you've read nearly any of Malcolm Gladwell's work (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers for example), you understand the real power of connections: they motivate action. My fifth tip is to lubricate action by re-tweeting selected tweets made by those you are following. These are interesting comments that you'd like to advance. For example, re-Tweeting a Tweet from Ford Motor Company's @scottmonty gets a lot of exposure with my followers and with @scottmonty himself. This shows that you are interested in sharing other people’s insights, as long as you don't go overboard. Twitter is a delivery engine for doing this instantly. And it's faster and potentially more powerful than e-mail. And far less intrusive than instant messaging.

Recently, I received a tweet about a news story. I looked into it -- only took a moment to click the included link -- and decided NOT to re-tweet. On the other hand, I read a tweet from a person I was following and thought "wow, others should know about this." Instant re-tweet.

 

6    Jump into the Streams

My sixth tip is to follow interesting Twitter conversation streams and get involved in 'em. For example the conference I recently attended is at: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23ims09. (Be patient if you click this link; searches like this take a few seconds).To include your comment in a Twitter conversation stream include the hashtag of your event. In this example you would include #ims09 in your Tweet and it will display in that conversation. A hashtag is the # (pound sign). When you include a hashtag in your tweet with a word, it creates a Twitter conversation stream around that word. For example, as a Tampa Bay Rays fan I follow Twitter conversations with #rays. As a baseball fan in general I also follow conversations with #redsox, #yankees and other teams. When events occur Twitter conversations start around them such as #mumbai for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year, or #olympics during last summer's Olmpic games in Beijing.

But be careful to not jump into too many conversation streams. Staying focused on your favorite topics is important. Only you can decide what that means. The temptation will always be there to get wet in places that may float you in directions you really don't want to go.
 

7    Use TweetDeck

My seventh tip is to download and use TweetDeck. It’s an Adobe Air app that makes Twitter much more efficient. You can set up groups and see replies and direct messages in a highly efficient custom browser that you leave open most of the time. You'll hear tweets as they occur (this can be a little annoying).

Like any new program, there's a bit of a learning curve to TweetDeck. Most new users say they are comfortable after an hour: not a very tall hill to climb. After a few days, it's second nature. Personally, I think TweetDeck has contributed to Twitter's popularity because it makes using Twitter easier and more productive.
 

8    Use Direct Messaging

 Tip #8 (thanks for another banana, I was getting light headed) is to send a DM (direct message) to your new followers. Thank them for following you and include an interesting comment or link to something interesting. This is a social tip that shows you are human and friendly.  But, don't sell in your DMs. I've unfollowed people who DM me with a link to something they're selling. Not cool.

DM's are easy in TweetDeck. Simply click the "direct message" reply option and type your tweet. TweetDeck will display "D" for direct message just before your tweet. It's that easy.
 

9    Tweet often, Early and Late

My ninth tip is to tweet often throughout the day, no less than 10 times and as many as 20 times. At first (like a new exercise program) it may seem like work, but eventually the dots will connect and it will come naturally. Check out this podcast/blog post and you'll get a lot more tips that'll help you tweet often, early and late: http://www.findandconvert.com/blog/2009/twitter-in-business-its-for-real/.

One way to tweet often is to schedule your tweets. There are several tools available you can use to do this. I use TweetLater. It allows you to batch up several tweets and schedule them to go anytime in the future. You can send them the same day, or further in the future. You can also include links in your tweets. This is a good approach when you know you have a busy schedule that would prevent you from actively posting tweets during your day. But, it's still advisable to post spontaneous tweets (I call them bursts) as you get them.

You can tweet from you mobile device or from your computer. You can send a text message to Twitter at 40404 and it will send your tweet. If you have an iPhone you can tweet using an application such as PocketTweets.
 

10    Use @ Twitter Names to Get People's Attention

My tenth tip is encourage you to tweet about other people or include other people's ideas, or generally give other people great exposure on Twitter. When you reference someone on Twitter don't use their regular name. Rather use their Twitter name. For example to reference me you would use @berniebay. Twitter and TweetDeck both allow you to track all @ replies of your Twitter name. So if you want to get noticed by someone, use their @twittername.

11    Trust Me, Stay the Course

My eleventh tip is to believe me when I suggest that if you use Twitter actively you WILL get business from it. You will! Use it actively every day for at least three months and good things will happen from the Karma you are generating (or just from the wise business decision to exploit one of business social networking's best communications engine).
Wait a minute. Somebody's headed over here and they have a key... Oh, OK, Murry, thanks for releasing me.

(An hour later...) Now that I'm fully re-hydrated, let me impart some other wisdom. There are some good Knols besides mine. Here are a few to get you started.

Twittin' Secrets: The 100 World's Greatest Twitter Tips & Twitter Secrets
Why You Need to Twitter
Twitter as a Business Tool

One final caution...If you use Twitter as I've suggested, you may become addicted to it. Signs that you're addicted to Twitter

About The Author

I'm the founder and "chief find officer" at Find and Convert, an inbound marketing company, located in the Tampa Bay region. Instead of taking up your time at Knol with a boring bio, here's a link library to learn more. If you've got some tips, please add them as Comments. Or write your own Knol. Stay away from Murry. He has a waterboard and handcuffs but he's out of bananas.

727-234-0952 ext. 1001
Blog: http://www.findandconvert.com/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/berniebay

P.S. My twelfth tip is to include your Twitter name in your auto signature and generally tell everyone about it.

Twitter in Plain English