Twitter tips for dummies: what I should have known when I started

Three weeks ago, my Twitter account was almost abandoned.

He existed in splendid isolation for several years as a distraction from work, when the latter allowed me to find time to post tweets. And so, three weeks ago that day came, and I rushed into the pool with my head, applying all the knowledge about Twitter that was in my arsenal. And even despite the fact that I took a good run at the start, I still had a lot to learn.
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Knowledge rarely replaces experience. So while I somehow experimented and chemically tried in every possible way, trying to figure out Twitter during my first few weeks of communication with the service, I noticed that many things can be learned only in practice. In this article I will talk about the most important of them. So meet: useful tips on Twitter for dummies.

1. You do not have to read every tweet.

If you have 100 followers, they post about 2,200 tweets every day.
500 followers = 10 thousand tweets daily.
1000 followers = 22 thousand tweets daily.



In other words, since the average length of tweets is 30 characters, a person with 1000 followers will see so much content during the day that it could be four times the size of George Orwell's Animal Farm *.

You do not have to read every tweet. Instead of this…

2. Add your favorite users to a separate list.

Fortunately, I discovered lists.

For me, the main advantage of the lists is that I see the most important and original content from selected user groups. There is no sponsored content. In fact, we are dealing with a minimalist version of Twitter.

My interests are very diverse, so I create different lists. I have a list for digital marketing, for the New England Patriots and many other lists. This is a good alternative to combing the entire tape.

3. Always answer everyone and everything.

When people retweet your tweets, mention you in their posts, or add your entries to your favorites, they look for connections with you. To some extent it can even be called honorable. Someone rated your profile so high that they wanted to contact you - this is a kind of honor.
One of the most popular brands on Twitter - the @notebook account - pays great attention to the responses of users.

“Regardless of whether you are managing an international brand like Nike or a local grocery store, it’s very important to thank every subscriber who asks a question, gives you a compliment or addresses a problem. Some will answer you, while others will retweet your answer, because they would like to show their friends that you are communicating with them. ”

4. Use a scheduler application like Buffer.

Here we can get help from tools for working with social networks. With the help of Buffer, I can choose good content that I want to share (including retweets), and add it to the queue, thanks to which you can divide the content into portions for publication throughout the day at the most appropriate time. I can control this process as I wish, and later I can follow the statistics on which of the tweets were the most popular.

5. Properly submit information about yourself.

By default, I always want to write something original about myself. I like Twitter user pages that make you laugh. But what seems witty to me may not be so for someone else. So instead of a ridiculous biography, I had to write something more informative, leaving aside my creative ego.

6. Communicate directly with others.

“When you find a common language with other people and begin to communicate with them, you will immediately get friends on Twitter, and this will make your experience with the service even more enjoyable.”

The best method for me in this regard is to write my own tweets. Every time I give a link to a new content or share any information received from someone else, I mention the author (using the standard @ symbol) or the originator, or "HT" (or the hat tip, which in this context can be translate as a gratitude "for the tip" to another user - a comment of the translator). In other words, I pay tribute where it is needed. Very often people appreciate it.



It turns out that I did not know the first rule for writing tweets: if you want everyone to see your tweet, do not start it with the @ symbol.
Twitter regards such tweets (and in most cases this is true) as private, addressed to a specific user. Only the user who posted the tweet, the recipient, as well as followers of both accounts will be able to see similar posts in their feeds.

This information greatly influenced my behavior. I was nervous about posting tweets with @ -spends to other users, since I didn’t want to fill my followers' tapes with tweets that might not be interesting for them. Knowing that such tweets are off the main stream, I felt much more comfortable.

7. Post the same thing is not shameful.

Belle Beth Cooper (Belle Beth Cooper) wrote an excellent article, debunking all the myths about the repost of the same content. She gives three main reasons why it is worth doing it:

1. Getting more traffic
2. Covering multiple time zones
3. Access to new followers

Knowing that there is nothing wrong with republishing the same content removes the stress when selecting content for posts. If I found a cool link, then I should not worry that I have already tweeted it. Reposting can also be a great thing!

8. Forget about the ratio of Following / Followers and just subscribe to standing accounts.

Whatever the ideal ratio, for myself, I discovered that chasing him does not bring any benefit at the very beginning of the life of the account.
I joined Twitter to find new people, which I did.

My stumbling block was that I was not bothered by the ratio of Following / Followers in the accounts of top Twitter users. Part of me wanted me to have the same steep correlation, suggesting that I have a many-thousand army of subscribers, while I myself am a subscriber of only a handful of accounts. For someone who just joined Twitter, it was rather selfish.

The perfect ratio can wait. In the meantime, I made it a rule to become a subscriber to those who subscribed to receive updates to my account.

Selectivity can negatively affect your growth. According to KissMetrics, the fastest way to get subscribers is to become a subscriber of as many accounts as possible.

This method adds an individual approach regardless of your popularity on Twitter. It shows that you noticed the emergence of a new follower and took the time to become his follower.

The truth is that the best ratio of Following / Followers does exist, hidden in the secret depths of Twitter algorithms. When you become a subscriber to 2000 accounts, you will not be able to continue subscribing to new ones if your ratio does not meet certain requirements. I am still far from the number in 2000, but when I approach this number, tools such as Followerwonk will be super-useful.

Finally, the best advice I've ever heard on Twitter.

"Do not write about yourself, write about them."

And what advice would you like to receive at the very beginning of your communication with the service?

* Official mathematics: 22,000 tweets of 30 characters each = 660,000 characters daily. Given an average of 5 letters per word, 660,000 letters is 132,000 words. "Animal Farm" has about 30,000 words.