Don’t Get Confused By Twitter – Part Two

In some ways Twitter is like a popularity contest but unlike Facebook you have to earn your followers. As you may or may not be aware, on Facebook, if you request someone as a friend and they accept, or vice-versa, you will immediately follow each other’s profile. It isn’t quite the same on Twitter!

Deciding who to follow and building a following of your own are two different disciplines. Much of building your list of followers centres on who you are, what you tweet about and who follows you.

So who do you follow and how do you find people to follow?

The most obvious place to start is tracking down people you know. The likelihood is they will follow other people you know and because of an existing bond, they are likely to reciprocate. This is also a great place to start and shape your interests on Twitter and, as a result, find like-minded people to follow. These could also be bloggers you read regularly or sites you frequently visit.

Once you’ve found the people you already know, it’s time to look for some you don’t. One way to find people is to search for those who are tweeting about things you’re interested in. Try this with terms with and without hashtags (single-word phrases used to organize different topics, chats, and events on Twitter, and are preceded by hash mark “#”).

Directories such as wefollow can sometimes prove fruitful for finding new people to follow.

In addition to keeping an eye on your @messages, you can use the Saved Searches feature to easily track mentions of your product, brand, company, etc. From your Twitter home page, simply run a search, and then at the top of your results page, click “Save this search.” A link with your search term will appear on the right side of your page, and whenever you click it, you’ll get real-time results for that query.

It’s best not to follow anyone and everyone in a bid to increase your own followers. It’s better to find people you’re actually interested in following, and then hope they’ll also find you interesting enough to follow back.

How Do You Build Your Own List of Followers?

The key is to engage with the Twitter community and memes (trends, activities or sayings associated with Twitter. See Part Three for a more detailed description) are popular places to get noticed by like-minded people.

As mentioned in Part One of our guide, tweeting about quality content, making your material interactive and engaging for your followers is vital. Many Twexperts (Twitter experts) like Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, have offered plenty of nuggets to help you appeal to more followers. I particularly like his biography recommendation and competitions are a great way to engage with a large audience.

Twitter Don’ts!

So far we have been focused on what you should do, so in order to re-address the balance we have prepared a holy shrine of don’ts, which will steer you clear from spam-polluted waters.

• Don’t hashtagspam. If what you’re saying isn’t directly related to the hashtag, don’t include it.
• Don’t ignore those trying to have a conversation with you. Reply to people who take the time to converse with you whenever possible.
• Don’t update too often, like every other minute.
• Don’t send out loads of self-promotional messages.
• Don’t indiscriminately follow others in the hope of gaining more followers.
• Don’t post fifteen tweets in a row to tell a story that can’t be conveyed in one or two tweets. The point of Twitter is brevity. If you need more space, post it on a blog and link to it from Twitter.
• Don’t send promotional tweets directly to other users, or you’ll risk being tagged as a spammer.

Have we missed out anything, perhaps you know of other popular don’ts? Let us know in the comments below.

In Part Three we delve into the complex world of Twitter terminology such as memes and hashtags.