5 Twitter Tips for Dummies…Who Don’t Think They Are Dummies
This isn’t the boring, generic advice you receive in the done-to-death ‘Twitter Basics’ and ‘Idiots Guide to Twitter’ lists. I’m not talking about changing your profile photo from the egg avatar, or minimising spelling mistakes, or even ‘treating others as you wish to be treated yourself’. This is advice for people who have been on Twitter for a while, think they’re pretty damn savvy, yet continue to make rookie mistakes.
1. Your Bio is INCREDIBLY important!
Don’t even have a Bio? You’re past being offered help. But if you have realised it’s important to have one, and use it horrendously, then listen in. In order to become someone other Tweeters respect and want to follow, keep it clean, informative and to the point. Don’t try and be overly quirky, it almost always falls flat on its face. I’ve seen too many that say things like ‘I’m awesome. Follow me!’…I never follow them.
Just add a little about yourself, give a quick insight into how you’re going to tweet, and maybe a splash of personality.
2. I wasn’t aware you and Ashton Kutcher were friends?!
You’re not? Oh…then why the heck are you tweeting him asking for a ‘RT coz it’s your friend’s birthday and she would totally love it!’? It’s embarrassing, and if you are hoping for any kind of recognition on Twitter, please refrain from this kind of childish behaviour towards celebrity accounts. Surely you know that when you do it, everyone else is laughing about it behind your back, “Did you see what ……… tweeted [insert celebrity]? As if he’s going to get a reply! Embarrassing eh?”. Yes…yes it is.
3. Please, for the love of God, don’t separate words in a hashtag!
This is something which is really getting to me at the moment. I noticed a lot of people attempting to hashtag the Super Bowl and failing miserably. If you want to hashtag something which contains two words, don’t put a space in between them! All of those people tweeting #Super Bowl are actually just promoting #Super…useless.
4. Let people know why you’re #FFs are worth following on Friday!
I’m a big fan of ‘Follow Friday’ or #FF as it’s otherwise known, but people are making it hard for me to take them up on their recommendations. Don’t just compile a long list of people you think deserve to be followed, explain WHY they deserve more followers. It’s too much hard work going through your list of #FFs, clicking on each one to see if I will enjoy reading their tweets – so I don’t.
5. Create ‘Lists’…go on, do yourself a favour!
This is more about helping yourself than taking care of how you come across to others, but listing the people you follow is invaluable and will go a long way to ensuring you find the content you’re looking for on Twitter. Did you want to find out what was happening during the #SuperBowl (see what I did there?)? Just flick through your list of ‘Sports Tweeters’.
Wondering where to find some more information on the new Facebook changes (there will inevitably be some), then have a gander at your ‘SocMed People’ list. It takes a bit of time to compile them, I’ll give you that, but it’s definitely worth the hassle.
