I love Twitter. More than Facebook on most occasions even. Of course, I could come up with 140 Truths About Twitter… Instead I have narrowed down the list to just 5 truths about Twitter … from my perspective.
Read Also: Social Media Dialects: I Speak Twitter… You?
1. Stop Caring About Who Does or Does Not Not Follow You
Twitter is LESS about who follows YOU and more about who YOU chose to follow. YOU follow people on Twitter because you like what they have to say and the value that they bring to your Twitter stream. With little exception, people will only follow you if you do the same for them and their Twitter stream. Even if they LIKE you, they are not obligated to follow you if you do not talk about what they want to read or interact in a way that they are comfortable with.
Remember … a person does not have to be following you to interact with you. You can get their attention by @-ing them.
(Now … If I believe that I would honestly add value to someone’s Twitter stream, then I may ask them to follow me … but that is extremely rare.)
2. If All You Do Is Auto-Share Links …
… I will ALSO un-follow you. Unless, of course, you are a major brand that I like and look forward to hearing about their new articles. Twitter is about interaction and getting to know people on a granular level. If all you do is set up some system to auto-tweet links to your blog, then you are really just talking AT me, not with me and I wont be clicking that link. … and I mean “at” in the non-conversational way, not “@” in the Twitter conversational way. I know … confusing …
Now, if you are already interacting and THEN decide to share a link, I am 8 million times more likely to click on it. #justsayin
3. Interact
As in … Find interesting Tweets and respond to them, or RT* them. Use the search function to find people who are talking about things you like. I found a TON of great new friends to interact with by searching for “UFC“.
*Here’s a Tip: When you are retweeting, avoid the standard RT feature. Instead, Copy/paste the tweet with the @[insert Tweeters Name Here]. This will send a “mention” to the tweeter, letting them know you RT’d them.
4. Use YOUR Picture for Your Avatar
Unless you are @cocacola or @cnnbrk, you really should have a picture of you (or a likeness) as your avatar. If Twitter is a conversation … which it is … I want to know who I am talking with.
5. Auto-DM’ing Needs to Go Die in a Fire
Not that I am remotely passionate about this one. Or I am. More times than not, if I have chosen to follow you, I will immediately UN-follow you if I get some non-thoughtful auto-DM from you as soon as I click “follow”. If it is that important that you thank me for following you, please make it personal. Now, I DO make exceptions (especially for brands), but even that is rare.
I know that some of you will disagree with me on some of these points, especially on #5, and that is A-OKAY! … but instead of caring, I am choosing not to. :p These are MY 5 truths about Twitter. But I do encourage your comments below.