10 Ways To Use Twitter Effectively

As I wrote yesterday about using the social networking site Twitter I felt the need to dive a little more into just how to utilize it. If you couldn’t guess just ‘how’ to use twitter to advertise your blog/product/business/service then lets get into a few things.

Here are the top 10 things when you are using Twitter to get more out of it than you put in:

1) BE HUMAN

For some reason a person will sign up to Twitter and just post “New Blog Post…” or “check out our new product…” – this is huge NO NO! When you sign up you need to engage with people. Don’t be the spammer that people are trying to get away from. After a few weeks of being on twitter you’ll know the kind of accounts that I’m speaking about. In fact I received a notice just yesterday about someone new following me:           – this is nothing BUT spam. While they might offer a good service their methods are terrible. As you can tell they aren’t JUST promoting their service but 9/10 twit’s are about their service.

One way to see if you are a spammer and you don’t know it is finding out how many people your following in relation to whose following you. If you see that your following everyone and their cousin and no one is reciprocating it then guess what….yep, spammer alert.

2. BE SMART

This is continuous to the #1. You need to engage with other users and post interesting articles that are related to current events or just some great sites/blogs you ran across.

*gasp* “Promote other sites?”

Uhhhh, YES! If you just reference your site then people will think you are spamming once again and will get tired of you and quickly stop following you. If you think of it this is a blessing in disguise. If you are writing about technology and there’s a new product being released then  by telling your followers about the teleconference it shows that you are on top of your niche market.

3. 140 Characters = GET TO THE POINT!

Don’t take 2-3 twit’s to talk about something simple. Get straight to the point. If you want to be witty think of another outlet because if you can’t do it in 140 characters then just let it go. Now its understandable if there is an ongoing conversation about a topic and your using the “@” symbol to talk with the individual that way when people come to your site they’ll see that you are actually interacting with people.

4. SHORTEN YOUR LINKS

Okay, you’re building your entourage in twitter and start tossing out links to your blog (or other sites) make sure you shorten them. The last thing you need to do is use two twit’s to get a point across about your new blog. A quick source is going to TinyURL which will shorten your url and people who use twitter know about this so don’t think they won’t click on it.

5. NOT EVERYTHING IS NEWS!

Just because you are out of toilet paper doesn’t mean your followers (actually the world) need, cancel that – want, to know. If you didn’t get the gist of yesterday’s posted video then allow me to elaborate. What people want to know is that there are humans out there that like the same things that they do. If you are Mets fan then air your frustrations and more than likely you’ll build a network of connections just from that alone.

6. BRAND – BRAND – BRAND!

Unless your Direct Messaging (DM’s) people than the whole world (those in twitter-land) are able to view your twit’s. So, unless you want them to know about certain situation don’t twit it. You need to be very careful on this. I’ve noticed people who’ve twittered something about their company only to retract it in a matter of minutes. While you might be able to “delete” twit’s it might be too late and the damage is done.

When you use twitter your not just advertising your company/service/product you are also doing so for yourself. So, when people (or possible current/future employees) do searches on you and find that you have made twit’s about items that are sensitive that could cause some major damage.

7. FOLLOW YOUR MARKET

If your image is surrounded around the technology niche then why follow someone who does sports? The obvious follow up is why would that person follow you? You need to follow people who are interested in the same things as you. This is essential to proper twitter etiquette but isn’t used as much as it should. It correlates with the social media golden rule: why should they connect with you if you have nothing in common.

To go back to the first question if that person whom is interested in sports does sports ‘technology’ – then YES! There is a common denominator and you have to ask yourself each time you find someone new following you. Should I follow them simply because they are following me or are they a good connection?

8. GET IN THE TREND

If you are semi-decent marketer then you know about trends and figure out ways to adapt your product/service/etc to the current trend without coming off as stretching the connection. Google has “Google Trends” so why not find the “twitter trend”. Twist has put together a great trend twitter search with graphics.

Think of it like high school and your trying to fit in at the new school so this is your ticket to finding out what the conversation is.

9. GET LOCAL

You will be surprised how many of your neighbors/colleagues/friends and even family are using twitter. Twitter has put togther a great search engine that you can narrow down to a 5 mile radius of your location and seeing what the consus is on a new levy to finding who uses wordpress. This can be used in correspondence to the #8. If the trend is on a big storm coming through then by going to the twitter search you can see what local/state people are doing to prepare or who might’ve been affected by it.

10. UTILIZE THE TOOLS

I’ve mentioned a few sites that relate to twitter but one of the most obvious is using your phone/text messaging capabilities. This comes in handy so you don’t have to be glued to the twitter site, twirl, or any other 3rd party twitter application. However, you must be careful the last thing you need to do is have messages sent to your phone and next thing you know you have over 300 messages. Only follow via text REAL connections or those that you know are truly important to you. One idea is that of a news station that uses twitter to relay traffic reports (comes in handy during rush hour) or if you are a fan of Woot then having their twits come to your phone allow you to jump on their deals.

So please be careful when you do update your device and if you do mess up no worries because the twitter crew thought of this and has implemmented way to stop updates via text messages.

If you’re interested feel free to follow me: twitter.com/drivenmg