(Follow me on Twitter @successprof)

A few months back I posted an article sharing Ten Easy Steps to Get Started With Twitter. Since then Twitter has experienced substantial growth.  On the flip side, it has also experienced a very low retention rate as 60% of Twitter users don’t return the next month. I believe to most newcomers Twitter feels like massive and messy conversation. They don’t know how to make sense of that mess.  Thankfully a few simple steps can significantly improve your Twitter experience.

Knowing who to follow:

1. Follow people you can learn from

One of the great benefits of Twitter as that many authors, bloggers, and experts from various fields are willing to share what they are thinking about, reading, and interested in.  This allows you to add some extra mentors to your life.  Think about your life goals, and follow people who are experts in that area.

2. Follow people just for fun

Who you follow should not be just based on what is productive for you and your goals.  Follow some people just for fun.  For some of you this might mean following Oprah or your favorite American Idol contestant.  I follow some television personality and athletes.  It’s fun to see what @lancearmstrong will say about the race he just finished.

3. Follow people you would like to get to know

Twitter is a social media.  That means you can look to join conversations.  Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) has described twitter as a party where you need to work the room.  Imagine walking around and joining conversations that interest you.  You can use services such as Twitter Search and Twellow to find people to connect with.  Once you follow them be intentional about building relationships.

4. Follow people who follow you

While there certainly are people who don’t do this, it is very common for people to follow everyone who follows them.  Using services such as Tweetlater this process can become automated.  Doing this gives you more potential for building relationships and finding interesting new people to follow.  Chances are that if they are choosing to follow you, they have some area where your interests connect.

5. Set up groups in TweetDeck to follow these easily

Following a lot of people may seem overwhelming.  Thankfully programs like TweetDeck allow you to track the people you are following easily by placing them into groups.  You can set up multiple groups which will allow you to easily see people that you place in different category.  You may want to have a category for “mentors”, one called “just for fun”, and another called “getting to know”.  Place the people you are following into the appropriate group and you will be easily able to filter through many tweets.

Learn about what and when to tweet:

6. Don’t spend all your time promoting yourself or your business

As you gain followers, you want to look for ways to build relationships, build credibility, and make it so that others are looking forward to your tweets.  One of the surest ways to turn people off is if you are constantly promoting yourself or your business.  Look for ways to contribute to others, not pushing them towards your product over and over again.

7. Retweet valuable material

As you come across valuable tweets from others, be sure to pass these on to people that are following you by Retweeting the information.  Not only will this information be valuable for your followers, the more you retweet others, the more likely people will retweet what you write, helping you spread your message. Social Media expert @Chrisbrogan recommends 15 RTs for every attempt of your own.

8. Share valuable websites (use tool)

When you come across valuable websites, be sure to pass them on to your followers. This process is made simple by using a simple tool called Tbuzz, which allows you to share websites through Twitter with one click.

9. Share fun personal details

Make sure that as you share valuable information and websites, that you also include fun things about yourself.  This gives people glimpses into who you are.  These can be simple things about something fun you are doing, to questions looking for advice.  Give people and idea about who you are and it will serve to deepen the relationships you are building.

10. Tweet periodically throughout the day – not all at once

One thing that is sure to cause people to unfollow you is if you send a bunch of tweets right after another.  This is likely to overwhelm some people and offend others. Instead from time to time throughout the day share a tweet.  Even if it’s just a few times a day, well spaced out tweets that share value with your followers will go a long way to building your credibility and eventually increasing the number of followers you have.

BONUS

11. Don’t get lost in Twitter time

You don’t need to spend all day on Twitter.  Remember that twitter is a tool.  It’s a tool for communicating with others, learning from others, and building relationships.  Don’t let it control you.  Three or four minutes a few times a day is all you need to make a contribution and build relationships on Twitter.

Written by The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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Twitter is everywhere.  More and more people around the world are joining Twitter and finding it useful for connecting with friends, growing their business network and for learning.  I joined Twitter just over a week ago and I have already found it to be a useful tool.  I have connected with old friends that I hadn’t talked to in a long time, built some great new relationships, expanded my business reach, and discovered great articles and websites that my friends have shared with me.  You too can benefit from Twitter.

What is Twitter?

In its basic form Twitter is a unique social network that allows people to connect with very brief messages called “tweets”.  Each tweet can be no longer than 140 characters.  You can send a tweet to all of your “followers”, who are people who have selected to get your tweets.  Early on you’ll start with just a few followers, but that will grow to hundreds and even thousands of people as you build your network.  You can also send tweets directly to individuals within your network (kind of like a private email), or as replies to other people, both in public and in private.

Setting up with twitter is easy.  In fact you can do it in these 10 easy steps.

1. Register

Obviously the first step is to register with Twitter.  Simply visit http://www.twitter.com and click the “Get Started – Join” button.  Think for a minute before you register about what name you want to go by.  Do you want to use your real name?  Do you have a blog name that you want to go by?  For example, I go by successprof.   I could have gone by my real name, but I chose my blog name because that is the brand I want to build. One of my goals for being on twitter is building relationships around my brand.

2. Create a Bio

Take some time to fill out all the information in your settings area.  This will be your bio info.  As part of this section you will be given the option to protect your updates.  If you are looking to build your network, DO NOT check this box.  Selecting this will limit who will see your updates.

3. Upload a Photo

Make sure you upload your photo right away.  This will make you seem more real and add personality to your tweets.  Most of the time only a small image will be shown so make sure that your photo is primarily a head shot.  Also be sure your photo looks professional so as to attract the type of people you would like to meet.

4. Find an Add-on for Firefox

If you are using Firefox as your web browser (and I recommend you do!) then getting a Firefox add-on for Twitter will be useful.  There are many Twitter add-ons.  Generally they allow you to get Twitter updates to show up directly within your browser and allow you to update your Twitter feed easily and smoothly.  You can browse through the add-ons here.

5. Get Tweet Deck

The best way to use Twitter is to have Tweet Deck.  Tweet Deck is a software program that allows you to follow Twitter updates easily and quickly. It categorizes them in to replies, direct messages, and all tweets.  It notifies you when new tweets come in and makes them all simple to follow.  You will likely want to turn off the notifications so you can focus more on your work, but when you have time to review the twitter updates this program will save you lots of time.

6. Add a personalized background.

While those with programming experience or lots of time can develop very amazing backgrounds for their Twitter profile, it is also very easy to add a simple personalized background in just a few minutes.  Visit http://www.twitbacks.com/ and you can personalize your background in just a couple of minutes.

7. Start meeting people in areas of interest

Now it’s time to start meeting people.  You do this by “following” people of interest.  Initially look for people who have similar interests to you and to your business.  A good place to start is with Twitter’s Search function. There are a number of Twitter directories you can use to help find people of interest.   Another good place to start is by following bloggers whose blogs you read.  You can follow me here: @successprof.  A good place to start is with Twittip’s 10 Must-Follow People. Once your base of followers grows you can a service called Mr. Tweet to recommend other like-minded people for you to follow.

8. Expand your network

Once you are following a number of people of interest you can find more people of interest by going through the followers lists of some of the people you follow.  For example if you are interested in fitness and are following a top fitness blogger, you will find that the other people following her are also interested in fitness. Now you can go through her followers list looking for interesting people to follow.  A further benefit of following a lot of people is that many of them will also follow you, increasing the number of people who will read you tweets.

9. Contribute something of value.

If you want to grow your network and build relationships through twitter you need to know why people would want to follow you.  Ask yourself, what value can I add through my tweets?  This will be different for everyone.  I look to add value by sharing the personal development activities that I do, sharing interesting web sites that I come across, and giving updates about my blog posts.  The more valuable your tweets, the more followers you will have.

10. Reply to interesting tweets of others.

Finally, get involved in the conversation by replying to interesting tweets of others.  Look for ways to ask questions or answer questions that others have.  This will help you get to know other people and build relationships within your network.

Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Guy Kawasaki has a great guest post from Jesse Stay, co-author of “I’m on Facebook–Now What???: How to Get Personal, Business, and Professional Value from Facebook”.

I’m a big fan of Facebook and this article shares some great tips:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/04/ten-things-you.html

You can find me on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=826085649

Danny