Written by podjam.tv

Twitter has changed the way people communicate and share information online.  Spreading information, conversations with people from all over the world,  creating change and spreading good cheer 140 characters at a time sums up what one can experience on the social media platform.

The statistics are quite staggering, can you  just imagine the number of tweets sent per day? According to Kissmetrics, there have been 177 million Tweets sent on March 2011. 50 million, the average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago. (You can check out some other stats HERE.)

Everyday there are still more and more people joining Twitter and would usually get discouraged because they are either overwhelmed and quiet confused as to how things work.  For those who have been active since Twitter started to become popular knows the experience, and believe us, the experience keeps on evolving.

Since our primary aim here at PodJamTv is to inspire people to have a better and fulfilling experience online, we have decided to list down tips that we hope can help you get your feet wet and start tweeting like a pro.

Personal Branding

1. Don’t be Vague – Write your bio. This will allow other Twitter users to get to know who you are at a glance.  They will see what you interested in and that will allow for better engagement and sharing.   It is also good practice to use your own name for SEO purposes.

2. Identify yourself properly – Have a recent picture if you are using a personal account and a logo if you are using Twitter for business. A good practice, is to have a close up picture rather than something that is far away.

3. Express Your Personality – Add a Twitter Background  as this allows you to give people who want to follow you additional information about what you like and who you are.

Following

1.  Don’t just Click on the Follow button – Make sure to check out the bios of each of the people following you, this will eliminate the chance of you following spammers.

2.  Organize your follower – Create lists as it aids in organization of followers based on interests, location, profession.  This will help you divide your followers into buckets so that you can pay attention to the message that you want to share with them.

3.  10% Rule in following – If you are new on Twitter and would like to follow a lot of people, please remember the 10% rule.  You can only follow 2,000 initial and then if you reach your limit you can follow up to  10% more based on the number of people following you.

Content Sharing Strategy

1.  Using Twitter Clients is good – For those new on Twitter, there are a lot of Twitter clients available to you for sharing and engaging.  Using the different clients other than the web can help you optimize your time on the social media platform.  There are clients to help you schedule your tweets, and there are some that will help you automatically shorten your links.  Try to make sure that you use no more than 120 characters per tweet  to leave room for Retweets.

2.  Use the 60 / 40 Rule –  When sharing content remember the 60 / 40 ratio.  60% information and Retweets and 40% conversation.  You want to make sure that you balance your engagement.  Twitter is great for learning but also you need to build relationship with the people you will talk with 24/7.

3. Be consistent and have variety –  You don’t want to bore the people that follow you.  It is good practice to tweet a variety of content that will keep your followers informed and entertained.  You can share music, photos, recommendation, etc.  But aside from sharing good content you also need to be committed to giving enough time to be on the social site.  Relationship building takes time.  If you want people to interact with you, you need to be present.

DM Etiquette

1.  No one likes a spammer –  Don’t spam your followers with too many sales pitches and requests to join your Mafia family.

2.  Better to welcome people on stream –  Some people send auto DMs to their new followers, but we feel that you should rather take the time to welcome your new followers on stream, that makes you more human to them.

3.  Be creative in using the DM function –  Instead of spamming people you can use this function as your personal communication tool when sending messages as a one on one conversation with the people you tweet with on a regular basis.  You can also engage people you want to interview for blog posts or as a way to make appointments real time.

Twitter Etiquette:

1.   Be Real – One needs to consider that your online personality should just be the extension of your offline self.  You don’t need to pretend to be someone you are not. Just be yourself.

2.   Be a good listener – You want to be able to build relationship on Twitter,  you would also find it a more enjoyable experience if you are engaging and sharing experiences with people from all over the world and you can only accomplish that if you know how to listen. Don’t just broadcast.

3.   Be respectful – Don’t bully anyone on Twitter, this is not tolerated on the social networking platform.  Just like in real life, we need to show respect to be respected.  Remember the five simple words, thank you, please and you’re welcome as they are words that are so simple and yet powerful enough to brighten anyone’s day.

There you go.  These sums up our Twitter tips for those who are contemplating on joining Twitter.  We hope that after going through our list, you will find your experience more enjoyable.  And for those of you who have been on Twitter for as long as we have, maybe you  could share some of the tips with us and our readers, we would love to hear from you.

Bonus:  If Comedians These Told Video Game Jokes They Would Sound Like This…..