Do You Follow? - Twitter Twips

We’re all tweeting now, everyone’s on Twitter. If you’re not you need to get over there fast and register your preferred username before someone else grabs it.

Now, you might be thinking why should I bother, what’s in it for me? Well, that’s the big question everyone who isn’t on Twitter is asking about the microblogging site. Everyone who is already using Twitter knows exactly what’s in it for them - the chance to share their thoughts and feelings, links and insights, ask questions (get answers) and generally make new friends with a whole bunch of people you wouldn’t otherwise meet.

So, Twitter is a microblogging platform, you say? Yes, basically. It’s like Facebook updates without the fuss, MySpace without the mess, Plurk without the weird animals and silly horizontal timeline. Think of it as an extension of your blog posts and comments section and you cannot go wrong, but here are my twop twen twips for using Twitter:

1. Edit your bio to entice people to follow you and link to a twitter landing page from it.
2. Modify your Twitter background to entice people to follow you.
3. Do follow - follow people who follow you, follow people who follow the people you follow and follow the people who follow few.
4. Do autofollow - when someone follows you, follow them, but unfollow if they unfollow or if you really don’t like what they’re tweeting.
5. Be friendly - trolls and flamers have no place on Twitter, this isn’t Usenet circa 1998.
6. Thank people - for following you, for responding, for helping.
7. Don’t spam - everyone hates spam, there’s no need to sell if you’re homeward bound.
8. Do answer - someone asks a question, chip in with your two cents, but make it worth two dollars.
9. Post links - but not just for the sake of it, make sure they’re useful.
10. Retweet (RT) the links others are tweeting (include an @username so they see your RT.

Some bigger Tweeters than I have covered similar ground, but I like my short, simple list, among them Jim Donnelly, Guy Kawasaki, Darren Rowse on how to attract thousands of twitter followers quickly and twitter tips in general. Thanks also to @overthinker for highlighting her tips via twitter itself.