by Ryan Barr (@ryanbarr) from SpookyIsMyName

Twitter is considered a micro-blogging service and though its original intention was to allow users to keep friends and co-workers in the loop, it has transformed to a vast social network of its own. For those that aren’t aware, a social network is defined as a group of people or friends that share a common goal or interest. Some users on Twitter find no reason in leaving their little community of friends, family, or office mates; they have little interest in wandering the depths of
the Twitter public in search of new ideas.

It’s quite obvious that you can’t force anyone to follow you nor can you really force anyone to go hunting for new information. You can, however, offer someone the content and dangle it in front of their face like a cruel dog owner and encourage them to click that follow button. Though it seems fool proof, this trick isn’t as rock solid as you may think: you have to actually offer content that is desirable.

Now, how do you offer great content and still keep your Twitter somewhat personal? It is pretty simple: find something you are very interested in or experienced with and start talking about it in most of your tweets. Then, on the side, post about other interesting personal moments in your life such as what fancy meal you are eating, movie you are seeing, or place you are visiting. The less posting about sleep or bathroom trips you take the more likely you are to receive followers.

Great content doesn’t just fall from a tree and into your hands; rather it is your structured ideas that form it. In fact great content can even be hidden behind a boring tweet. For example, take these two tweets I’ve fabricated:

“Just saw a good movie with some friends.”

“Went and saw Taken with a few friends. Great movie, amazing storyline, and tons of action. It is a must see for anyone!”

They both state that I saw a movie, but one is a bit clearer and provides more information. Here are some tips to focus on when structuring your tweets:

• Be clear and concise with your tweets; avoid filler words, slang, or shorthand (unless you really have to cram the words in there). Being able to understand what you are saying is extremely important.
• Remember that Twitter’s character limit is 140 characters. Though it may seem that characters get used up fast, a lot can be said within a tweet.
• Take note of what your followers are interested in: what are they replying to? what is being retweeted the most? what is creating a bang within your network? Knowing what is returning the most allows you to better target your tweets.
• Be consistent and organized. Posting heavily about an interesting topic one day and neglecting it for a week will do you no good if you want to attract followers who are interested in said topic.
• Most Important: Pace yourself! No one is more annoying than someone who hops on Twitter, fills the timeline with tweets, then disappears for some time. Even in a less extreme, no one enjoys someone who posts spontaneously. If you have issues pacing yourself try a service like HootSuite or TweetLater

Some simple tips can return amazing results so don’t let them float past you. Also, when tweeting, remember that retweeting information can do more to help you than hurt you. Many services highlight when people retweet and your users might not have seen that tweet before and could be affected by it themselves. As well, retweeting information can also show users who aren’t following you that you care about that information which could also result in an easy follower.

Now, contrary to what you may believe, it doesn’t end there. What is the point in providing great information to your followers, gauging their reactions, and gathering statistics without putting it all to work? Start or find a blog to post on with your newly discovered information, provide helpful articles or encourage your friends to become a more powerful Twitter user. Don’t let your resources and knowledge go to waste, social networks exist to share information and the more you get involved the more return you will see.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Darren Rowse

There are many reasons that a blog post might get spread widely through ‘ReTweets’ (when one person passes on the tweet of another) but one fairly obvious, yet often overlooked one, has to do with the length of your blog post title.

Yesterday on TwiTip I published a post with a formula for getting ReTweeted on twitter. You can read the full thing for yourself but the author of the post (@louisedoherty) proposed that to increase the chances of one of your tweets being ReTweeted that you need to keep your own tweet shorter than the 140 characters allowed by Twitter so that the person can include other information (your username, the @ symbol and the letters RT).

I’ve seen the wisdom of theory of Louise many times in my own use of Twitter. If I tweet something that is the maximum of 140 characters it make it more tricky for followers to retweet - they either have to change my tweet or don’t do it.

OK - so this applies to bloggers how?

Twitter can send you a lot of traffic if a link to one of your posts gets spread around via ReTweeting. Just look at the Top 100 Retweeted Links on Twitter at the moment - as I write this the top one has been passed on 331 times which means it is a link that could have been viewed on Twitter by many thousands of people.

To help the ReTweet thing along a little keep your titles short. They don’t need to be 3 words long - but keep in mind that when someone is going to tweet a link to your post that they will usually include:

1. The title of your post

2. A URL (often shortened using tinyurl or some other shortening service which means it’ll be anything from 20 to 26 characters)

They may also want to include a comment about your link.

That’s not all you want to think about - you then should consider that for the link to be ReTweeted it will include all of the above information plus:

1. The username of the person being retweeted with the @ symbol (usually 5-12 characters)

2. The letters RT and sometimes a : as well as a space after it (3-4 characters)

You can see that the number of characters is starting to add up so shorter Titles can definitely help.

Lets workshop it:

• The title of this post is ‘A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter ‘ - that’s 52 characters (with space at end)
• Lets say that the URL is shortened with Twurl - that’s 22 characters
• Lets say that the person tweeting it adds the words ‘Reading: ‘ at the start of the tweet (9 characters with space) and ‘ - cool post’ at the end (12 characters with spaces).

So far the original tweet is 95 characters long.

And would look like: ‘Reading: A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter http://twurl.nl/qejpzq - Cool Post’

Lets just say it was @chrisbrogan who made the above tweet. As Chris has a lot of great followers at least one of them is bound to retweet it.

At the very least their retweet would read:

‘RT: @chrisbrogan Reading: A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter http://twurl.nl/qejpzq - Cool Post’

We’re still under the limit of 140 and with 29 characters to spare could have added a few words to our title.

This is not something that I would spend a lot of time on and I would not compromise my titles too much to get them down in character length - however as someone who has seen significant traffic from Twitter over the last 6 months it is definitely a factor that I keep in the back of my mind as I blog.

PS: another reason to keep titles down in length is that Google has a cut off of 70 characters when it displays page titles in search results. A title over 70 characters gets chopped off mid title which could decrease the chances of someone clicking it. I’m told that other search engines cut off titles at as little as 65 characters so perhaps that is a better cut off point.

by Bill Nickerson (aka LoneWolf) from Howls, Cookie Crumbles and Ramblings (follow him @LoneWolfMuskoka).

It seems that we, as human beings, are facinated by numbers. I’m not talking about a mathematical fascination although many people do find numbers interesting of themselves. No, what I’m talking about is a facination with quantities, statistics and measurements. We use numbers to express value, make comparisons and to rank things, including ourselves.

This tendancy spills over into almost every thing that we do and it is apparent that Twitter is no exception. Almost every day we will see tweets about follow numbers (or unfollow numbers), rankings and statistics. What do all these numbers really mean and where do they come from?

I’m fairly new to Twitter, but one thing that I have noticed in my few months of following and tweeting is that many people are confused about the numbers and some of the activities that take place around them. So let’s take a few minutes and see if we can understand some of what is going on.

Follow Me, Follow You

There are two very important numbers in Twitter that often give rise to confusion. The first is Following which counts how many people you are listening to. The other number is Followers. This counts how many people are listening to you.

When you visit the Profile page of a user you will see both of these numbers listed (as well as Updates which we’ll talk about later). You can even list the followers and follows for the person if you are interested. These numbers can give you a good indication of the popularity of a person and the value of their tweets.

Followers

Since Twitter is an opt-in service, a high number of followers will usually indicate that the person is providing content worth following. It may not necessarily be interesting to you but that is only something that you can decide by looking at their tweets over time. If you see recent updates on their profile that you like then it is worth following them for a time to see what they say. You can always unfollow later if you don’t like what you see.

Follows

When you see someone with a high number of follows it is usually an indication of someone that is very social and who likes to engage with other people. It means that they are open to tweets, replies and direct messages from a large group. You will often see that their recent updates are full of replies to others as well. They use Twitter to have conversations.

Having a high follow count does not mean that they are reading every tweet that comes their way. Some have follow counts that are in the 10’s of thousands and it just isn’t possible to read all the tweets that flows in their Twitter stream. It is likely that they are closely following a few good friends with and answering replies and direct messages. They will occasionally fish for nuggets in the general stream as time allows.

While the above observations are true in most cases, you will find some people with large follow counts who don’t actually read tweets of the people they follow. They are only following people to take advantage of the large number of people in Twitter who automatically follow back. It allows them to build their audience. These people are not interested in conversation. Rather they are interested in broadcasting.

Twitter Rules for Following

Twitter has set in place rules for following to reduce the amount of abuse in the system. These rules may change as Twitter evolves.

Followers

There are no limits on the number of followers that you can have. If you are popular then this number may rise much higher than the number of people you follow. Most popular people on Twitter will follow pretty much everyone who follows them but there is no requirement to do so. There are a couple important reasons for for them to do this.

• It is polite — Twitter is about conversation.
• You cannot receive a direct message from someone unless you are following them.
• They may also check their Twitter stream periodically or serach for specific keywords. They might find something of interest in what you say.

Follows

You may follow up to 2,000 people without any restrictions. However, if you want to follow more than that, you need to have enough followers so that the ration of follows/followers does not exceed 1.1 (or 110%). That means that if you have 4,000 followers you may follow as many as 4,400. If you have 10,000 followers you can follow up to 11,000.

The Follow/Unfollow Mystery Explained(?)

One of the great mysteries that has appeared in Twitter recently is the Follow/Unfollow mystery. I believe that there is a reasonable explanation for this.

The Follow

Since most people will follow anyone who follows them, someone who wants a big following need only follow lots of people to get more followers. Generally speaking, some of them will unfollow fairly quickly once they see the lack of quality tweeting but many will stick with it for various reasons. This part of the equation is easy to understand.

The Unfollow

The unfollow is the mysterious part. On the surface, there seems to be no reason for unfollowing if you want to increase your own following. However, if they only have 2,000 followers they cannot exceed 2,200 follows. In order to make room for a bigger following they must unfollow some to make room for new follows.

An Example

For example, if they are following 2,000 and get 1,500 followers out of that they cannot use more follows to grow since their limit would be 2,000 (110% of 1,500 is only 1,650 so they’re stuck with the 2,000 limit). However, if they unfollow 1,500 they can now follow 1,500 more people and hopefully garner another 1,000 or more followers.

At 2,500 followers they are now able to follow up to 2,750. If they unfollow until they are down to 500 again, they can add 2,250 new follows this time and get more followers. The cycle will repeat until they get the following that they want.

Ghost Followers

I believe that people are setting up what I call ghost followers. These are accounts that are designed to increase the following of a user or group of users. If they set up several thousand accounts and have them all follow their main account then they have a solid base of followers that they won’t lose that allows them to increase their follow/unfollow cycles.

I suspect that this kind of behaviour (or something similar) has been behind the recent Twitter cleanup in which people lost large groups of followers.

Tweet Nothings

Updates is the third number that you will find on your profile page. This is simply a count of how many Tweets you have made since you signed up for your account. It is usually a good indicator of how active you are on Twitter. When combined with the age of your Twitter account it gives potential followers an idea of what they can expect from you.

While the number of tweets you make on your account don’t tell us whether you have interesting information to follow or not, it is a good indication of your involvement. There are several different types of tweets that are all included in this one number. This includes replies (@someone) and retweets (RT or via) as well as open tweets. Direct Messages (D) are not included.

Twitter Analysis — Beyond the Basics

Sometimes we want to know more about a person on Twitter than just these three numbers. That is where the 3rd party analysis tools come in to play. There are several different sites that you can use to see different stats and rankings to help you decide whether or not you want to follow someone — or just to see you you stack up against others.

Some Sites to Get You Started

There are new sites popping up on a regular basis that provide value additions to Twitter and several of them are providing more statistics for you to look at. To get you started here are three that I’ve used:

• Twitterholic is a site that ranks users based on their followers, friends, updates or time on Twitter. The default ranking is on followers. You can check out where you are in the rankings as well as looking at the top 100.
• TweetStats can track the average number of tweets that you (or another user) post. It will graphically show you how many tweet for each of the past 5 months (including the current) as well as breakdowns of the times and days that you tweet and who you sent the most replies to. You can also see a Tweet Cloud showing the most common words in your tweets.
• Web Analytics Demystified tries to get a better handle on the quality of a person’s tweeting. Rather than just looking at raw numbers, they also look at the number of interactions between a user and other Twitter users. This is an indication of involvement in the community. They look at the number of times that you post replies, retweets and tweets with links. It’s not perfect but it does give you a different picture than the raw numbers.

You can find more at TwiTip TweetStats.

Where Do We Go From Here?

There are a couple of interesting stats that I’d like to see made available someday. Maybe someone is working away at these right now or maybe someone will start soon.

• Friends in Common This was suggested by my Twitter friend @ggw_bach. Just enter two twitter id’s and the app would show the intersection of their friends. This could be broken down into common follows, common followers and common friends.
• Degrees of Twitter What this application would do is map out follows and followers of a given user’s friends out to a specified degree. It could even be designed to highlight those that you currently don’t follow so that you could check them out.
• Weighted Follower Rankings When looking at the number of people following you (or someone you’re thinking about following) it would be interesting to know how many of them are active or influential in Twitter. It could build on the statistics of a site like Web Analytics Demystified as described above. This might give a stronger indication of the perceived value of a user’s tweeting.

So, what do you think? What numbers do you think are important on Twitter? Which ones matter most to you? Which ones do you look at when choosing who to follow? Now is your chance to let the whole world know.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Mark Fulton (follow him @DotSauce) from TweetSocial Twitter Community.

I always seem to get a warm-fuzzy feeling when I use up all 140 characters in a concise descriptive tweet. Here are some tips for making the most of those few characters you get to use.

1) Use shorthand codes. BRB, LOL, RT, TY, etc. Some may call it tech speak or leet speak. Acronyms and abbreviations for commonly used words and phrases. Check out this list of popular Twitter shorthands and if you like to use more colorful shorthand there is also a NSFW shorthand list. That’s Not-Safe-For-Work for you shorthand beginners.

2) Be clear and concise. Make sure you are not being redundant. Remove any words that might be irrelevant to what you are trying to convey.

3) Use URL shortening. This one is pretty obvious and is even built in to Twitter. However, there are some URL shortening services that can save you a few more characters than TinyURL. I use IS.GD and another popular one is XR.COM which even allows you to customize the URL.

4) Use special symbol characters. You may not know it, but Twitter accepts more than just normal characters. You can actually create hearts, stars, smilies and other symbols that can represent words or ideas in just 1 character. TheNextWeb has created a great tool called TwitterKeys which allows you to have all these symbols at your fingertips.

5) Use labels. Labeling your tweet has some cool benefits. A label is like a tag at the beginning of your tweet. Your followers will know exactly what you are sharing right away and they may even increase your chances of being re-tweeted. Here are some examples… (Reading:, Stumbling:, Digging:, etc.)

6) Be simple. This is a writing tip from Copyblogger, “…simple words work better than big ones. Write ‘get’ instead of ‘procure.’ Write ‘use’ rather than ‘utilize.’ Use the longer words only if your meaning is so precise there is no simpler word to use.”

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Neal Wiser (@nealwiser)

Unless you are a Twitter user who immediately follows everyone who follows you, we have all experienced losing Followers because, for whatever reason, we did not follow them in return. To be sure, deciding when to follow or not follow is not only a personal decision, but one which is driving a growing debate in the Blogosphere. How this debate plays out may have a profound impact on how people use Twitter and how the service will grow in the future.

Although it’s still early in Twitter’s Evolution, the Follow Question is one that has no easy answer. Indeed, deciding whether or not to follow someone is a vexing question for both new and veteran Tweeters alike. The decision ultimately depends on a variety of factors as numerous as there are users of the service and while there isn’t any one right answer, two diametrically opposed positions have emerged. The challenge is that both present valid arguments. For analysis, I call them Reciprocals and Discriminators.

Reciprocals take the view that not only does etiquette require you to return a follow, but reciprocity is the quickest way to increase your Follower numbers. However, as your Followers increase, your timeline can become clogged with superfluous discussions. Even with tools such as TweetDeck, following multiple conversations is not easy.

Discriminators take the opposite view. They feel, among other things, that quality of followers, not quantity is the important factor. Ultimately, the decision depends on one’s reasons and goals for using Twitter, but there are Pros and Cons to each position.

Growing Pains in 140 Characters or Less

Unfortunately, Twitter’s phenomenal growth complicates the situation. As the service attracts more users, some of them will discover new ways in which Twitter can be abused. The recent Twishing schemes and the hijacking of 33 high profile celebrity accounts are recent examples of behavior that may slow Twitter’s growth as users hesitate to join or follow out of fear.

While abuses are inevitable, users are fortunate in one regard; the very paradigm upon which the platform is based Push) places the power of connecting with other users in the hands of the users themselves. In fact, the Push paradigm has allowed Twitter to thrive with only two primary rules:

1. If you like someone, you can follow them.
2. If you don’t like someone, you don’t have to follow them (and they cannot reach you).

To be sure, Twitter is working hard to provide greater security. For example, they have suspended accounts for “suspicious behavior” and offer “protected updates” and blocking; but are these measures enough?

Does Twitter Need More Regulation?

Surely there are those who believe that Twitter needs greater formal regulation. Unfortunately, while security needs to be a top priority, it’s the very newness of the service that makes it hard to determine precisely what to secure against. Until then, users are going to have to use good judgment when deciding to follow someone.

There are ways to follow users without letting them know, but that also begs the question; why follow someone covertly? Even if you have valid reasons for secrecy, this defeats the purpose of social media (If you insist on doing so, one method is to subscribe to the other user’s RSS feed).

My Solution: Managed Reciprocity; a Balanced Approach

I personally find significant value in aspects of both Reciprocal and Discriminator positions, but how does one reconcile where the positions conflict? My solution is a strategy I call Managed Reciprocity.

Managed Reciprocity allows me to balance aspects of the two positions in a way that allows me to get the most out of Twitter and the relationships I forge there (individual results may vary). In short, it lets me maximize my relationships with my Followers by allowing me to better manage their expectations as both their numbers, and the numbers of their Tweets, increase. In order to get the maximum benefit of Managed Reciprocity, I have developed the following Guidelines:

Managed Reciprocity Guidelines

1. Know Your Goals: Twitter is a powerful tool that can provide you access to a world of wonderful benefits. From networking to participating in stimulating conversations to just having fun and making new friends, Twitter is better if you begin with a goal in mind. My goals are as follows (this order is constantly changing):

• Network
• Look for opportunities to help and mentor others
• Look for business opportunities
• Learn and grow both professionally and personally
• Make new friends
• Have fun

2. Have a Plan: In order to achieve your Twitter goals, you need to think about what Strategy and Tactics you will use to reach them. My strategy evolved from how I already use Twitter.

• My Strategy: I use Twitter to scan what I call the “Buzz Layer” for conversations I can participate in and/or to create opportunities to start conversations (subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed at nealwiser.com for forthcoming posts about the “Buzz Layer”). I also use it for discovering interesting information, learning about breaking news and developing relationships with my peers.
• My Tactics: Any strategy is useless without planning the steps to take in order to achieve your goals. Effective tactics will allow you to:
• Select the Tools that are right for you (see below).
• Measure your progress reaching your goals.
• Manage Your Time (Twitter can be an incredible time sink).
• Maximize ROI (as in, making sure you use Twitter efficiently, not necessarily a financial return, although that will come soon).

3. Choose Your Tools: To effectively execute a strategy, you not only need the right tools, but to understand why you need those tools and what those tools can do for you. Fortunately, there are literally hundreds of third party apps and services to choose from. For more information; two great resources are Twitdom and (Twitter Fan Wiki). Be sure to do your research; read reviews and ask other Twitter users what they use. While I am constantly experimenting with new tools, here is my Primary Toolset:

• TweetDeck: This is a Twitter Management application for the desktop. Even in its first generation it’s surprisingly effective and easy to use. As of this writing (January 2009), Iain Dodsworth, the creator of TweetDeck, just received venture financing, so we can expect to have significant and much needed improvements soon. I use TweetDeck to filter my “TweetStream.” I have one column that accepts all of my Followers Tweets, and other columns with various filters and groups. I also regularly dip into the general stream just to see if I’m missing anything and to look for interesting voices.
• Tweetie: Tweetie is an iPhone app that is as inexpensive as it is easy to use. It was also just updated with improvements to its functionality (including one questionable feature). For the mobile Tweeter, Tweetie is indispensable.
• SocialToo: This is a new web-based service that provides survey tools (a popular and useful Twitter activity) and reports on changes in follower numbers and sends you a daily email listing all your new Followers and who has stopped following you.
• Twitter Search:A fast and efficient Twitter search engine.
• Friend or Follow: A nice interface helps you see who is and isn’t following you and whom you are following.
• TweetStats: Offers excellent analysis tools to help you understand how you use Twitter.

4. Create and Post your Following Policy: Now that people are using multiple social networks, the time has come to let people know how you use each one and what your Followers, Friends, etc. can expect from following you. Your Followers have expectations too and they deserve to know if you are worth following. By presenting them with your Following Policy, you can better manage those expectations and thus the relationship. After all, having a fulfilling relationship with your Followers is what Twitter’s all about. The following are things to keep in mind when creating your own Following Policy:

• Transparency: I have no secret Twitter agenda and neither should you. Be honest about what you want and expect to get out of Twitter and you will have a more fulfilling experience.
• Length: Keep your policies short and to the point or else no one will read it.
• Managing Expectations: Let your Followers know exactly what they can expect from you. It will go a long way to keeping them happy.
• Accessibility: Post your policy on your blog, Facebook profile, or wherever you call home on the web. Also, put a link to it on your Twitter page, but you probably don’t want to post the entire policy there. Twitter can cover parts of your profile under different screen resolutions.
• Honesty is the Best Policy: Follow your own Policy. Don’t deviate without a really, really good reason because if your Followers notice, and they will, you will lose friends. Note that I do mean friends, not just your total number of Followers, although that will happen too.
• Include a Disclaimer: At some point, you may need to update your Policy. Include a short note explaining that this may happen.

My Following Policy

I established this Following Policy so that my Followers can clearly understand how, when and why I may or may not follow them back, and how quickly they can expect me to start following. To be sure, this is not my entire process. When I learn that someone is following me I usually do things like look at their Profile page, review some of their comments and Favorites, and look at who they follow and who is following them.

I highly recommend that all Twitter users adopt policies of their own. I believe it will help reduce churn and make Twittering a better experience for all.

That’s it. It’s helped me and I hope it helps you too. I look forward to reading your Comments.

References and Further Reading (in no particular order):

• Micah Baldwin: 6 Reasons Why I Unfollowed You on Twitter
• Louis Gray: SocialToo Helps Prevent You From Auto-Following Spammers
• Social Too: Fight Twitter Spam With Unfollow Filters
• Mack Collier: This is why the ‘authority matters’ argument is total BS
• Mack Collier:How I got a gazillion blog subscribers and thousands of Twitter followers
• cnet.com: Why you should follow everyone who follows you on Twitter
• techwag.com: Why you should NOT follow everyone who links to you on Twitter
• How I Follow People on Twitter
• Robert Scoble: The Secret to Twitter
• Jennifer Slegg: Why people you follow on Twitter don’t follow you back
• Dare Obasanjo: Is “Follow” A Core Web 2.0 Pattern?
• Ed Dale: Follow You - Follow Me Revisited
• Follow Back: How I Choose Who to Follow on Twitter

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

In this post Crystal N Woods (follow her at @crystalsquest) shares some great tips for those starting out in Twitter.

The buzz this year is all about Twitter, the ‘microblog’ service.

Both the web and twitter are full of pleas from people who say they don’t ‘get it’. In a nutshell, the point of twitter is to post very short updates - no more than 140 characters. It’s a bit like a txt msg for the web, on ‘what you’re doing now’. These tweets can be links to cool sites you’ve found, conversations with other twitter users, questions you want a quick answer for, what you’re having for dinner or even haiku poetry.

The main difference between twitter and txt is: when you send it out it goes out to everyone who’s opted to follow you. On the receiving end, you’re getting these updates from everyone you’ve chosen to follow. This constant flow of short messages to and from is called the ‘twitter stream’. It can be a bit overwhelming at first. Just like modern life. In fact, it occurred to me that the people who ‘get it’ and rave about it the most are the very same people who have achieved vast levels of success in this information age. So, here’s my take on the top 10 success tips for twitter… and Life!

1. Fluff and filler are no longer an option. Nobody has time/interest in reading them. Get to the point.

2. Be real. 140 chars is cut to the bone - you can’t wear a fake character on top and still fit.

3. Pick what’s important. You could use twitter to talk about your day down to the bowel movements, but then you’d have nobody following you. People follow you on twitter because what’s important to you is a match with what’s important to them, so share it!

4. To keep the relationship alive, feed it. Share yourself, and your interests, and give stuff that matches the other person’s interests.

5. Don’t take following/unfollowing personally - as interests change, people will come and go. Faster than in real life, but no different. Accept it.

6. Don’t get overwhelmed. You don’t need to drink the river, just drink FROM it. (this is a major difference between big & small fish)

7. The big fish swim in big streams. They don’t try to control them, just swim in them.

8. Being part of that big stream is NOT a guarantee you’ll have their attention: a fish doesn’t swim through every drop of water on it’s way upstream.

9. To catch the attention of a big fish, you need to:

• send something past them just when they’re looking at that part of the stream;
• send something they’re looking for so they hunt it down; or
• send something so catchy/helpful/viral that others keep putting it in front of them for you.

10. Practice. Start small with a few friends, and gradually grow your circle of influence. Even if you could jump in with 10,000 followers, you probably wouldn’t know how to keep them long unless you’d developed the skill of catching and keeping interest. That skill will serve you well online and offline in ways you can’t imagine…

11. Have fun! The people having the most fun are the ones you most want to hang out with. Be one. (yes, I overdelivered again. Oops)

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

Today Jason Annas from Enlightened Web Mastery (@jasonannas) gives a process from learning from other Twitter users using the very useful Twitter-Friends tool (which we wrote about previously here).

When you first get started using Twitter, it can be very confusing to figure out what you should do. Are you being a pest? Are you annoying people? Do you just not “get it”? One of the biggest problems for me personally was, I just didn’t know they proper etiquette. I didn’t know what was expected, or deemed normal.

This article will attempt to show you what’s normal, and expected. In this article we will use an NLP concept known as modeling to make sure we really “get it”. The way modeling works is, you find someone who is successful, someone that’s a “super star” and you apply Pareto’s 80-20 rule to find the 20% of work they do that gets the 80% of their results.

1 – Assemble A Swipe File of Users

A “Swipe File” is an old copy term, which is a collection or great ads or sales letters that you keep as reference or inspiration. For the purpose of this article, I’m going to select 5 really good “Pro Twitter” users.

To get the most out of this exercise, you also need to assemble a swipe file of 2-5 “Personal Twitter Users”. As these people do not have a high profile, I will not be sharing any here, but the point behind having 2-5 personal twitter users in your swipe file is so that you can see how “normal” people act on twitter.

These are people who use twitter to connect with friends, and family, as well as just to have conversations with the world. A problem most people have who start using Twitter is not knowing how to act. By combining “Pro Twitter” users with “Personal” you will be able to offer a more satisfying Twitter experience.

2 – Choose 5 Twitter Users To Model

You need to come up with 5 “star twitter users”. I selected the following 5 because:

1. The Provide Value – They are not trying to get you to buy something, digg something up, or sign up for their lists.
2. They Are Successful – Some help people reach success, some have achieved success, and others provide tools to make you successful.
3. They Are Somewhat Famous – The reason this is important is because if they have time to tweet, so do you.
4. They “Get It” – These people understand how to use Twitter, and as such are worth modeling.

Here are 5 pro twitter users you can follow now (or atleast keep track of).

Here are their twitter accounts, as well as a very brief bio explaining who they are.

@problogger – Darren Rowse, Author of the ProBlogger Site

@LeoLaporte – Leo Laporte, (you may remember him from TechTV)

@KevinRose – Founder of Digg

@tferriss – Tim Ferris - Author of “The 4 Hour Workweek”

@wilw – Wil Wheaton – Actor from Star Trek The Next Generation

You may wish to come up with a different list, based off your own needs or desires, but make sure the ones that you choose meet some of the criteria above. You do not want to model spammers, who spend half of their tweets promoting their own products. Choose people who provide value.

I also selected these users because I think their habits are easier to emulate, and anyone can do it. If I were to select some Twitter power users, such as @GuyKawaski who posts 50 tweets a day on average, with a CQ of 43.5% and LQ of 64.5%, it might be harder for you to emulate them, and you likely wouldn’t want to anyway.

3 – Analyze Their Stats At Twitter-Friends

Twitter-Friends is a great tool that lets you analyze your habits as well as the habits of others. For this exercise we will take these 5 users, and check out their stats on Twitter-Friends, and see what we can learn.

If you do not understand how to use Twitter-Friends, check out this article for more information.

What We Learn From @Problogger

• Posts an average of 24 tweets a day
• @replies 13 times a day (about 50%)
• Out of 24 tweets, 10 are links.
• CQ = 54.1% LQ = 42.4%

What We Learn From @LeoLaporte

• Posts about 4 times a day
• @replies about 1 and a half times a day
• Out of 4 tweets, 1 and a half are links
• CQ = 42.7% LQ = 37.3%

What We Learn From @kevinrose

• Posts about 7 and a half times a day
• @replies about 5 times a day
• Out of 7 tweets, about 2 and a half are links
• CQ = 65.6% LQ = 32.1%

What We Learn From @tferriss

• Posts about 2 times a day
• @replies about .3 times a day
• Out of 2 tweets, about 1 and a half are links
• CQ = 13.3% LQ = 70%

What We Learn From @wilw

• Posts about 10 and a half times a day
• @replies about 4 times a day
• Out of 10 tweets, about 2 are links
• CQ = 38.8% LQ = 18.9%

What We Learn From TwitterFriends Averages

Here are the averages from twitter, not from our 5 users.

• Average Tweets per Day per user 10.4
• @replies per day is 4.6
• Out of those 10.4 Tweets, 2.2 are links
• CQ = 44.1% LQ = 21.6% Leaving 34.3% to plain text

4 – Analyze Your Stats

Now that you know how “the pros” tweet, it’s time to see how you stand up.

Check out your:

• Average Tweets Per Day, @replies, your CQ% and LQ%.
• Ask yourself, how do you stack up against your list of stars, your list of personal tweeters, and the average.
• Is there anything you need to focus more on?

5 – Assemble A Twitter Template

Now that you know how often you should tweet, and what type of tweets you should tweet. The next step is to generate a “Tweet Template”.

What you do is select a few tweets, maybe 10-20 interesting tweets from each user on your list.

Then take those Tweets and break them down into their core components. Can you see any trends? And similarities?

For example here are 5 Tweets

Here are 2 samples from Darren @problogger. Consider these for use as posting updates.

@problogger wrote -> Reading: Simon and Garfunkel’s 10 Blogging Lessons - http://tinyurl.com/89nme4

Template - Reading: Title - Link

@problogger wrote -> New at ProBlogger: Add Social Proof to Your Blog With TweetBacks http://twurl.nl/djz7gx

Template - New post on my blog -> Title -> Link

Here are 2 samples from Kevin Rose @kevinrose. Consider these as a template for your social posts.

@kevinrose wrote -> Lunch then movie at home, relaxing weekend. http://twitpic.com/zeeb

Template – What I’m doing -> picture

@kevinrose wrote -> listening to a little ‘hot chip’ while reading the emails

Template – What I’m doing, no sell, no link.

Here is a tweet from Tim Ferriss @tferriss. Consider this as another template for when you post a link that is non-promotional.

@tferriss wrote -> Experimenting w/ various ways to start a fire in a fireplace. How about a Coke can + bar of chocolate? http://tr.im/2nor Your tips + tricks?

Template – Ask question? Offer potential answer (or title) -> link -> question?

Conclusion

To get the most out of this article try and implement these 5 steps.

1 - Create a list of 5 users who are in the same field as yours that you would like to model.

2 – Create a list of 5 personal users (or more) so you can see how they act and behave, feel free to analyze their stats as well.

3 - Visit Twitter-Friends.com and analyze the stats of those users.

4 – Analyze Yourself

5 – Form a few templates

After you complete these tasks, you will know where you stand up in the “twitterverse” as well as how you can improve your twitter experience.

By using the templates I provided (as well as coming up with your own), you too can easily come up with creative ways to tweet and provide value to your followers.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

‘How do I get followers on Twitter?’ - it’s a question it seems everyone is asking. In this post Jo-Lynne (follow her at @dcrmom) shares some tips on being the kind of Twitter users people want to follow.

Hi. I’m Jo-Lynne and I’m a Twitteraholic. Yes, I’m unashamedly and unapologetically addicted to Twitter. I use Twitter to build relationships, to keep connected to the outside world, to distract me from the housework, and to find articles and information that I wouldn’t discover otherwise. I choose carefully whom I follow on Twitter. As with any other social network, there are ways to grow your community. In Twitter-speak, this means to gain followers. I’ve put together this list based on the characteristics of the people I most enjoy following on Twitter.

1) Be Interesting

It’s fine to announce what you’re doing and thinking and what you had for lunch, as long as you do it in a way that is entertaining to your followers. Twitter is micro-blogging, and like on your blog, if all you do is give a play-by-play of your mundane daily happenings, you will lose followers. The people I enjoy following find a way to make me smile with their quips and one-liners, even if they are just informing me what they had for breakfast. Here are a couple of examples from the past few days.

@subdiva could have said, “Packing to go to Disney tonight!” but instead she wrote: “Packing up to ring in the New Year on the happiest place on earth. No, not the wine store…”

@rocksinmydryer could have said, “I hate dieting” but instead she wrote: “May I just say, for the record, that PORTION CONTROL STINKS? Thank you, that is all.”

Of course not everything you post has to be clever, but if you’re just sharing your thoughts and happenings, try to make it worth reading.

2) Be Informative

Not every tweet should answer the question, “What are you doing right now?” If you are going to participate in the Twitter community, you need to give something back. I love it when people post links to helpful articles or leave bits of advice and information. Post whatever comes naturally to you. @skinnyjeans reminds her followers every day to get up and drink a glass of water and gives us a much-needed pep talk in the middle of the afternoon. I love this! @problogger always links to the articles he is reading, and I have found lots of new bloggers to follow this way. Not all helpful information has to be your own. If you see a good tweet, do a “retweet” so your followers can get the benefit of the information that is being shared.

3) Be Interactive

Don’t be a “hit and run” tweeter! In other words, don’t just log into Twitter to tell people what you are doing or link to your post and then leave. Respond to tweets, ask questions, answer questions. Twitter is a conversation, not a monologue, and the more you participate, the more you will get out of it, and the faster your community will grow.

4) Be Promotional

Yes, it’s okay to promote your own work, as long as it’s not all self-promotion, all the time. I love it when people link to their recent posts on Twitter. I almost always follow the links, especially when it’s done in a thoughtful way. I can’t always log in to my feed reader and catch up on my favorite bloggers, but for some reason, if they post a link in Twitter, I usually take the time to follow it, especially when they introduce the link in a thoughtful and interesting way. Which brings me to my next point.

5) Be Personal

For a while I used a plugin that automatically tweets a link to every new post I write, but I have turned off that feature and opted, instead, to write a more thoughtful introduction to the link I’m sharing. Maybe ask a question, or make a comment or introduce the link in a way that pertains to the subject of the post. No one likes to feel that they are getting spammed. And they are more likely to read it if you make it sound like it will be interesting or helpful. Don’t, however, be tempted to use the old bait and switch tactic to get readers to follow your link. They will wise up and you will find yourself unfollowed.

And while we’re at it, TURN THE ROBOTS OFF. It’s impersonal and insulting. I unfollow and block people who use automated responses. Period. The end.

6) Be Considerate

This is definitely a case of “do as I say, not as I do” because I KNOW I am so totally guilty of this. And yet, it bears mentioning because it really does get annoying, at least when other people do it. Sometimes we get into so many conversations or we have so much we want to share that we find ourselves clogging the Twittersphere with a long series of tweets. This is annoying. I won’t promise never to do it again, but it’s something to keep in mind. If you find yourself going back and forth in conversation with one person, it’s time to take the conversation to Direct Messages. Or email. Or text. Or, gasp, the phone. Believe it or not, some people DO still use the telephone.

7) Find a balance.

Finally, balance all of the above. If all you do is promote yourself, people will tire of you. NO ONE is that important. If all you do is update your daily happenings but never respond to others or give anything back, people will tire of you. NO ONE is that interesting. Balance is key.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

When you’re starting out with Twitter it is easy to make mistakes and put potential followers off-side. In this post Jenny Cromie (follow her at @JennyCromie) explores 8 ways to tick off other Twitter users.

Image by ohhector

Have you ever been to a social networking event and watched someone make a complete fool out of themselves? It’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Or like listening to a violinist who doesn’t know the difference between an A flat and and A sharp. It’s painful.

The whole point of a social networking event is to get to know people and build relationships. But if you don’t have a handle on the right social graces, you’ll make the wrong kind of lasting impression.

To the uninitiated, Twitter may seem like a collection of random conversations and annoying mini marketing campaigns. But the Twitterverse is really a big community that you build up around you. And as with most communities, there are certain rules—spoken and unspoken. There’s etiquette on Twitter—or as I like to call it—Twittiquette.

People new to the Twitterverse can’t help it if they make a few social gaffes now and then. Because they simply don’t know what they don’t know. In these cases, social missteps are forgivable. I made a few myself when I first joined up. One time, a new follower thought I was a bot. A bot I most certainly was not, I told her. I just couldn’t figure out the status updater I was using and ended up pinging my poor Tweeps with multiple announcements about my latest blog post (my belated apologies again, Tweeps).

But there are others who have been milling around the Twitterverse for a while and they clearly should know better. These are the folks who you would never ever in a million years want to run into at a chamber of commerce event. In person, they would probably corner you for a half hour or more and talk at you about how fantabulous their company/product/service is and why you should give a gosh darn.

And if you haven’t figured it out already, some of these folks are mingling about and icking up the Twitterverse too. You might even have a couple in your list of followers. Or <gasp> maybe you recognize yourself in one of Twitter types below.

In any case, here’s my list of the eight most difficult Twitter types. The kind of folks that you want to unfriend, unfollow, and unTwitter.

And hey—if the shoe fits, I trust that you’ll know what to do. Or if you are guilty of some of the below but simply are in denial, I hope for your sake that one of your Tweeps will be kind enough to pull you aside via Direct Message and tell you to knock it off already!

1. TwitterNarcissist

This is the guy or gal who thinks that you and every other Tweep is actually waiting with baited breath to find out what they did at every moment throughout the day. They clutter up your page with inane details like: “Watching CSI, eating popcorn, and loving every minute of it!” “Cleaned the kitchen counter!” “Making chili for dinner!!!” Most people are inundated and bombarded with information every day, all day long. The inbox overfloweth. So if you’re going to Twitter something, make it useful or meaningful to your Tweeps. Or send a direct message to the people who really do care what you’re eating for dinner, watching on TV, or listening to on your MP3 player. But please don’t pull the stream-of-consciousness baloney that so often gives Twitter a bad name. I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to track or filter the drivel—and I suspect, neither do your other Tweeps.

2. TwitterSpammer

A few weeks ago, I suddenly found myself followed by a real estate company, a funeral home, and someplace that specialized in Botox treatments—all from California. WTF? Okay, I am not going to be buying a house anytime soon, and if I was, I certainly wouldn’t be buying one in California. And I don’t plan on dying any time soon, so leave me alone you mortician marketing person—your branding campaign is just plain creepy. Besides, I live in Michigan. And Botox facility, I have nothing to say except “Buzz off!” How did these weirdo marketing flunkies find me? I have no clue. But I blocked them as soon as they announced themselves in my inbox. If you own a business or are new to marketing, keep this in mind: Twitter is great for growing your business—as long as you target the right audience and observe proper Twittiquette. Otherwise, you’ll just tick people off. Word-of-mouth marketing is great if you make a good impression, but not so great if you make a bad one.

3. TwitterDigMeDude

These are the types of people who have thousands of followers but who follow no one. To my knowledge, I am only following one of these guys, and his name is Timothy Ferriss—author of the 4-Hour Workweek. I suppose if he followed all of his fans, he’d have to rewrite his book and call it the 80-Hour Workweek. But actually, if he does start following people at some point, he’ll probably just hire a virtual assistant to do it for him. For the time being, I’ll forgive Timothy for not following me because it seems to fit into his overall strategy of doing as little work as possible and getting away with it. For the rest of us earthlings, though, Twitter is about having dialogues and building relationships. So if you’re not following anyone, you’re having a monologue and you’re asking everyone to dig you and everything you have to say. And how boring is that? That’s like the guy who won’t shut up about himself at a cocktail party, but who starts to nod off the moment someone else starts talking himself or herself.

4. TwitterBotty

Hey everybody—read my great blog post! Hey everybody—read my great blog post! Hey everybody—read my great blog post! Get the idea? Did you hear me yet? HEY! DID YOU READ MY BLOG POST??!! Yes, there are people on Twitter who keep repeating themselves because they are afraid you might not have “heard” them the first, second, third, or even fourth time. And yes, I did it a few times by accident myself when I was still trying to figure out one of those status updater thingiemajigs. But I am not a bot. There’s no need to repeat yourself on Twitter. If people like what you have to say, they’ll retweet it and repeat it for you. Otherwise, one mention of your blog post or other link is enough. More than that, you’ll start ticking off the Twitterverse. And trust me, you really really don’t want to do that.

5. TwitterDumbLinker

This is the guy or gal who says: “Hey! I read this great thing! Click here for major big-time chuckles!” Uh, sorry. Tell me more about the link and why I should care, and then maybe I’ll click on the link. If you don’t provide me with a good reason why I might be interested in taking the time to click, then I’ll just keep scrolling down the screen of Tweets and ignore you. Or worse, I might even block you if you pull that dig-my-secret-link trick too many times. Telling me that something is funny and that I should click on a link isn’t enough—especially if I don’t know anything about you or your sense of humor yet. Most people don’t have time for random clicking—I certainly don’t.

6. Twittermatic

I recently linked up with someone via Twitter, and a nanosecond later, they had written out an impressively lengthy response to my simple “Hello, how are you?” At first, I thought: “Wow! They’ve got fast fingers!” And then I realized that I was just another number in their list of followers—that they had the automatic, canned response that they sent to everyone after that initial Twitter linkup. Having said this, I do try to respond to everyone who chooses to follow me. But to be completely honest, sometimes what I send via direct message to a new follower is not too different from what I’ve sent to other Tweeps. That said, I always try to acknowledge people by name if it’s provided. And if I have time, I try to engage in a little dialogue. People don’t like to feel like a number—not even on Twitter.

7. TwitterJabberJaw

I linked up to this woman on Twitter a couple months ago who just would not shut up. I eventually unfollowed her because she was dominating my screen, and apparently, not taking a breath—every day, all day long. I began to wonder if she was independently wealthy because that’s all she seemed to do all day—Tweet Tweet Tweet. People don’t like to be held hostage by a manic conversationalist in person, and the same goes for Twitter. Don’t hog the conversation—you’re not that interesting. No one is.

8. TwitterSmarmySales

I was very excited to hook up with one gentleman on Twitter who had some interesting publishing connections. Until I realized that he was simply trying to hawk his e-book and other editorial services onto me and other Tweeps. I also received several spammy e-mails from him, but haven’t unfollowed him. Yet anyway. So if you’re just taking up Twitter space to sell your services, toot your horn about how awesome your business is, or aggressively market whatever it is you’re trying to market, then just stop it already. It’s a bad strategy. It gives you a smarmy reputation. Tweeps know when you’re full of it and not really interested in anything other than trying to do the hard sell. So if that’s what you’re interested in, just buy an ad that I can turn off or ignore, but please don’t Tweet me to death.

Written by Jenny Cromie, a full-time HR/business freelance writer, editor, and Twitter convert. Jenny also is editor of The Golden Pencil, a b5media blog about freelance writing and how to build a successful freelance writing business. Please feel free to say hello on Twitter: @JennyCromie.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.