Twitter Tips by Elise Ostermann

Welcome to the world of Twitter…

You’ve created your account and followed a couple of your personal friends. Now what?

Here are my Top Ten Tips about the Twitter world.

1. Build Relationships
Twitter is about building relationships with others. Take the time to invest in
your followers and to invest in the people you are following. Ask questions. Be
interested. Cultivate true relationships with people by using the same tactics we
use to build relationships in real life.

2. Be Diverse
Vary the content that you post. Don’t just post about your day-to-day life or a
product… change it up! Talk about your business in some tweets, talk about your
life, talk about things you’re passionate about, ask questions, respond to other
people’s tweets. Vary the content of your postings to make your account well-
rounded.

3. Be Responsive
Respond to what other people post. Again, always think of your twitter account
as a way to build relationships with others. If you were having an in-person
conversation you wouldn’t be talking about yourself the whole time (and if you
did, you would quickly lose friends). Too often people fall in to a narcissistic
approach to their tweeting – it’s all about them. Avoid that at all cost.

4. RT, RT, RT
Retweet what other people post. Seriously! It’s a good thing. Other tweeters have
good things to say and why not spread that?! The proper way to retweet is as
follows.
Sally tweets: I love fresh clean laundry.
You retweet: RT @sally I love fresh clean laundry.
You retweet with comment: Me too! RT @sally I love fresh clean laundry.

5. Keep Your Social Media Platforms Separate
Don’t connect your Twitter account to your Facebook account. I understand it
might be “easier” for you… but you’re actually doing you and your followers a
disservice. Tweet twitter specific tweets (that use hash tags #, @mentions, tiny
urls, etc). Facebook specific Facebook posts (using Facebook’s tagging system,
posting photos to your wall, etc.). You don’t want your followers on Twitter and
Facebook to see the same content in both places. Neither do you want to clutter
your friends’s newsfeed with twitter content. Treat each social media outlet as it’s
own separate media platform.

6. Time = Success
Be present on Twitter. Take the time to invest in it more than just once a day or
a couple times a week. If it’s about building relationships, than huge times away
from Twitter can be detrimental to building relationships. Download a mobile
Twitter app if you have to. I highly recommend the “Echofone” app for iPhone
users.

7. Encourage Personal Connections
Respond to personal and direct messages from people. Nothing is more frustrating
than taking the time to personally strike up a conversation with someone and
they don’t respond. So respond to your followers. Take the time to respond to
what they tweeted to you. Don’t fall into the Twitter celebrity-syndrome-trap that
too many tweeters fall into. Remember that you’re still a real person and your
followers are still real people.

8. Report Spam!
Be kind to the twitter community and block/report spam. If you get spammed
(which everyone does), take the moment to respond with the simple “block/
resport spam” button. It’s annoying, I know. But if we all report spam, the less
there is floating around.

9. It’s Quality, Not Quantity
Don’t be so excited to gain twitter followers or reach a number that you forget to
cultivate the relationships you already have. It’s honestly not about numbers…
it’s about the people behind those numbers. 100 true followers (who respond to
what you say, RT your postings, etc) are WAY better than 1000 followers who
could care less what you are posting.

10. Find Common Ground
Follow people who share your common interests. Read their bios. Read through
their tweets. Find people with which you can connect. I’ve found that looking
through the people my followers follow is the BEST way to connect with more
like-minded or similar people. Again, take the time to find and connect with real
people. Be selective in who you follow. By doing this, your timeline will be filled
with tweets from people you actually care to read/respond/or RT.

Hopefully those Top Ten Tips help your twitter journey in some small way! If you have
any other questions about twitter or social media, I would suggest doing more research
and reading some books on it. My favorite book is UnMarketing by Scott Stratten (or you
can follow him on twitter at @unmarketing).

You can also always tweet me with any of your questions! I love all my twitter followers
and I always enjoy building relationships with new fabulous people!

Happy Tweeting!
Elise (@eliseostermann)