There are so many people giving advice and training about social networking it is really hard to decide who is right.
I have found myself reading a lot of articles, blogs and tweets about what everyone should be doing and have tried quite a lot but found that it is really simple.
1.
Quality vs Quantity.
This is something that people just are not getting.
I get tweets and DM's every day saying that if I buy a service I can increase my followers by hundreds in days.
If you want to be able to tell people that you have 10,000 followers, then fine.
But how many of those people do you really know or get to know? More importantly how many of them know you.
Connecting with people should not be about numbers.
What is important is finding people who you have something in common.
With twitter instead of having 1000 followers who do not know anything about you, would it not be better if you had 100 who all have the same hobby and you talk with about that hobby, then when you mention your business they are willing to listen because you are someone they know on a personal level and have built a relationship with.
2.
Everyday meet someone new.
If you read a tweet, blog or article that is interesting then you might want to find out about the person behind it.
Click on the username you can then read their previous tweets and profile.
By replying to them you may open a dialog.
If they do not respond right away, don't always assume they are ignoring you, this can mean that they are offline but if they check when their username is mentioned they may respond later.
I have had conversations that have lasted days but only consisted of a dozen tweets because of time zones and not being online at the same time.
3.
If someone does not have a profile I do not follow them.
There are different reasons people sign up to twitter.
Some only want to connect with people they know.
This is my theory for the blank profile.
They don't need one because they only want to connect with people who know them already.
People with profiles would like to meet other people.
4.
Be careful what you tweet.
If you would not say it to someone's face, why tweet it? If you are tweeting for business then you have to be doubly careful because your business reputation can be damaged.
You need to make sure everything you tweet enhances credibility.
If you have gone out with your friends after work and are drunk, best not go online and tweet.
The alternative, which a lot of people are doing, is creating multiple accounts.
They have a business account and a personal one where you use a nickname and only follow friends but no one you do business with.
5.
Everyone is not online all the time.
If you are tweeting for business you need to repeat some tweets at different times in order to reach more people.
Do this with a few tweets, not all twitter is about fresh information, if I find a good article I might tweet about it twice at different times but if I am advertising a new course then I will tweet about it 3-4 times a day every day.
This said I have been told by a few people that they have never seen my tweets on a particular course.
Talking to people about what they see from you will help you gage how often to repeat tweets.
Scheduling tweets makes this easier, using a twitter program that has this capability, like Hootsuite and Socialoomph you can schedule tweets for the times you know you are not online.
If people are working all day, then odds are they are not going to spend a lot of time during the day looking at twitter, so tweets during the day reach a different set of people then tweets at night.
Time zones are another thing to consider.
If you are tweeting early morning or late at night you will notice that people in other countries are online and you can expand your group globally.
If you are tweeting with business news, a new product or service, or an offer then use twitter software that you can schedule the same tweet to go out say 3 times throughout the entire day.
You don't want to send the same thing out too often otherwise people get bored and stop reading anything from you.
6.
Don't tweet too much.
If you are constantly online and always active and online people start wondering how you can do it.
I know people who have unfollowed people because their timelines are mostly one person and they get fed up seeing only the one person because it overwhelms all other tweets.
Their complaint is that twitter has become a dialogue for one person.
If you are just starting using twitter, start by following people you know well, then people you know and a celebrity or two.
Take a few minutes each day (like 10 minutes at a time) to read a few tweets and if something is interesting retweet or reply.
When you are comfortable search for more people based on location, or keywords.
To search for people in a location I use Twellow, and I will use the search within twitter to look up all tweets with a certain word in them and if I find one that is interesting will click on the username, read the profile and follow them.
Connect with people who have the same interests.
As you become comfortable connect with more people.