5 Tips For Better Tweeting
This post is part one in a multi-part series on Tips for Twitter.
Twitter is still a bit of an enigma to most of the world. While 20 million users is certainly a high enough number to take notice, it still pales in comparison to Facebook. With 300 million users as of earlier this week, if Facebook were to form a country it would be the fourth largest country in the world.
Nevertheless, Twitter is a great platform for spreading ideas and, when used the right way, reaching more people than you’ve ever imagined. Here are five tips to tweet like you’ve never tweeted before.
1. Follow The Right People
Thanks to Twitter, you don’t need to read the news and check a list of blogs every day. By following people that are even more interested in the things you care about than you are, you’ll build a database of personal assistants that like what you like – and actively go out and find you the best information and news about that topic 24/7/365. I follow @jowyang, @GuyKawasaki, and @danschawbel (among many others) who spend their days posting links to the hottest news and trends in social media so I don’t have to.
2. Limit The People You Follow
You’ll get the most out of Twitter if you don’t follow as many people as you can. Following 15,000 people might increase the amount people that are following you (slightly), but it’s a surefire way to make Twitter an utterly useless site to visit every day. Try to follow ~50-100 people to keep things interesting.
3. Time Your Tweets
Dan Zarrella*, a viral marketing scientist who spends a great deal of time studying Twitter, discovered that your tweets are most likely to get “retweeted” between 2:00 P.M. and 4:00 P.M. (EST) each day. Timing your tweets to hit just before or during this sweet spot could increase your chances of getting others to spread your ideas further.
*Dan also has an excellent presentation on what gets retweeted and why.
4. Avoid Autotweeting
Twitter works best when you don’t let a robot use it for you. When all of your tweets start to look and feel the same, people notice and they start to think of you as a robot instead of a human being. Nobody wants to be friends with a robot so, if you want to keep people’s attention, be sure to add some personality to your tweets that let them connect to you. As tempting as it may be, you shouldn’t just use Twitter to push information to people. Let Twitter become an extension of a larger conversation that sends people where they would (probably) like to go, to things they care about, and in the direction they take you.
5. Find a Purpose
If you can’t explain why you’re on Twitter in a crisp, complete sentence, rethink if you should really be tweeting or not. If your answer is “because everyone else is on Twitter,” then ask yourself the question your mother used to always ask you: “Should I jump off the bridge too?” A lot of companies don’t know what to do with Twitter and worry that they’ll miss out if they don’t rush to be there, but the truth of the matter is that the smart ones find interesting ways to use Twitter and, if they can’t, they wait until the purpose is there. Tweeting just to say you tweet isn’t going to do anything for you.
Check back soon for more tips for better tweeting.
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