6 Tips to Ease Your Twension with Twitter

There’s been a lot of talk in the last several weeks about Twitter. Seems like everyone and their dog is on it now, and it has become a media darling with reports of celebrities such as Britney Spears and Shaquille O’Neal now joining the “Twitterati” (though the former is allegedly updating via a ghost writer and the latter has a tendency to "tweet" during basketball games).

For those of you just getting started with Twitter, and reports are that more and more people are signing up every day, here are a few suggestions on how to make Twitter your own, and how you can get more comfortable with the technology and ideology of Twitter.

1. Don't fret the stumbles and blunders. Your best bet is to start following, and being followed by, friends and family – they (hopefully) accept you as you are and will be more forgiving of the mistakes, misspellings, misinterpretations, and unintelligible updates you send. However, they also give you an audience to speak to versus just sending messages to the ether. As you begin, be comfortable with the realization that mistakes are part of the learning process, so don't get hung up spell  checking everything through Word before you hit "update". Use, learn and grow - the expertise will come later.

2. Personality is important. I follow people I wouldn’t know from Adam, and I follow people I know very well. What’s surprising is how the people I know go about sending out updates: Some send updates just as if they were bumping into you on the street – they are very personable, very believable, and very much being themselves. Others are robotic and unemotional in their updates, but face-to-face are entirely the opposite. You don’t need to be anyone but yourself, so don’t try to be anyone but yourself.

3. Try and find the angles. While it’s nice to occasionally send out messages of the mundane, try not to fill people in on the minutiae of everyday life. A friend of mine worried that people wouldn’t care that she was doing the laundry so she was reticent to start up a Twitter account. To a certain extent she was right. while people may not care that you’re doing the laundry, they may care that you’re doing laundry using your brand new Kenmore front loading washing machine. You can put a spin on anything that makes it more memorable. Find the angles and people will take notice.

4. Mix it up once in awhile. You don’t need to just send updates on “what you’re doing now”, so send links to YouTube clips, cartoons and jokes, quote song lyrics or poetry snippets (I know someone who sends out Bible verses), and even the occasional non-sequitur like “I like pie!” As this tip evolved out of #2 – show your personality - by adding in links to pictures or short videos, especially of you or something you like, you can really move towards Twitter rock star status.

5. Have fun with it. Probably the most important point to be made: while there are definite, serious benefits to using Twitter, that doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with it. This is not life-or-death, this is an extension of how you communicate, so leave your serious side at home occasionally. Besides, once you start having fun using Twitter you'll gain greater comfort with it, and once you're comfortable with it you'll get a better understanding of how to use it more effectively.

6. Be ready to be followed, and follow as well. As  your usage grows you may be surprised by the occasional "follow" from someone you don't know. Don't despair! Twitter is a social media application, which means that a TON of people are using it and a TON of people are on it every day. Something you say may trigger someone to start following you (to use the example from #3, some Kenmore enthusiast or even a Kenmore representative may follow you), someone following one of YOUR followers may start following you, and you may get the occasional spammer who is following you just in the hopes that you'll reciprocate. Regardless of the reason, following and being followed is part of the process. Look at it as an extension of your usage - following others gives you a better understanding of how to use the product, it gets you participating in the community, and it may even make your own updates better. Followers expand your audience and reach, and depending on what you say, you may make a few more friends in the process.

So, there you have it. Hopefully, this helps some people. As I said, I’m no expert, just a guy who is trying to find his way in the ever-changing world of media and communication. I’d really be interested to hear what others have to say…