So if you’re new to Twitter and you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by it all. It can be easy to give up after a few days, but you shouldn’t. It’s a brilliant tool for business and customer service in particular. Here’s a very quick blog post with 5 simple tasks you can do every day to make your life easier on Twitter.
Use the lists
So many people still don’t use this feature. Add your favourite tweeters to lists to easily see a conversation about one subject. removing all the noise will help you feel like you’re not wasting your time.
Listen
Search a few keywords in your industry, or your business name, on a daily basis. Listen to what people are talking about and what’s current. Chime in with your views and make them valuable.
Compliment
Retweeting is a great way of showing you are reading other tweets, but why not take it once step further and really take the time to pay attention to who follows you. Those that have a website that impress you, or services that seem very professional. Tell your followers and theirs, by mentioning them.
Manage Spam
It’s virtually impossible to avoid spam on twitter. You are followed by a newbie who you think is genuinely interested in what you or your business has to say and you follow back only to find out they are intent in spamming you. Well don’t just ignore it, block them and report them to Twitter.
Thank People
If someone takes the time to follow you, retweet you, mention or compliment you, thank them. You wouldn’t ignore them in person if they did would you?
If you can do those five simple things every day, you will grow your Twitter community at a decent pace. It’s really not complicated, it’s simply about being sociable.
Interesting piece, and some solid advice. Pleased you highlighted the importance of not only ignoring spammers, but also reporting them to Twitter. It’s great to contribute back to the improvement of the overall service.
I’d probably consider lists a lower priority, at least in the early days of usage. Lists are great for focusing on different topics or demographics of people you’re following. When you’re just starting out, though, you might not be following enough people to really make such curation worthwhile.
Couple of other pieces of advice I’d add;
* Follow people slowly. It can be very easy to follow a lot of people very quickly, and end up with a disorganized list that it can be difficult to restructure. I try to keep a roughly 1:1 proportion of follows to followers, but really it’s about trying to make sure that the people you follow are really worth following.
* Engage with great people outside of Twitter. As well as retweeting content or giving compliments within Twitter, look at other ways to engage. If you’re following someone who has a blog, go and comment there, and contribute that way. It becomes a virtuous circle, too; if you’re sharing their content then you’re also sharing your own link with them.
Thanks for your comment Robin, much appreciated.
You make some good points. Too often it’s a case of quantity over quality – your tip about sharing outside of Twitter is very relevant also. If you’re interested in guesting at Social Colleague any time, do let me know.