It’s no secret I love Twitter. Unlike Facebook, Twitter is free range. There’s nobody moderating what I see or don’t see, except for me, and I love that. The other thing I love about Twitter is that, as a network, it’s much more open. Facebook is really about connecting with people you already know, but Twitter gives you the opportunity to connect with awesome people you don’t already know.
By the way, if you are on twitter, but not already following me, hit the button below. I’ll wait.
I have a great social media infographic for you today on Twitter, but before I share it with you, here are a few quick tips to Twitter Mastery:
1. Make your profile pretty. That means uploading a photo of yourself, where you look smiley and approachable (but not too sexy), and making sure you have a nicely-rounded-out bio that includes both personal and professional. These two things make you seem like a real person, and not a robot. I won’t follow anyone if they are still and egg, or if they don’t have bio.
2. Find cool peeps to follow. Your Twitter feed gets to be whatever you want it to be, so your feed is only as awesome as the people you follow. The best advice I can give you is to go to the feed of someone you really respect, and see who they are following. I’ll bet you’ll find lots of great people to follow in there. The bonus? Likely some of those folks you follow will follow you back.
3. Use hashtags strategically. Hashtags are a great way to connect with people you don’t know, but with whom you have something in common. It’s also a great way to find new people to follow, and for new people to find and follow you. I do not like it when people use #hashtags in the body of their tweet (I find it really distracting, although there isn’t anything technically wrong with it), and I don’t like it when people use too many hashtags, or use them on every single tweet. Three hashtags per tweet, max, and don’t use them every single time.
4. Twitter lists are your friend! I follow more than 7,000 people, so it’s pretty hard to actually read all those tweets. What I do is create a twitter list of the people that matter the most to me, and that allows me to quickly, at a glance, see what they are up to. Hootsuite also saves my life on a daily basis, helping me to manage multiple accounts, and to schedule tweets.
5. Be present. You can’t expect to get followers if they check your feed and see the last time you tweeted was 3 months ago. Twitter moves very fast–the average lifespan of a tweet is only about 12 minutes. You need to show up on a regular basis. I tweet, on average, almost 20 times a day, which sounds like a lot, but I try to offer a lot of value with my tweets.
6. Talk to strangers. I know it sounds kinda weird, but there are some really interesting people on Twitter. Every day, try to strike up a conversation with a stranger: ask them a question, offer them some advice, or speak from your expertise. You never know where it might lead!
