This is again for people who are using Twitter but aren’t entirely sure if they are doing it right. Have a look at the list below – if you feel like you already doing these things, then you may be ready for some of the “advanced” stuff – but we like to take things step by step – and the beginners stuff is actually where most of the magic of Twitter happens! If the words below seem like a strange language to you, comment below and I will answer with further explanations and definitions!

The real magic of Twitter comes from

• Answering the tweets which have your @name in it – you can check your twitter messages on the Twitter website by clicking on your @name on the right side panel – there you see mentions and messages too you. When I say @name I mean the part of the page with the @ sign and your Twitter username right next to it, eg my @name is @topleftdesign. If you want to try it, tweet me and say you have read this post – and I will reply and then we can take it from there!
• Follow people who are in the same industry as you as you will learn the most from them. A lot of people make the mistake of starting first to follow only celebrities and news feeds. This is fine but if you follow active twitter users who tweet regularly with a variety of different tweets, then you will be able to pick up the better Twitter habits much quicker!
• Speak to people regularly on Twitter (using 2 of the strange things I referred to earlier – “@replies” and “mentions“
• Try and promote others regularly too – using “retweets” or “RT“s and just generally being supportive and complimentary (if you mean it of course!)
• Tweet regularly, and continue to be relevant within your field – and try regularly tweet headlines and shortened links. I like to use Bit.ly to shorten my URL – see http://www.bit.ly – just copy paste a long URL into the box, click shorten and it will give you a short one! Check out the video below which shows you how.

• Follow people in different industries and group them together in Lists – as this will make it much easier to manage who you follow and to use Twitter more strategically.

Definitely follow me (@topleftdesign) as I try my best to practice what I preach. You definitely learn the most from observation. Once you have mastered the above – there is more strategic marketing stuff you can do – I am happy to answer questions as usual!

Tags: learning, retweet, RT, the magic of twitter, Twitter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.