In my Gab With the Gurus Radio Show today, the five social networking experts agreed to give Tips for you Twitter newbies out there. Here are some pointers. More to come.
Shel Israel, author of Naked Conversations and of the upcoming Twitterville:
1. Show yourself. Scroll through some pages and see what catches your eye. Chances are good that it will be the avatars. Personally, I like to have conversations with real people so I like to see real photos, not cartoons or the Twitterville place keeper. If you have a blog or Web site, link to it. Under
your bio, say something about what you are really about. Saying your location is on iPhone is overused and unhelpful to someone deciding to follow you or not.
2. Read first.When I check out a new Tweeter, I read his or her most recent posts. If one interests me, I’ll look further. If none does, I’m gone. My advice is to start by reading what others have to say and get a sense of the rhythm of Twitterville conversations before you join in. Wait until you have
something useful or interesting to add to the conversation.
3. Celebrities don’t count. You can always start by getting followed by a few celebrity Tweeters like Scoble, Calacanis and Loic. But they give you no credibility at all because they simply follow everyone. Their purpose is to be a new media star and it works well for them. But is that what you want from
Twitterville? Those of us who have been around for a while see no value in being listed at as Followers, because they follow everyone.
Gedeon Maheux, co-founder of Iconfactory
1. Find and make friends. Twitter doesn’t reach its full potential until you start following people that have similar interests as you. Be those family or real life friends, they all make Twitter more compelling.
2. Get off the web. The Twitter website is one of the worst ways to interact with the service. Try out a desktop or mobile application like Twitterrific and see how it can make sending and receiving
tweets quicker, easier and more fun.
3. Stick with it. At first, Tweeting may seem pointless, but once you make more friends and start following people you are really interested in, its value will become apparent very quickly. The key is not to
give up in the early stages because once you hit the Twitter tipping point, you’ll suddenly "get it" and it will all make sense.