Are you REALLY on Twitter?

I will preface this post with two things:

1. I am not a social media expert

2. I have only been using Twitter regularly since December of this year.  Some of you might remember my first post – Are you on Twitter? Since then, I have steadily increased the number of people I follow and the number of people who follow me. And I have started to notice a few things.

Here is a handy list to help you with a few Twitter niceties:

When someone follows me, I take a look at their profile before I choose to follow them. Some do say that it’s common courtesy to follow everyone who follows you, but I have a different opinion.  Here are the pros and cons:

I will not follow you if the following is on your profile or tweet stream:

• less than 100 tweets (unless I can see that you are brand-new) – not on Twitter if you’re not tweeting regularly
• An automated reply when I follow you makes me suspicious immediately.  “Thanks for the follow” really doesn’t mean anything, since you likely have NO IDEA what I tweet about and if it’s going to add value to your Twitter feed.  And if you’re being followed by a sp*mmer, do you really want to thank them?
• tweets with language or topics that I wouldn’t be comfortable letting most children read
• all of your tweets are quotes (unless that is what you do @quotesnack)
• there is no indication that you have ever replied to someone using @
• all of your tweets are RT (RT other people’s stuff with no original thoughts)
• No picture or logo is not usually good, unless you have a website link, i.e. to your blog
• You are obviously selling something every other tweet
• Your tweets are protected! This makes no sense, twitter is supposed to be an open forum – where you do meet strangers! If you are worried about s*pam, then use an app to verify the person.
• Unless you are a celebrity like @Nasa_Astronauts, you should be following more than 10 people to be really involved in Twitter.  It’s not just about who is following you – it’s about the conversations you create!

I will happily follow you and start a conversation with you when

• You have a great photo and are smiling!
• You have more than 100 tweets and are engaging in conversations
• You have a link to a website that is interesting (or at least inoffensive!)
• You are connecting with some of the people I follow on Twitter, which makes the conversation more fun
• You are tweeting about a topic of interest for me
• You are a celebrity that I value and would like to learn from @_robin_sharma, @Randy_Gage

Finally, here are a few tips to get the most of out of Twitter and to know if you’re REALLY a part of it:

• You do make virtual (and sometimes in person) friends on Twitter. If you’ve got a few people whom you know by their handle, such as @paminottawa who’s post inspired me to get moving on this post or you’ve had a tweet-up with some folks, like @ohsheglows who organized one last weekend.
• You’ve reached over 100 follows and are following around that many.  It starts to get interesting at the point.  I found that with over 100 people to follow, it can be a challenge to see some of the stuff you really want to, so I created a list called favs and add my favorites to this list, so I can click on it and just look at their tweets.
• You think of things you’d like to tweet when you’re out and about (if you’re not mobile yet – my phone doesn’t really have that functionality) or people you’d like to share an experience with.
• You miss it when you’re not on it! You enjoy the conversation, and eavesdropping on other people’s conversations and of course, finding out the latest news.  I found out about the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, Alexander McQueen, Brittany Murphy and Corey Haim’s death on Twitter first.
• You regularly tweet and retweet- about life, replying to others, making friends, having conversations, clicking on other people’s blog posts and their links to articles (and pass it on with RT)

So, the question of the day is – are you REALLY on Twitter?

Cheers everyone!