I had a couple of people ask me recently what’s up with Twitter. And it’s actually hard to explain. It’s a thing where you can essentially text millions of people, but why? who cares? why would you want to? It seems that there are people who “get it” and people who don’t “get it.” I did some research and tried to distill out what it means to “get Twitter,” to understand how to use it appropriately and how to make it useful to you. I decided to format this post as a getting started guide of sorts because I always find it easiest to learn by doing.
I hope to get some feedback and understand better what works for people and what I have not yet figured out. Please leave a comment!
1. Listen. Before you tweet anything out, follow people or organizations that you are interested in. You can start to find interesting real-time information that you wouldn’t come across elsewhere. To make the best use of twitter, make it your goal to tune into what your friends and colleagues have to offer. Even if ultimately your goal is to Tweet marketing messages, there is no reason to make it painful or a chore for yourself. Find value in simply logging in, even if you don’t tweet anything out. Joining a social network can be a great source of information and entertainment, so take advantage of that.
2. Compare and contrast. By following others you will see many examples of good and bad tweets. You will see right away what you find annoying or informative, and how twitter personas come across in those 140 characters. Analyzing what others post will make it easier for you to understand what people care about, what they find relevant (especially important if you’re using Twitter for professional purposes). You will quickly find that there’s a sweet spot for how often one should tweet. Once a month may be too little, but many times a day is almost certainly too much. Simply observing can give you a good handle on what you find to be an effective use of Twitter.
3. Figure out what you bring to the table. Each person has a unique perspective that someone else might be interested in. Identifying your unique perspective will guide your decisions when to tweet and what to tweet about. For example, consider a real estate agent with many years of experience in a particular market. She has a wealth of information about house values, market trends, or local businesses. This is a perspective that few people have but many can benefit from. Surely you too have some great insight to share.
4. Broadcast with your audience in mind. Whenever you tweet, it’s important to think about your potential audience but still speak your mind. Your followers may be a mix or professional and personal connections, decision makers, subordinates, clients, your boss, your distant relatives, you name it. So, naturally, you want to tweet things they may care about and keep your tone appropriate, but remember that it’s almost impossible to make every single tweet relevant to each member of your audience. That’s okay. You don’t love each song and commercial on your favorite radio station but you still listen to it; you don’t love everything that your best friend says (probably), but you’re still best friends. Twitter gives you an opportunity to pitch in your 2 cents on any topic and potentially reach millions of people; use it wisely.
5. Interact and Socialize. Twitter is a social network, after all! We’re already on point #5 and so far have only been talking about one-way communication. Well, no more! Once you started following interesting people, you will surely find that you want to share something you learned from them. Re-tweet that great post. The original author (tweeter? twitterer?) will be grateful and hopefully your own network will be too. Perhaps you will even want to follow-up or ask a question. Respond to that post. Asking questions shows that you are really paying attention and who doesn’t love that? Engage with the people you follow and the ones who follow you. When I asked my marketing manager what makes successful Twitter users, she said, “getting involved in the community.” So get involved.
So there you have it. What are your thoughts?
You Don’t Get Twitter? Let me try to explain…
by Darya Orlova on April 12th, 2013 | ~ minute read
