New to Twitter ? 7 Tips to make Twittering a rewarding experience

It doesn’t surprise me when someone complains about Twitter. Its become like a standard now. Every time you meet someone who’s new to Twitter, they have this raised eyebrow look on them that says “what’s all this hype about ? I didn’t find anything except some spam and time wasting stuff”. And I get into the whole drill of explaining them why things aren’t really the way they see and what could be wrong. Its not easy, but fun. Let’s discuss some of those things here.

Image courtesy – Brad Fitzpatrick

1. Find out if there’s anything you can benefit from Twitter. Don’t hop in because your friend did.

The primary reason why people get disappointed with Twitter is because, they don’t have a clue what this whole thing is about. And the hard fact is that it may not mean anything to some people. Twitter sure is the next big thing but not everyone can make real use of it. Eat that fact. So if you’re hopping on to Twitter, first find out how it can help you. If it can’t just don’t tweet, may be another network works for you like Linked In or Facebook.

2. Don’t expect Twitter to be another social network. Its different.

Twitter is technically a social network, but in my opinion its a lot of things to lot of people. For some its an information source, for some its a social network, while for some its a spamming arena. So if you’re a familiar with another social network and expect Twitter to work out the same way, it may not work for you. Each network has its own character and so does Twitter. Best I can say is, spent some time and figure what this is all about before jumping in.

3. You cannot get anything without giving in. Dive in to the community.

Another grave mistake a lot of people make is not trying to indulge with the community. Usually, people create a twitter profile, follow a few and may be tweet what they are doing (because twitter asked) and that’s it, nothing happens except getting a crowded timeline. And they fail to understand the whole game. If I were you, I would indulge in, get into conversations, ask a question to few celebrities and post some links to see if they are retweeted. That’s when the fun begins, and quite honestly, I’ve seen many people not do it, and therefore complain.

4. Learn to ignore spam, its after all everywhere. See the bright side of things.

If you thought Twitter is more spam than anything, its very likely that you’re looking at the wrong side. If its the web, spam is everywhere, you got to learn to sieve through stuff and find the real info. So try and learn to separate wheat from the chaff, ignore spam and follow the right people, that’s the crux of the matter.

5. Remember that its not about your follower number but whom you follow that matters.

If and only if you follow the right people, will you be able to make the most of Twitter. And getting to them is easy but confusing, as it takes time to find out if someone’s for real or a bot. But there are nice directories like wefollow.com or suggested lists by various tweeps, following people there would be a good start, but don’t just go blindly adding people as you might end up following the wrong people that way.

6. Don’t get too serious with the “what are you doing” question. Its only a helper.

So every time Twitter asked you that question, did you truly and honestly type out what you were doing ? Nothing wrong, but do you think it will be of interest to others ? If not, you might want to keep it to yourself. Twitter was only trying to help you get started with a question, so you can use that text tab to write all those interesting things in life, fun stuff or even news links. As long as others would find it interesting, there’s nothing wrong in doing it. But don’t get too serious with the “what are you doing now” question please.

7. Nobody knows what a good Twitter is like. But if you’re not, someone will most probably let you know.

That’s the power of social networks right ? There are different theories going around about what a good Twitter is, but there is no thumb rule or one good explanation. But the funny fact is that even if nobody knows what a good twitter user is, someone will let you know if you’re doing something wrong.

And that’s all that matters right ? Hope it all made sense.