Three Rules for Using Twitter Effectively
Bryant June 15th, 2009
I tried twitter a while back and promptly deemed it to be a waste of time. It just felt like I didn’t need to be that connected. In fact, isn’t a good practice to limit your information streams? But I’ve recently realized that there is value in twitter if used properly…
After reading The Twitter Book over the weekend, I’ve gleaned what I consider the correct way to use twitter so that it becomes a valuable new information stream rather than a mundane waste of time.
I’ve condensed these ideas into three rules:
- Follow Interesting People: This is the most important. You should follow people who you can learn from. When I originally looked at twitter a while back, I had no idea who to follow so I just picked a handful of my friends who happened to be on twitter. I’d check it every so often, and it was not too exciting. I wasn’t really learning anything new except for some trivial updates. To really enjoy twitter you need to pick a niche that you are interested in, and then find the twitter thought-leaders for that niche. For example, if you like reading sci-fi/fantasy Neil Gaiman is on twitter, and is a great person to follow. If you don’t know who to follow there are a number of sites to help you like wefollow and whoshouldIfollow. You will organically discover who to follow by seeing who others most often follow. Finally, every Friday on twitter there is a tradition of sending out recommendations of who to follow so keep an eye out for #FollowFriday.
- Don’t Use the Website: To really experience Twitter, you should download a twitter desktop application like tweetdeck. It’s free and allows you to easily send links and pictures through twitter as well as breaking those you follow into groups. For example, I have all my technology folks in one section and the remaining people grouped in another. Also, I use twitterfon on my iphone which again is much better than going directly to the twitter website. It just makes for a more enjoyable experience when you have the right tools.
- Join the Conversation: Ever wanted to have a conversation with the author of a book you just read? Well here’s your chance, but the key point is to add value not just noise. One of the unique aspects of twitter is that it is so low friction, it’s easier to communicate than even sending an email. You can post a comment about a book and an hour later the author may have a personal response (as happened to me) because it’s so easy to write a 140 character response. Because it is low friction, you should twitter regularly (daily) but not too often (hourly). If you twitter too much it tends to overwhelm people who are following you. If you’re not sure what to tweet, there are a number of ways to start: Retweet something interesting that you’ve seen, ask questions and repost the best answers, put an entertaining or informative spin on something that happened to you that day.
Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall and follow hear other people’s conversation or would you like to find out what your favorite athletes do in their down time? Twitter is your opportunity to do just that.
And if you’re really bored, you can even follow me 
Twitter isn’t so much a broadcast medium as it is a discussion channel. Indeed, the secret of social media is that it’s not about you…It’s about how you can add value to the communities that happen to include you. If you want to make a positive impact, forget about what you can get out of social media and start thinking about what you can contribute. Funnily enough, the more value you create for the community, the more value it will create for you.
-The Twitter Book by O’Reilly and Milstein
