To Tweet or not to Tweet ... ( what was the question? I was watching the twitter stream go by on my tweetdeck).

The decision to participate in Twitter is a serious one, just like moving into any community you should take some time to consider your motives.

 If you think that you can move in and mine the twitter community without providing any value, think again.  Marketers who come in to gather and not sow typically attract other marketers that gather. Eventually they just market to each other. Twitter is the ultimate opt-in / opt-out experience; if someone upsets or bores you, you can just stop following or  block them. No one can make anyone follow them, it's a choice. 

So why should you tweet? ( I can't believe I just wrote that :-) Like any other social media, Twitter is a way to meet thousands of people that you wouldn't have direct access to in the RW (real world) You can make friends, promote your business, or just have fun. Just like you would in the RW (Real World). It gives you the opportunity to broaden your reach. Remember that like a RW community, the ones that get noticed are the ones that get out, speak up and contribute to the overall good of the community. Even if you don't always agree with these people you know who they are in your HOA, PTA , church or clubs. You will get to know them on twitter as well.

OK, so you decided to jump in and play; great but now what? Well you should build your house... People who are trying to decide whether to follow you will look at your profile to try and get to know you a little better. Twitter is, after all, a community.

To get noticed you have to invest some time. If it's not important enough for you to make an effort, why should anyone care what you have to say? People will judge you by your profile page. If you don't care enough to upload an image or select a theme and fill in some basic info about yourself it, will be much harder to get people interested in you. If you're one of the creatively challenged, then you might try a tool like Twitbacks, which helps you create a custom background for your profile page; and, it's free!  If you have Adobe Photoshop you might try Twitter Backs; a little more creative, but you do need Photoshop  to edit. If you want to do it yourself here's a link to great blog post by TwiTip on how to make a twitter background. Don't forget to upload a photo to your profile. It doesn't have to be you but it does need to be distinctive. Look at @zaibatsu he's listed as the number 2 most influential person on twitter by Twitalyzer, believe me, that avatar is not him. You can change these through the twitter tab "settings", found in the upper right of the screen. After you select settings you can change your picture by selecting the "picture"  tab and the look of your page by selecting the "design" tab. On the design page you can upload your own BG by clicking the "Change Background Image" button make sure you change the design colors too so people can read your info. Dark letters on a dark background are never good. Your bio info is on the "account" tab. Just don't reveal anything you wouldn't want the local axe murderer/stalker to know.

So now you have your page set up. You've tweeted "Setting up my Twitter page" ( It is the traditional first tweet. Kinda like coders writing "Hello World" when they learn a new programming language.) What do you do now? It's easy; my bet is that you are doing it in the RW already. Here are 10 twitter tips to help you get started:

1. Be yourself - Social Media is really all about... you guessed it, being social. There is no way that you can sustain a lie over a long period of time. There is a following for everyone. Of course if you are an acerbic, self absorbed maniac, maybe you should get help before jumping in. (Please)

2. Be Nice - Alright this might seem counterintuitive after tip #1 but really aren't you more inclined to follow someone you think will help you? Help newbies, ReTweet when asked and most of all, stay positive. If you are doom and gloom no one will continue to follow for long.

3. Tweet Regularly - This doesn't mean you should spend the entire day on Twitter, but if you want followers, you have to TALK TO THEM. It's what Twitter is all about, after all.

4. Engage your Audience - Remember that you are talking "to" people not "at" them. No one really cares what you had for breakfast or if your  cat is sleeping, but they might care about how you feel, what you are thinking or whether or not you agree with what they just said.

5. Share the Love - On Twitter, the retweet is the ultimate compliment. When someone tweets something that you agree with, or you feel your followers should know something thats tweeted, retweet it, not only will you get noticed for your generosity, you might even pick up a few followers when you get thanked. (yes if you get a RT thank them - see #2)

6. Be Brief - You have 140 characters to say what you want to say, so get to the point. ( BTW - If you want to be retweeted you really only have 125 characters, that way no one has to edit you.)

7. Add Content - Remember that no one but you cares about your business. We don't want to be marketed to or sold. Be an expert at what you do; help people; prove you are knowledgeable at what you do and people will find you.

8. Learn the Ropes - Hashtags # , @ signs , DM's,  RT, #FollowFridays are all things related to Twitter. If you don't know what they mean you should read webwares "Newbies guide to Twitter" on CNET or "How to use Twitter Effectively" by L. Perry (I would have explained these myself but why reinvent the wheel)

9 Shrink Your Links - Use a tool like Tiny URL to make your links smaller. TweetDeck, Hootsuite and other twitter tools will do this as well. Why waste space?

10. Don't Take it Personally - Remember, you might feel like you are in the same room as your followers, but you aren't. With sophisticated Twitter tools, people can make it appear that they are active and online but be engaged in some other activity. Even if you are in the midst of tweeting with someone, you don't really know what they are doing. They might not be responding because something in the RW just got their attention. It is the real world after all and you, you are miles away. So don't take it personally if someone doesn't respond. It might not have anything to do with you. Also please don't be too quick to react. Sometimes people tweet before they think. Give em a break.

The point is to have a base, if no one is following you, then no one will. Use an application like TweetDeck & watch the stream of tweets. (after you are following 200+ it's kind of like the numbers dropping in the movie "The Matrix" . Information goes by quickly. When you see something Tweeted by one of these "Heavy Hitters", retweet it. It will show up in the General content stream and people will see it and follow you. ( To attract like minded followers make sure that what you retweet matches your personality, otherwise when your true self shows through they will drop you. )  This, coupled with relevant content, (remember #7), and your winning personality will get you on your way.

Remember numbers don't matter. OK what did I just say? Isn't Twitter about the number of followers? It just doesn't make sense does it? This is something I learned from Reg Saddler ( Remember that Zaibatsu guy who is the #2 most influential person on Twitter? Sorry Reg  :- ) I'm letting the cat out of the bag.  Well It didn't make sense to me either at the time but after all he is THE Reg Saddler, so I listened. -( If you want to know more about Reg Saddler/Zaibatsu read this.  ) Reg explained that the real power in Twitter is to move people to experience things they would not normally have been exposed to. Once you have the reputation for providing superior content people will click your links, read your copy and help when you need help. The real power in Twitter is one person helping one person. That's why a normal, regular guy like Reg Saddler is listed with the @AplusK 's and @GuyKawasaki's . He also explained that he actively searched for and engaged smart and active people on Twitter because it was more important to have 100 active thinking people than 1000 inactive drones.

Reg said "Once you have established yourself as someone who has integrity and are engaging people with articles and ideas designed to help them, they will help you." Reg is pretty smart ,right?

It actually boils down to basic math. Let's say you have 400 followers and each of them has 400 followers. Now you've spent your time engaging your flock instead of following and unfollowing people to see who follows back blindly, so they're paying attention to you. When you tweet you get a 5% retweet or 20 people remessaged your message. You now have the possibility of being seen by  8400 people; not bad with just 400 followers. It would take you months to get 8400 followers, but if you get the right 400 you can have an effect. BTW if you are not following @Zaibatsu, you should be.

OK so how else can you get followers? Tweet often. I use Hootsuite to preprogram my tweets. I spend 20-30 minutes each morning searching for news (CNN or BBC or NYTimes ) or other items that I personally find interesting. I then preprogram 12-14 articles, news items or ? to send out about an hour apart. As I go about my day I have TweetDeck open on my computer (  I use 4 screens on my computer at home and 3 at work. Most desktop computers these days will support two.) As things come through, I retweet and answer and engage based on my work/play level at the time. Remember item 10?

Another way to find people is to engage influential people on Twitter, @zaibatsu and  @alohaarleen and @barefoot_exec are just a few. I prefer the non-celeb type as real people are much more likely to respond to you than @AplusK, @alohaarleen is following 74542 people while @AplusK may have 1.5 mil followers but he is only following 142 people. @zaibatsu follows 81,471 people and @barefoot_exec  51, 348 another real person on Twitter is @mrken777 and while he only has 11,722 followers he has Twitter influence as well. Follow these people, read their tweets and then RT or respond and you will note that all four of these genuinely nice people are actively engaging their audiences and have earned the respect they are given.

 Just remember to give before you take.

So what good is Twitter? Since I've been active on twitter I have introduced my sister to a person who lives 10 blocks from her in the RW that she wouldn't have met otherwise, helped a friend get a job, helped my fave charity raise money and helped my clients get noticed. I've experienced the generosity of @zaibatsu who asked me to call him on the phone so he could share his insights after he noticed I was floundering, I have seen Hawaii through the eyes of @alohaarleen, drank a pint (figuratively? virtually?) with @michaelgranger in Australia, discussed web trends with a web designer in London and @a_web_ Designer in Melbourne. Discussed US politics with three people in Malasia, discussed bible verse with @hetty4christ ,and so much more. Does it take up part of my life? Yes, but so do my RW friends. Because of Twitter I have broadened my horizons been able to get the views of people half way across the globe and have made many new and genuine friends.

To those who want to use Twitter as a marketing tool, I say more power to you; provided that you do it responsibly. Remember to add content from time to time. We will view your ads and click your links, but to those who are just here to promote themselves .. maybe the #unfollowTuesday tag isn't such a bad idea.

@Rich_Mayo