I recently ran a course called “Twitter for business beginners”. In preparation, I put Twitter’s renowned collaborative powers to the test. So, I tweeted, “If you were teaching a course about Twitter basics, what would you say people MUST learn first?”
Here are some answers from some of the best Tweeters out there (including on of THE most influential in the social media industry). If you don’t yet follow these people, you should. They have clearly demonstrated a real understanding of how Twitter works and they display all the very best attributes of highly effective social networkers:
Q: If you were teaching a course about Twitter basics, what would you say people MUST learn first?
@equalman (aka Erik Qualman, left, creator of Socialnomics): Good question, beginners and experts to social media need to learn fail fast, fail forward, fail better.
@equalman: For Twitter beginners, per your question…add value…don’t just shout what you want people to hear…get interested in people
@edgoodman: Add networking hashtags to your tweets to help spread your message quickly and to the right audience e.g. #bizitalk
@fitz2kleen2: The ability to combine interaction with advertising, dont be too serious that you bore people! Dont be self centred.
@cj_brough: Treat it like a dinner party. Don’t talk all about yourself, be polite, & interesting.
@lovemydressblog: Engage with your followers! Or at least, engage with those who engage with you 🙂
@GiraffeBanners: to be themselves; be *social* and don’t fill your timeline with links and/RT’s
@ReallySimpleSeo: Try and make the tweets interesting and useful for the followers. That seems to work for us
@BargainBugs: how to abbreviate words in a manner that still allows others to understand your message… And know not to spam!!
@JuliaBramble: to know who you want to speak to, & most importantly, what they will be interested in. Not to think about you, but them!
@AngieAway: create interesting content. Don’t overuse hashtags. Be yourself.
@BigDai100: Good grammar
@rshahbaz: that social media is all about people not tools -:)
@BeautySwot: Think before you tweet!
@ChrisStoneSSF: “always tweet positive”#goldenrule (advised by a friend, evidenced thru experience)
@gedwardsprimary: As a customer rather than a business I’d say the rule is ‘little and often’. Nothing worse than infrequent deluges.
@Tarakin: Have a Photo, Even though it sounds redundant, not having a picture make you look like a spammer to the prospective followers.
Huge thanks to all the excellent Twits who helped me out on this. We salute you!