Is your Twitter working for you or against you?

Posted by Antonea Nabors on June 10, 2010

Why do you have a Twitter? Is it because Ashton Kutcher has one or because you are actually interested in taking advantage of it’s networking capabilities?

I wish I could tell you why I signed up for Twitter over a year ago, but to be honest the best answer I have was to see what all the hype was about. I didn’t “get” Twitter and that is because I wasn’t utilizing it properly.

Twitter is not a popularity contest. It is not about how many followers you have or how many people are following you. In fact, the more people you follow the more useful tweets you are missing out on due to a Twitter stream overload. Before you decide to follow someone back or follow someone new take the time to read a few of their tweets and ask yourself the following:

Are their tweets useful?
Are their tweets interesting?
Could their tweets help you in your personal and professional life?

Even though Twitter is not about how many followers you have, a healthy amount of followers is helpful. How do you get other interesting people besides your mom to follow you on Twitter?

Easy, ask the same three questions we asked about people who you should follow about yourself.

Are your tweets useful?
Are your tweets interesting?
Could your tweets help others in their personal and professional life?

Social networking is about…being social. So for a lack of wit:

BE SOCIAL.
Retweet others tweets that your find useful.
Start conversations to get others talking.
Try your best to answer any questions others may tweet you about.
Be friendly.
Give your tweets personality so people know you are more than just a computer.

Should you keep separate personal and professional Twitter accounts?

I give this idea a massive NO. Some would argue that some tweeters give some of their tweets TOO MUCH personality and think it could hurt their business. I believe if you can find the right balance between your personal and professional life, go for it. Many people enjoy seeing a companies personality reflected through their tweets.

You can and should judge a person by their tweets. Sweet tweets!

Ways to find interesting people to follow:

Mr. Tweet. Mr. Tweet takes your interests and the interests of people you follow to compile a new list of people you may be interested in following.
Find the twitters of blogs you frequent.
Have a look through the people who you currently follow followers.
Check out peoples twitters who you see being retweeted by the people you currently follow.