My list of tips for getting the most out of Twitter

(alternative title – How to use social media such as twitter to be nice)

Just a very quick list of tips for those of you that are new to using Twitter.

But first, Lisa Nova, who I think shows how bad the Twitter addiction can get.

1. Put your real name in the name field when you sign up.
   If you follow people then they will know who you are. If you have nothing in your profile but your chosen username/handle/nickname then you risk not being followed back purely because you’re effectively anonymous.
2. Put a link to a website that has more info about you or what you do in the website field
   If there is no link for people to follow if they’re interested in knowing more, then again, you risk not being followed back. And even worse, if you represent a brand or have an interesting project you’re working on then nobody will know!
3. Introduce yourself when you follow someone
   As you’ll discover yourself, it’s really hard to know where someone might have found you, and why they’re following you. If somewhere in your recent tweets there’s a message saying hi and who you are, or where you met, then it’s instantly easy to know how that connection is made.
4. Use @replies (what are @replies) at the beginning of your tweet rather than half way through (if the context works)
   Replies to people using the @joshr method only appear in the replies tab on Twitter’s own site if the @reply was at the beginning of your tweet. If the @joshr is in the middle of your tweet then Twitter treats this as a mention, rather than a reply. This is ok as well, as they can be found (and in fact explicitly searched for) in the Twitter search, but that’s not so obvious
5. When posting links, say something about what that link is to
   This may sound obvious, but it’s very common for links to be posted with no explanation whatsoever about what might be on the page linked to. Why should people follow it? Give context to your link and get the traffic. Quite often the good links float to the top on Twitter, as people consciously choose to post them, it’s not a constant river of links like in your RSS reader. (That deserves it’s own post, I’ve almost stopped using my RSS reader thanks to Twitter being my filter)
6. Your photo (avatar) should be of you, more specifically of your face
   You know, so we can see you. People are visual creatures, if you’ve met someone you want to follow then they’re more likely to remember your face than remember your name. Of course changing your avatar occasionally for fun and memes is ok too :)
7. Don’t post nothing
   If you don’t post anything, then you’re missing the point of half of Twitter. The other half is to listen and read what your friends are up to. But not saying anything yourself can at worst be seen as creepy, and at best lurking or stalking. This is a 2-way medium, you never know, you might find some interesting people following you because of what you wrote.
8. Don’t post too much
   If you post all day about that link you found or how cute your cat is, and i mean an excessive amount (more than 50 times a day maybe?), then your signal to noise ratio won’t be great. This may be a reason you’ll lose followers, or not gain them in the first place. There may be a chance you’ll get mistaken for spam too, this is also not good. (by the way, spam doesn’t work on Twitter, we just block and don’t follow, there-fore we’re not hearing you OK?!)
9. Be aware of timezones
   If there is someone you really want to get noticed by, it’s worth tweeting at a time when they’re awake. So if they’re on the other side of the world, you might be pulling some late nights.
10. If you’re a brand, pay attention to what people are saying about you
    Again, this might sound obvious, but doing this is not always easy. Use the Twitter search to search for you brand, remember to try other iterations of the name (hyphens, numbers, acronyms), and then feel free to respond or reply to people talking about your stuff. This shows that you are a human and that you care. There is nothing like a personal touch when it comes to business, got it! :) There’s a lot to take advantage of when creating content online or interacting with customers and users online. It should be part of your communication strategy to blog, Twitter, and generally get involved. Play with your users in their playground, but play nice.
11. The Internet never forgets
    I can’t impress this one on you enough, be careful what you say online (not just on Twitter, but everywhere else too). If you ever want to delete what you’ve written somewhere, you can do that. Twitter has a delete button next to every tweet you write. But your tweets are archived elsewhere and are findable in Google. Even the Twitter search database is different, your tweets are not removed from there. In fact look at it this way, when you delete a tweet, you’re only deleting it from your timeline, nowhere else. Welcome to the world of caching, that’s something you should look up and understand.

I’m on Twitter as joshr, I’m sure I break the rules all the time, but it’s always on my mind. Remember the value of the relationships, and remember who’s following you, they’re potentially listening to everything you say, good or bad!

There are loads of technical tips too (things like not posting two links next to each other because only one of them will be clickable..) but that’s been covered a lot, and most of those tips will probably become deprecated as they get fixed or as user’s behaviours change to adapt to them.

If you have more tips please post them in the comments, or better still blog your list and trackback :)

Some useful references:
Twitter fan wiki, loads of hack, tips, tricks and plugins or apps for Twitter
Twitter Search, searches not for friends, but for things people have said (We made something that lets you add a search box to your Twitter page)