1. Engage, Interact, & Communicate

Twitter is not meant to be a one-way medium. The true value of social media is the “back and forth” communication between people, sharing of ideas, and helping others. Don’t just post a bunch of “one way tweets”, make sure to spend time each day reading and responding to other people’s tweets as well. I sometimes call it “mining for gold”. There is lots of great stuff you will find on Twitter and when you do find something great, make sure and retweet it!

 

2. Don’t SPAM or pitch stuff

This sounds simple but many people STILL do it! Twitter is about relationships and communication, not selling. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is a GREAT place to build a brand and sell lots of products, but that happens as a by-product of building relationships, communicating, and not using Twitter as your personal SPAM toilet.

 

3. Don’t judge a Twitterer by their number of followers

I know that some people see a Twitter user who only has a few followers and thinks that person may not be successful. Number of followers does not equate at all with level of success. There are people with tens of thousands of followers who are not successful and there are those with 3 followers that make millions of dollars. Obviously the reverse can also be true. The point is, don’t make the mistake of assuming that someone with only a few followers has no value because it’s just not true. By the way, I have a good friend who has been on Twitter for about a year now and he has less than 500 followers and what most people don’t know is that he runs a $34 MILLION dollar business.

 

4. Don’t send auto DM’s

This one’s going to be a little controversial but that is ok. Many people send auto direct messages when someone friends them up and it’s just not something that I recommend. As people’s DM’s grow by the hundreds, fake, automated, general DM’s have almost no value anyway so why waste anyone’s time? If you really want to knock someone’s socks off, send a real DM. Oh, and don’t fool yourself, people can always tell when a DM is real versus automated!

5. Have fun!

Share links, ideas, and conversation with others. Be genuinely interested in what’s going on with other people, CARE, and have fun!

Yesterday, I posted a “Twitter Strategy Chart” to my blog and I received dozens of emails asking me to expand on what I wrote and share my Twitter success tips with them. This post is my answer to those emails.

10 Twitter Success Tips

 

1. Be Genuine And Authentic - 

This means, all twitter posts should be from you personally. Don’t have employees tweet for you, don’t you dare have virtual assistants tweet for you, it must be from you 100% of the time.

2. Add Value -

When you post twitter tweets (say that five times fast, it’s fun!) try and add some value from time to time. For example, share a shortcut that you learned today, a great Wordpress plugin that other people might love, a recipe idea, words of encouragement, anything! Just make sure you try and add value.

3. Never SPAM -

Everyone hates spammers. Don’t ever SPAM your twitter followers because it’s a nasty thing to do and it doesn’t work anyway. If all you do is post affiliate links people will unfollow you and rightly so. Remember #2 above, add value.

4. Communicate! Use Twitter To Interact With Your Customers, Prospects, Friends, Etc -

Twitter is an excellent tool for communication. Ask questions, get feedback, help others, build relationships. Frequent communication is the name of the game.

5. Don’t Welcome Every New Follower Publicly -

This one will probably cause some backlash but I am going to say it anyway. Some twitter members send a public thank you to the twitosphere every time someone new follows them. I am here to tell you that not everyone needs to see that, if you want to send a thank you why not send a direct message? There are times when I have an entire screen of “thanks for the follow” tweets and it’s not something I recommend that you do.

6. Twitter Design -

Don’t have the standard basic/boring design. There are lots of cool twitter backgrounds out there now that you can use to make your twitter page look any way you want. Another good twitter design idea is to make sure that you list your website, blog, and other social media accounts on your main twitter page so people can easily find out more about you if they wish.

7. Understand The Twitter Community -

This is a big one. For people new to twitter, look around and visit many different twitter pages so you can understand how others use twitter and determine what makes sense to you versus what you don’t like. Understanding the twitter community and how people use twitter will help you get started on the right foot.

8. Don’t Be Shy -

Twitter is a communication tool and the only way to have some fun with it is to…you guessed it, communicate! Reach out to people you don’t know, ask questions, answer questions for others, DON”T BE SHY! Most people on twitter are friendly and if they aren’t then they aren’t worth talking to anyway. Start today but being proactive and talking to others that you don’t yet know, it’s fun! 

9. Use Twitter Search -

The twitter search tool (http://search.twitter.com/) is an excellent tool to find like minded people and find people who are interested in, and talking about things you like. For example, let’s say you love tennis. Go to the twitter search tool and type the word tennis in and you will find many people tweeting about tennis. BOOM, there you go, you just found a new group of friends you can start tweeting with. Join their conversation and get tweeting!

10. Have Fun! -

This is the most important step of all. Be yourself, be authentic, and have some fun. Don’t be afraid to be the real you and tweet about what you are doing in your daily life. Be interested in others and you will be interesting to them.  

You can follow me on twitter here: http://twitter.com/paulgram

I created a Twitter Strategy Chart that shows my simple strategy for how I use Twitter. (See the small snapshot above) I thought I would give this away to anyone who would like it. The chart is in PDF format and can be downloaded below. It can also be freely distributed.

twitter-strategy-chart