Twitter 101

I’m away in the Chicago suburbs with family for some R&R  – actually returning to the QC late this afternoon. The past couple days have been one of sleeping, eating lots of great food, trying my hand at the Wii for the first time, watching movies, and listening to music.

Anyway, Twitter is something I’ve thought about writing about for some time. I’ve heard it referred to as the Target of social media (with Facebook being Wal-Mart). Although I might go as far as to say that Twitter – for me – is more like a low-maintenance version of a cool boutique store with very few items in which I have no problems finding what I what, when I want it .. and more importantly, I control the inventory 😉

I talked about Twitter at a business show last year. But now that I’ve had more experience with it, I thought I’d offer a little bit more insight on this social media tool.

Twitter is Facebook for professionals. I use Twitter as a learning tool. It can be overwhelming initially. But the key is to recognize the kinds of people you want to follow. First though, a quick vocabulary lesson:

– following: People whose tweets (updates) show up on your feed – because you’ve chosen to “follow” them.

– followers: People who see your tweets (updates) on their feeds – because they’ve chosen to “follow” you.

Note: You can “follow” someone, but that doesn’t mean they follow you. The same is true on the other end — People can “follow” you, but that doesn’t mean you can or should follow them. Luckily, Twitter allows you to “block” or “unfollow” others.

If you’re new to Twitter, here’s some guidelines that I adhere to that may help you:

1. People can automatically post the same stuff about 50 times in 5 minutes – those are the people I block.
2. I love following people who talk about stuff that’s interesting and intriguing – world news, pets, sports, road construction, art, weddings, stuff about their kids, mixed in with useless randomness.
3. I follow a lot of photographers and wedding industry professionals on Twitter whom I like (based on their tweets). I also un-followed professionals whom I dislike (based on their tweets).
4. I’m more likely to follow someone if they have a website and a location on their bio.
5. I’m also more likely to follow someone if they have a good number of followers and people whom they are following. Example: 100 followers and 150 following is good. But 900 following and 2 followers is just creepy.
6. Twitter’s “Who to Follow” feature is addictive, and then it became annoying so I learned to ignore it (usually).
7. Automatic connection is awesome — I can publish blog posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn at the same time! Yay!
8. If there is someone I’m considering I should follow on the “Who to Follow” feature, I like that Twitter also lists others whom you follow that also “follow” your prospective tweeter… Got it? If not, read this slowly and it will make sense. I promise.
9. I’ve learned and purchased a few things that I have used to enhance my business because of people on Twitter.
10. Last, but not least – I only tweet when on the computer (mostly because a turtle could text faster than me). Although, if a situation strikes me, I can be open to change.

Finally, thank you WordPress for including a “Tweet” button at the end of my posts.

Happy Tweeeting!

Shuva