How I Use Twitter – 10 Tools, Tips, and Tactics

I am *not* a Twitter superstar. I’d like to think that I’m doing an OK job, however, and I genuinely believe that I could have more followers and web site traffic if I just spent more time Tweeting. Still, if you’re looking to build 30k followers on Twitter, I’m not the guy to listen to. In my mind, Twitter is small and personal, not big and impersonal.

In other words, if you want to build a small, meaningful audience on Twitter that you connect with regularly, then this Twitter advice is for you.

1. I use Hootsuite. When it comes to actual Tweeting, I don’t like using Twitter.com. It’s not very fast and it doesn’t offer me the same amount of info at a glance that I get from Hootsuite.

Hoostsuite also allows me to automatically shrink URLs, makes RT’s and DM’s as easy as a click, I can follow my conversations without a lot of effort, and I can even schedule my Tweets for peak times when I know people are active. There are also some cool click stats you can look at, and you can also use Hootsuite to manage multiple profiles. Since I manage @sporkmarketing, @tundrahq, and a couple of client profiles, this is a great feature that saves me a ton of time.

2. I use Twitter lists to prioritize what I’m going to read. In Hootsuite, you can create a list of Tweeple (that’s Twitter-speak for “people”) that you can display separately. All of my accounts have a private “faves” list that I’ve made strictly for my own time-saving purposes. My faves lists are made up of people whose tweets I really want to read – the rest I read when I have time.

3. I try to adhere to the 19-20 rule. There’s a Twitter rule that someone smarter than me came up with called 19-20. For every 20 tweets you publish, 19 of them are re-tweets (RTs). Just like the best conversationalists listen much more than they talk, the best Tweeters RT a LOT.

4. I only follow people who are relevant to my niche. Frankly, I think this is the key to Twitter.

I would compare Twitter to a really big University campus. While there are some people who will become known campus-wide, most of us will only be known to a specific sub-set. Would you rather try and be one of the people that is known campus-wide, or would you rather be viewed as the person in your immediate group of friends?

While both have their benefits, I think it’s much easier to be known in a small group than it is to try and be known worldwide. Therefore, I focus my Twitter profiles on a specific topic area or relationship and really don’t bother with following or engaging people who are outside those bounds. I might be making a mistake in this, but I don’t think so.

5. I only follow quality profiles. Aside from relevance, I only follow people when:

• They have a complete profile on Twitter. No picture? No chance. No website? Probably not going to follow that person either.
• Their profile shows RTs. When someone follows me, I always look at that person’s profile. Do they have RTs? If the answer is no, they’re probably not listening…so why I would follow them?
• They’re not spammers. If the last Tweet was “Learn how you can make $418 dollars a day from home LINK” I’m out.

6. I’ve used SponsoredTweets with some good results. SponsoredTweets is an advertising system that allows you to pay specific people to Tweet out your message. You can specify the time of day the Tweet goes out, and you can review the language of the Tweet to make sure it’s OK. The goals are to generate clicks and to get people to RT your sponsored message freely. SponsoredTweets has worked best for me when I focused on Tweeting out content that was inherently conversational. It’s pretty inexpensive and definitely worth testing if you’re trying to do business on Twitter.

7. I Tweet like crazy at events. I attended the New York Auto Show earlier this year as well as the 8th Digital Dealer Conference. At both places, I spent significant time Tweeting and RT’ing about the event on my phone. This usually helps me gain followers and generates some relationships – just make sure you use the appropriate event-specific hashtag when you Tweet.

8. Jokes get RT’d pretty nicely. A good joke can be RT’d dozens of times, and it’s a great way to introduce your profile to someone who has never heard of you. If you can be funny in less than 100 characters, you will build a following on Twitter.

9. I try to Tweet in 100 characters or less. If you want people to RT you, make it easy for them: short tweets don’t require editing to be RT’d.

10. I Tweet at people directly on a limited basis. If I want to get someone’s attention on Twitter, I will Tweet directly at them (not direct message, mind you, but a public tweet that’s directed towards someone). Since we all monitor our mentions closely, Tweeting at someone is a great way to get their attention. However, there are some criteria: If you do it too often, you become the “Tweep who cried wolf” and are ignored. If you do it out of context and/or without building a relationship, you get un-followed.

Bottom Line: I’ve learned these rules by trial and error, by reading others recommendations, and by listening to my wife @saralancaster who is a very successful Tweeter. As I said, I’m not a superstar…but I have had some success building relationships and doing some business on Twitter, and I really don’t spend that much time working on it (1-2 hours per week).

Comments? Suggestions?