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Twitter Basics | Plus The Things They Never Tell You

twitter basics

For the beginners and those who have been using it for a while and really should know better.

Be human (the golden rule)—if you need reminding on what being a good human means then maybe stay away from Twitter and other social interactive platforms.

It’s not a marketing channel—it’s a potential market in a channel which thrives on being human (see above).

Complete your profile (with image plus non-cryptic description)—this helps to indicate you’re not a spammer and aids others in getting to know you.

Follow good people and your industry / sector heroes (no celebrities allowed)—the good ones share ideas, links, insights, challenges, offers to help, steerage, provocations etc. (copy from them).

Listen twice as much as you tweet—read, gleam, understand the value is in sharing good content (see above).

Unfollow people adding no value—tweets about cats, lunch and kids is what Facebook exists for.

It’s not Facebook—don’t tweet about your pets, food your consuming or any offsprings you have (if you do, know folks aren’t that interested).

Don’t follow back everyone who follows—see point above.

Retweets are like forwarding an email—it’s always better to add some context though.

Don’t retweet tweets which talk about you—it’s just the same as telling folks who like you, what other folks who like you, like about you. Stop it. It makes you look arrogant and childish.

Learn how to reply or reference others—so many users still don’t know about the power of a full stop (or period if you’re an American).

Be aware that automation devalues—even if it’s an attempt to celebrate how many retweets someone gave you that week, an automated tweet has the opposite effect.

Use lists and hashtags—a built in private or public system to break through the noise and get to the signal.

Be human—see first point.


Have been using Twitter for over seven years and still think it’s a fantastic platform to learn from whilst connecting with good souls. What did I miss from above?

Slightly cropped from rosauraochoa’s image
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