Twitter – It’s not that hard
Posted on: April 10, 2009 by Syzlak Comments
So, while I still have a couple SearchFest recaps to post, and a ton of links to hand out to everyone that drank with me afterward – I’d like to take a moment to gripe.
Twitter “users” are beginning to annoy me. Bots are one thing, but the amount of real people that sign up and then fail to use Twitter is driving me nuts. Twitter is not a difficult product, and if you don’t feel like sharing, kindly leave.
If you are feeling like taking the plunge, here’s 5 tips to make it worth your and my time
- Find tons of people
The most daunting thing about Twitter when you first sign up is wrapping your mind around why all your friends have told you to sign up. When it’s just you and 2 of your friends that use Twitter it can be hard to have any other conclusion than all of your friends are mental. This is not the case (for the most part), in reality, we just have a lot of people that interact with us. More people mean more conversations, more opinions, more links, more thoughts and a more interesting tool. Go to Twitter Searchand find people that are talking about things you’re interested in. - Follow people that interest you even if you don’t know them
What the hell? Really? Yes. This isn’t Facebook or myriad other high school reunion networks, this is a live conversation. Following people you don’t know can be the gateway to finding people that either you do know, or that are uncannily similar to you. All of a sudden you have more people to talk to on Twitter and more people that want to talk to you. - For God’s sake, stop following the Twitter prompt
While it’s cool once in awhile, do not feel that you must be doing something. The most useless updates to Twitter are the “is brushing his teeth. Gonna get ‘em clean!” Oh? Well, good for you. I don’t give a shit. The problem when I don’t give a shit is that you’ve Tweeted yourself into a corner. If you do this sparingly, that’s fine. Doing it all the bloody time means you’re boring and are going to lose some followers – namely me. Give us something to work with, show us a cool site, tell us what you’re listening to, ask a question, say something witty, funny or depressing. - Do not use Twitter.com
Twitter’s beauty and strength comes from the countless applications and plugins that allow you to post and read posts how you like. Get Twitterfox if you are on FireFox all day long, get TweetDeck if you want to be really organized, Twitterrific for a simple and functional app, there are hundreds of apps out there – find one and use it, you won’t be avoiding or forgetting about Twitter ever again. - Make use of the @
You know what made Twitter take off for me? Replying to other users. All of a sudden the quirky thought bubble that Twitter had been turned into a constant conversation. I was no longer in my corner posting about how clean my teeth were going to be, but instead arguing back and forth with new acquaintences about topics that I’d not thought anyone else was interested in.
Oh and above all else, start using the damn thing and you’ll probably see people start following and interacting with you too. Which, in the end, is the point after all.
