Twitter Client Applications
The biggest problem with the standard Twitter web application is that you have to keep an eagle eye on your replies and Direct Messages as you only see the main Tweetstream on the screen. It is also limited in that it only displays about the last 20 tweets, so if you want to see older ones, you have to keep going back pages. So what to do?
Easy, download Tweetdeck from http://www.tweetdeck.com The first thing you will probably notice is that you will need to change the settings as the default is white text on a black screen. Makes it hard to read I've found, but each to their own.
Tweetdeck is brilliant in that it displays the Tweetstream, your replies and your direct messages all on the one screen. The message columns allow for 500 tweets as a default, so scrolling down allows you to go back a fair way or search for tweets you may want to refer back to.
The screen has a continuous right hand scroll, so you can set up different groups and their tweets will appear in that column. You might have a group called best friends and another for gardeners for instance. That way you don't miss important tweets from people who are more important to you than others. At the time of writing, Tweetdeck is probably the most widely used application for Twitter and I would highly recommend it to you.
Your Tweets
Start getting some tweets into the system now. On the Twitter home page, it asks What You Are Doing. Quite frankly many people don't care until you have built a relationship with them as a result of following. But there are some good ways to get started. Follow some blogs that you are interested in via an RSS feed to a feed reader such as Google. (Search these on Google if you are not familiar with the terms. There is heaps of information on there and could occupy an ebook of its own.) Start by posting links to interesting posts on Twitter about them with a link to the blog post. For example: “Interesting post on pest control in tomatos. Link”. Make sure you always include http:// in the link and not just www so the link is clickable in the Tweetstream. If it's a long link, Tweetdeck has a facility to shorten it to a small url.
Another good way of starting out tweeting is with quotes. Do a search for some quotes of interest and tweet these. Personal development ones are great and also quotes by famous people. Here's one I just found in the Tweetstream as an example: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle. There are thousands of these all over the internet that you can use.
Whatever you do, at no stage of your Twitter career start posting sales tweet after sales tweet. Your career will be shortlived if you do and people will unfollow you very quickly. Twitter is about engagement, value and a social experience. A constant flow of sales links is just not on. By all means post links to your products or sites, but keep them to around 5% of your total tweets at the most.
Another good idea with your tweeting is to keep religion and politics out of them. These subjects can only alienate followers and you can lose them.
Replies
You can reply to someone's Tweet simply by putting the @symbol in front of their name. This makes the tweet stand out to them as it appears in their reply column or page instead of in the general Tweetstream. It is a very useful way of starting conversations with people in order to build relationships. Simply comment on one of their tweets. Tweetdeck has a feature when you hover over the user's avatar to put their name and reply symbol straight into the posting area.
Retweeting
People appreciate retweets and it is a good way to get noticed by others. All you do is put RT in front of the @username. Using Tweetdeck, hover over the user's avatar and it will put the whole thing in the posting area. Separate their tweet from your comment if you have one. I usually put two pipes, which is holding down the Shift key on the \ character. This will produce “||” which clearly shows the end of the other person's tweet and your reply or comment.
If other people retweet your tweets, make it a habit to thank them. It's common courtesy. Simply tweet @username Thanks for RT :-) and send.
The Big Decision
It is probably time now to make a big decision as it will affect the way in which you use Twitter considerably. That decision relates to quality versus quantity. If you are into marketing, then quantity of followers will be important to you. It's like building a list. But if you want to keep things personal, then quality of followers will be what you need. Either way, the next step will be to find some people to follow.
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