The Roadmap to Becoming a Pro Twitter User

Social media and social networking are an integral part of developing and maintaining an online recognition. Online recognition works towards immense prosperity. Robert Scoble, Jeff Atwood, Guy Kawasaki, all of them have been early adopters of technology and have continuously shared their experiences helping people to adopt these technologies at the same time. Most tech companies sit back and pray that influential people like these adopt their product. That earns the company some good amount of free marketing and gets these social media masters some more followers and fans. It is a win win for all.
So, coming back to the point, how to become a social media wizard on Twitter? This is a million dollar question but we can have a good start by knowing what to do and not to do online.
Twitter is the de-facto standard in social networking. It is the heart of all the intensive promotion, viral marketing and product launch. Twitter is believed to be so fast, it is said that during the Haiti earthquake, the wave of tweets was actually faster than the earthquake seismic waves themselves. Now, can you imagine the power of this platform? It can work wonders for your business promotion.
Here is a list of things to do and things not to do on Twitter.
Create a good Twitter landing page
Your Twitter page is like your branding. It speaks a great deal, about what you are here to do on Twitter. Create a good Twitter page and use a background image reflecting your full interests and online work.
Follow good accounts
Good people here does not mean people who keep sharing their everyday activities like “tying my left shoelace” and then “now tying the right” or those blog spam accounts that keep giving out links. Find people who speak stuff that matters and share interesting insight on topics that have a potential of becoming the next hot thing. Never judge a twitter user by the follower count. See their tweets and the people who follow them. That will give you an idea.
Ignore marketing buggers
Affiliate marketing and advertising has set its foot in Twitter as well and it is as irritating as it is on webpages. So, ignore those people and look at good accounts instead. These people keep following accounts at random hoping to get back followers. Reminding you again, ignore them.
Communicate and discuss
Communication is the key to developing a relation with your followers. Do not have followers to claim huge follower and following counts. Have a good contact with your followers and interact with them on a regular basis. That will make others keep you in the loop. On Twitter, people remember which accounts respond to talks.
Send out Tweets apart from reading them
On Twitter, you can get carried away by the volume of tweets sometimes. Do not forget to tweet. Tweeting is what you are here to do primarily. If you are just interested in seeing their tweets, get a RSS feed of your timeline instead.
Learn common usages
Lear the difference between @ reply and a DM. Learn when to use “RT” and when “via” looks better. This will save you from sending tweets like “hot chick having a party next door, I’ll help you sneak in. Come over” in the public timeline when it was actually intended to be a Direct Message (DM).
Do not embarrass other people or yourself
Do not embarrass people on Twitter. IT is a powerful tool and can lead to some legal implications. Be polite and sophisticated. Do not claim something if you do not have proof. That will earn you a lot of negative karma.
Do not take the “What are you doing” too literally
Do not continuously push out updates like “eating now”, “washing hands now”, walking now” and insignificant details which do not matter to others.
Do not repeat Tweets
Do not repeat tweets. People hate to see repeat tweets all day long.
Do not keep sharing links
You are not a blog on an automated account. You are a human being so communicate. DO not keep sharing links. Even if you do, spice it up with your thing, like something interesting.
Do not follow back everyone who follows you
Do not always follow back everyone who follows you. Instead, select from your followers and let them know that you are following them. Also, inform them with a DM or a @ reply that you are following them.
Conclusion
That is a list of things to do and not to do on Twitter but using Twitter like a pro is a matter of experience. So, get going and join Twitter. I am sure these tips will be of help in building a good Twitter account as well as in improving existing ones.
Written by Chinmoy Kanjilal.
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