The 5 things you need to know about Twitter

@adamloving

v1.0 - updated 7 February 2010

Twitter - what is the point?

I recently surveyed thousands of Twitter users about how they use Twitter. I haveuncovered their top five pain points. Twitter is deceptively simple to start out. Whilemany people appear to be quite successful, a huge percentage of people (as many as70% according to Nielsen) abandon Twitter and don't come back after their firstmonth. Through our survey we've identified the top five reasons why people "don'tget" (or even HATE) Twitter. These are the things you must know to be successfulwith Twitter.

What do these people know that I don't?

I have been using Twitter daily for the last three years. It has been a trial and errorprocess. I've presented at Twitter conferences and had coffee, dinner, and lengthyphone calls with some of the premier Twitter App developers - and plenty of peoplewho tweet for a living. I'm not a "social media expert," I'm a programmer who enjoys(and profits from) great interactions on Twitter. In this report I will share the top tipsfor getting past the most common stumbling blocks.

1. How do I find people interested in a particular topic?

Most people sign up for Twitter, add a few friends, but then quickly become bored.Without having a relevant group of followers, it is hard to know what to tweet about.

Having conversations with people who are interested in the same topics you are isthe single most important thing you can do to improve your Twitter experience.

The good news is there are several good tools for finding people on Twitter. Youshould invest some time in learning how to use these correctly. You don't want yourprofile page to be sitting vacant with a few tweets about what you had for lunch and50 random followers.

The best way to find people on Twitter who have a particular interest is to use Twittersearch. Go to http://search.Twitter.com and search for the keywords and hashtagsthat people are using to discuss topics you are interested in. If you set up a savedsearch in your Twitter client, you can view this list every day. Over time you willrecognize the people who have the most to say about the topics you're interested in.

You can also go to the Twitter suggested user list, which was recently relaunchedwith the top Twitter users in several broad categories. By following these users andwatching for people who mention them, you will quickly identify the movers andshakers talking about the topic you are interested in.

Two other great ways to find people by topic are TweepSearch.com (I've met thedeveloper), and of course Twibes. TweepSearch will let you search for and followpeople by keyword. Spend some time learning how to perform complex keywordsearches with these services.

Lastly if you're looking for people in your exact geographic area, try searching usingthe place name or watch Twitter's new geo-located trends list which you can find onyour home page.

2. How do I get more followers (with interests like mine)?

Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of AllTop once said: "I check on my TwitterCounter statsso many times a day that it scares me. I don't think it's just me that does this becausethere are only two kinds of Twitter users: those that want more followers and thosethat are lying."

Like it or not, the number of followers that you have is a key indicator of influence inthe new social media world. Of course, ideally they will meaningful, relevantconnections. The fact is your profile page will be judged at a glance. Having 1,000followers is better then 100. And you can imagine the benefits that come with having100,000.

There is an important statistic that we might as well get out of the way quickly. Thatis: for every 100 people you follow on Twitter, 30 to 40 are likely to follow you back.Especially if you are interested in the same things they are interested in. Andespecially if your Twitter profile shows that you are an interesting human (not arobot).

Now, does this mean that you can begin a tedious process of automatically followingpeople in order to get more followers? Yes. That might be the "easiest" way to buildup your follower number, but many would argue (myself included) that that is notthe right way to go about it. Be warned that the end result will be a noisy Twitterstream. If ultimately you want all those followers so that they will click your links,

only a very small percentage of them will actually do so (1-2% depending on howrelevant your tweets are). The more automated you make the process of followingother people in order to get them to follow you back, the smaller the percentage ofthem that will click your links.

You will be much better off if you engage in a more human process of finding peoplewith similar interests and talking to them as you would in the real-world. I do thinkthat you should freely follow other people. Following other people, replying to theirtweets, and generally meeting others the same way you would in the real world is thebest way to increase your followers.

Personally, about half of my followers (and the people I follow) find me throughonline interactions. The other half I know in the real world, or have some connectionto me in the real world. For example, local events often have a list of attendees, andpeople find me through those lists.

So, a combined approach of following people liberally and engaging in conversationsin an efficient manner (using Twitter apps) is the best way to get more followers.Also, if you're really committed to Twitter, include a link to your Twitter profile fromyour blog, e-mail, and business card. Be remarkable, do remarkable things, andpeople will find you.

3. How do I use Twitter Efficiently?

The Twitter stream can be overwhelming. In fact, all of the short messages can seembanal and even incomprehensible. Without the right tools, tracking conversationscan be difficult. It is important to have good search filters, and lists of importantpeople set up to make sure you're only looking at the tweets you want to see.

Once you've got your system set up, you can probably do everything you need to doon Twitter in less than an hour a day. Ideally you can do it from your phone whilewaiting in line at the grocery store. Certainly you will be able keep up to date with thekey tweets in just a few minutes a day.

Two of the most popular tools are TweetDeck and CoTweet. TweetDeck is a desktopTwitter client. You download it and run it on your computer. Inside TweetDeck, youcan configure special columns to track just the tweets you want to track. In this way,it becomes your Twitter dashboard. At a glimpse you can see what is going on.

CoTweet is a web-based tool which is perfect for tweeting from multiple accounts.The great thing about CoTweet is that it can be configured to only show you repliesand mentions of specific keywords. It is also great for letting multiple people tweetacross one or many Twitter accounts.

Twitter lists are a very important feature that can be used both on the Twitter websiteand in clients like TweetDeck and CoTweet. Essentially you can create a list ofTwitter users and filter your stream to see just the tweets from those users. So forexample, you might create a list of VIP customers or people you are working ongetting to know better (for example people you hope will follow you). Rather thanscanning the entire stream for tweets you would like to see, lists let you quickly viewjust the tweets from important people. Once you have a good set of lists you canfollow people more freely because you won't be as concerned about overloading yourprimary stream with too many tweets.

4. How do I promote my product, cause, or organizationwithout looking like a spammer?

Most people look at Twitter and wonder how they can effectively promotethemselves. Generally that means sharing links to a website or product, or just tryingto inform people with important information about a cause or project. Even though

most of us will know spam when we see it, we don't recognize when we're doing itourselves. The key is to balance your tweets. Be authentic and share things that youare genuinely interested in and - most importantly - that your followers will beinterested in too. If you build their trust by sharing relevant things and answeringquestions, they will be more likely to click and even retweet when the time comes toshare your link.

There are some shortcuts, You can buy (sponsor) tweets and retweets from otherpeople. You can offer incentives like prizes. But in general, there is no better waythan authentic participation.

5. What should I tweet about (and how often)?

If you are promoting exercise equipment, the best way to do it is to find peopletalking about exercising and help them with their problems. If you provide usefulopinions about how to help them solve their problems, chances are they will respectyour opinion and check out whatever you are selling.

You can send @replies all day long as often as you like. Only the person you'rereplying to and your followers who also follow that person will see your @replies.That means as long as you are participating in conversation like a human nobody willthink you are a spammer. With normal tweets, however, you should probably nottweet more than once an hour. More than that will be too annoying for yourfollowers. Less than that and they may not see your tweets.

Also, whenever you shorten a URL be sure that you know how to count how manyclicks were made on that link. Analytics will help you now which links are morepopular, and will help you to refine your wording (you can track which tweets weremore popular than others by varying the links).

Learn or get Left behind

As I said at the beginning, Twitter is deceptively simple. The good news is with just alittle investment in learning the correct techniques for finding people, gettingfollowers, and reading/writing tweets - you will see a huge increase in your followingwhile decreasing the amount of time that you spend on Twitter. I've met people whoare winning big in this new electronic word-of-mouth medium. Do you enjoy staringat the stream figuring out what to tweet and following random people? I'm guessingthe answer is no. Sieze the rewards that are there for those who decide to invest theeffort to "do Twitter right."

Visit http://www.twibes.com/tips to sign up for our bi-monthly email Twitter tips.

Adam Loving (@adamloving), is a software developer and

entrepreneur with a keen interest in social media. He has been a

computer hacker since the 1980s, cited in Lotus Magazine in his

early teens. Adam’s passion for viral user experience design led him

to create Twibes. Adam has worked as a software consultant for

both giant and tiny companies, but prefers startups. He got burnt

out in 1996 and took a short 11 month trip around the world to visit

24 countries.

Adam was featured in Microsoft’s “A Startup A Week” documentary

series, where he built a Facebook app to help Room to Read raise

money for a computer lab in Cambodia. Adam is also the inventor

of the Zuckerbuck (one of the first virtual currencies on Facebook).

His Facebook app “Dumb Americans” won an overnight coding

contest at the CommunityNext conference in San Jose. In addition

to being the founder of Twibes, and chief dog walker for his Great

Dane Gretel, Adam is “Twitter guy” at Gist – a company he helped

incubate for Vulcan Capital.