Lather. Tweet. Repeat.

OK, for those of you who haven't yet tried Twitter, or tried it a few months ago but gave up in a few days when you couldn't figure out what you were supposed to be doing, or wonder whether it's just the latest blip in the world of communication that's already on its way out - this post is for you.

I've been playing around with Twitter for about two months now, and am still forming my opinion about it as a business networking/broadcasting tool. But as a strange new world, I'm starting to have fun - and make some new contacts/friends in the Twitterverse.

There are some basics you need to know about Twitter until someone writes The Idiot's Guide to Twitter. I'm sure there are more, (feel free to add in the comments section) but I think these will be useful for the novice.

Some tips I'd give to any Twitter newcomer to get the most out of the experience from day one:

1. Upload a picture of yourself, not some cute/weird avatar, but a real picture of yourself. And write something in your bio that lets people know who you are as a human being, not just as a businessperson (if you are one). Twitter is one large community, with lots of little niche communities sprouting up everywhere based on interests and backgrounds and where you live. And we want to know who our neighbors are and what they look like before we want to, like, talk to them.


2. Before you send your first tweet, ( I haven't searched, but I bet the most common first tweet is something along the lines of, "Trying to figure Twitter out." Find some people to follow. This was the most difficult part for me at first. Twitter allows you to search for people you know, but it's not so simple to just search on topics like "marketing" to find out who's tweeting on that topic. They're changing the functionality on Twitter now so you can do that, but I still find it easier to just go to http://search.twitter.com/ to find people with like-minded interests. Follow a few people who've been on Twitter for a while and observe what they do. Most people will let you follow them without first giving you permission. Just click on "follow" under their photo and you can go right to their "tweet stream" and read what they've been posting. Read what they link to, view the profiles of the people they follow. You can also find people who live in the same general area as you by using such sites as http://www.nearbytweets.com/.


3. Don't follow everyone who follows you. There's a lot of debate about this in the Twitterverse, but I have enough to keep track of on a daily basis without trying to get a handle on 10,000 followers' tweets. And you probably do, too (not that I'll ever get that kind of a following, but you get the point). I only follow people who have something to say that really interests me, or makes me laugh. And I ignore the people who are way too obvious that they're just trying to sell something, i.e., "My new internet marketing book is coming out next week - read about it in my latest blog post!" I'm a marketer so I'm not against trying to use Twitter to enhance/build your business, but that kind of in your face stuff turns me off. I'm on Twitter mostly to learn more about social media and how it's affecting my former profession and first love - the news business, my current profession in marketing and communications and the world. And to post my daughter's angry letter to the tooth fairy and view cool pictures of rice walls in China.

4. # see that symbol to the leff of the word "see" - it's called a hashtag and tweeters use them a lot so that people can more easily find the topics when doing a search. So for example, if you want to view all the silly jokes people post you can do a search for #hilaritweets and they'll all come up in your search, in time order. People do this a lot when they tweet from conferences or on a more lyrical note, when they write the kind of poetry ideally suited to the 140 character medium, #haiku.

5. I've seen a lot of essays about what to tweet about that will get you more followers, and get retweeted and become the most popular tweeter on the block, but again, I've got a contrarian viewpoint on this. I'd rather have 300 followers who interact with me on a meaningful level and develop a rapport with them, than 20.000 followers who barely recognize my username. Granted, celebrities (both social media, tech, film and TV types) are always going to get lots of followers. And I've got no problem with that. They've earned their pulpits and have something to say that lots of people want to hear. But for the average tweeter, I think about 300-400 followers is probably enough. Same goes for people to follow. I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to unfollow people. Some posted great quotes that I really enjoyed, but then had nothing of interest to say on their own. One posted too many musical notes and hearts in her tweets, and it just bugged me. A conservative Republican I followed to learn more about politics from a different angle got too vitriolic for my taste (but I still follow @karlrove, who I'm finding kind of fascinating).

6. RT = Retweet. When you see that in someone's tweet, that means they liked what someone else wrote in their tweet enough to want to share it with their followers. The proper etiquette for retweeting is to start with RT, followed by the person's username (@newsucnuse) and then copy what they wrote, maybe adding a comment yourself.

7. There are two ways to get in touch with someone you follow on Twitter. Either send them a direct message, or post a message in your stream that starts with @ followed by their username, i.e., @newsucnuse you crack me up. Direct messages are private between you and the person you're following, while the @ messages in your stream can be seen by anyone. I'd hazard that most people on Twitter would prefer you respond to their messages in public, unless they're very personal. That way everyone can be part of your conversation, and maybe even add something to it. That's when Twitter gets really fun.

8. So what should you tweet about? Many articles on Twitter I've read say you should/can tweet about anything you want. And that's technically true. But unlike Facebook, where you're sure to get someone to acknowledge your status updates with a "likes this" or a personal comment, most of the people on Twitter don't know you and don't feel compelled to interact with you unless you have something interesting to bring to the table. Start out by commenting on other's tweets and making connections with people whose tweets you like. And don't be surprised if the first 20 tweets you send out into the world get no response whatsoever. That's what nearly turned me off to Twitter in the beginning. One way to at least know whether people are clicking on your pictures or your links is to send your pictures to http://www.twitpic.com/ (there's a counter that shows how many times someone clicks on your photo). And I've just discovered http://bit.ly/which not only shortens long links (a must for tweeters), but also shows how many people clicked on your link.

9. Should you create multiple twitter accounts for your work persona, your Civil War reenactment enthusiast persona, your I love Karen Carpenters persona? Again, there's a divergence of opinion about this in the twittersphere, but my gut tells me that the answer is "No."
The most interesting people I follow are people who show you all sides of their personality. Like David Gregory tweeting as he passes the White House to see if anyone's free for lunch (pretty sure he was serious), or @careerdiva writer/reporter Eve Tahmincioglou tweeting about career issues, but then taking the NY Times' food guru to task (in verse, no less) for daring to suggest that meat be deleted from lunch. Listen to your mother and just be yourself! There are millions of people on twitter - there have got to be some out there with like-minded interests who will want to hear what you have to say, and comment on it.

10. Twitter is not for everyone. Just like not everyone should be a parent, not everyone should be a tweeter. Give it 30 days. If you're starting to "get it" at the end of the 30 days, and are starting to have fun, keep going. If not, it may just not be your thing. I'm sticking with it because I'm learning new things from really interesting people. And I love to write, albeit usually in much longer form. But it's a great exercise to write succinctly. It forces you to get to the point. I remember early on in my career that an editor told me it was much more difficult to write a short piece than a long one. Right before he ripped my copy to shreds. But I learned from him, and then from my editors at UPI, where there was a deadline every minute, and Don was glaring at me from across the terminal wondering when I was going to have that bulletin ready for him to send to the national desk. Average length of a bulletin (the first lead for a big national story that went out to all of our subscribers electronically, kind of like the Internet) - about 140 characters.