So, finally you have your Twitter account, but it looks like this!
I know Twitter can be a little difficult to get started with. To be honest, my Twitter account also looked like that for a very long time.
The question a lot of us face after getting into Twitter is, “Now, what?”
Twitter is not like Facebook, where you have your friends already. For a newcomer, Twitter might look like a seemingly random stream of text and images from a lot of unknown people.
And yes, your posts are limited to 240 characters including spaces!
But don’t worry. Here are 6 simple tips that will help you rock Twitter:
Write a Bio
Sounds basic, right? But a lot of us ignore it.
Populating your profile with relevant information is the first thing you should do after getting your account.
This is vital, because, no one wants to follow a person without knowing him/her a bit.
Twitter allows you to use 160 characters (very generous!) while writing your bio.
Since there is a character limit, it’s alright to use short awkward sentences, even single words in your bio.
Make sure that you mention your key areas of interest and expertise so that others with similar interest can discover you,
Pro Tip: Use the service called Twitter Bio Generator to generate a bio quickly. Generate a bio using the service and then replace the words with something relevant to you.
Find Your Interest
Twitter is a discovery platform. People join Twitter to be on top of what’s happening in their respective fields.
To know what the trends are, who the top thinkers are and what they are up to.
Therefore, it’s important that you know what the areas that interest you are.
Follow the Right People
Once you have chosen on interests, you need to find some people to follow. One good technique is to create a list of well-known people from your area of interest.
Once you have zeroed down on them, view the people they are following and the people following them.
There’s a good chance that you will find a lot of relevant people to follow.
Find and Share Useful Stuff
More you share more followers you will get. It is as simple as that. Try to find content that will interest people in your field. It can be links, posts, videos, presentations, images, just about anything.
But where do I find this useful content? I am glad that you asked.
Here are some great places to find interesting content.
Alltop: Alltop aggregates best of the stories from sources like Techcrunch, Mashable, Seth Godin’s blog and so on. You’ll find tons of interesting stuff that you can share.
Buzzsumo: Buzzsumo is a search engine for most popular articles in Social Media. You can search for a topic and get a list of most popular articles around that topic. Since these articles are already viral there is a good chance that you’ll get re-tweets and favorites when you share them on Twitter.
Feedly: Feedly is one of the top RSS readers around. You can use Feedly to access content from all your favorite sites. In addition, it also provides a hashtag search feature for discovering new content.
Schedule Your Posts
Do not share all your Tweets in at once. This will annoy people. Instead, learn to schedule your Tweets.
This is how I do it.
At the beginning of the day, I spend some time visiting my content sources and reading various articles.
I select the articles I want to share and schedule them using a tool called Buffer. Buffer allows me to specify at what time these Tweets should go out. In other words, it Tweets for me throughout the day.
Be Consistent
Like everything else in life Twitter needs consistency. A lot of people start with Twitter, send out a flurry of Tweets for first few days and then become silent. That doesn’t work.
You need to be consistent and patient. Send out a few good Tweets every day and after some time you will notice that you are getting re-tweets, mentions, and followers.
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Hope these simple tips will help you to get started. See you on Twitter!
You can ping me @shyamantab