As you may or may not know, Twitter has a little bit of a learning curve. It’s not a bad curve until it is compared to Facebook and things people are more familiar with. Your average Facebook user that doesn’t use Twitter, will look at it and see a project they don’t want to tackle. Here are a couple of tips that I have seen around and have come up with myself to help those people ease in to Twitter.
One of the hurdles to get over when using Twitter is the “What Do I Do With It?” hurdle. Most people that don’t use Twitter say, “I don’t want to broadcast every little detail of my life.” Well this is your lucky day, because that’s not what you should be using it for.
Tauhid Chappell wrote a couple amazing articles, that you can find here. The one I want to mention being “Why You Should Join Twitter Part 2“. He explains that,
- Twitter Connects College Students with Professionals
- Twitter Links College Students with Business Organizations
- Twitter Connects Students with Other Students
These points alone should be enough to make a person want to at least try Twitter out. But sadly, that usually isn’t enough. There is more to Twitter than trying it out. There is more to it than signing up for an account, tweeting the infamous “Testing out Twitter” or “This is my first tweet!” tweet, following the person that made you sign up and then never logging on again. Here are a couple of suggestions I have for you Twitter beginners.
First, you need to follow people. This is one of the simplest and yet hardest things for people to do. All you have to do is click the ‘Follow’ button and you’re following that person. But why should I follow them? Why do they deserve to call me a follower? It’s now like that, you want to be their follower to soak up all of the useful information or funny jokes they may tweet. And guess what, unfollowing someone is just as easy as following someone. Just do it.
To find people to follow is very simple, you can start with the Twitter accounts that Twitter itself suggests when you register for an account. Another great resource is the search feature. Search your local area or search for people that tweet about your passions. Also, everyone has every account they own linked to their website, just click their Twitter button. Another good way to find people to follow would be by looking at who everyone is talking to. If everyone is talking to a couple of other accounts, follow them to and get in on the conversation, which brings me to my next tip.
Start conversations. Or at least be apart of them. Start talking to people, answer their questions or comment on a picture they posted. As soon as you start getting in to a couple of conversations you will soon begin to see why people get addicted to Twitter.
One last tip would be to make sure that you tweet about different things. Some accounts are set up to tweet only one type of thing but if you are setting up your personal account, give us some variety. Don’t get in the habit of only tweeting when you are eating or only when the baseball game is on. Then even though your life has variety your Twitter stream is not and people will get bored very fast.
Hopefully these tips have been of a little help to you as you start your Twitter journey. Do you have any other tips for newbies? Are there things you wish you knew before you started using Twitter? Let me know in the comments or @DevonSchreiner or @InflectoVita or on our Facebook page.
Also, you can check out UnitedTechGuys.com for more articles like this one.
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