I must admit … I’m still very new to twitter and am still learning its terms. Furthermore, there is a 140-character message limit to what I can tweet. That sure forces you to get straight to the point!

The fastest way to learn is to read what’s already out there and follow a few influential people and observe what they do. These are what I’ve found out first-hand:

1. Before you begin creating a Twitter account, consider this: Are you tweeting as yourself or on behalf of your company? I’m doing for both – one under my name & the other my employer’s company name
2. If you are tweeting as yourself, get yourself a handle (username). Try to use the same photo as what you have in your other social media like LinkedIn as that can be part of your branding.
3. Import your contacts to find out who has a Twitter account already and follow them. Feel free to add me too @elainetantouri or from the link below this page
4. What do you tweet about? I went to a seminar once and the speaker suggested to tweet as if you are at a cocktail party. In other words, what will you talk about when you’re at a cocktail party? Well, almost anything that interests you or the people you are talking to. This of course would be different if you’re tweeting on behalf of your company. In that case, I usually put up information relating to the company & its products as well as the industry it is in.
5. From what I’ve noticed, photos & content gets re-tweeted most. Retweet (RT) is a way to re-share or give credit to someone else’s tweet. When you re-tweet, make sure you put your 2-cents worth instead of just hitting the re-tweet feature. This gives you the opportunity to comment on a tweet before you retweet it. How do you do it? Just click to expand the tweet, copy and paste its text, and then create a new tweet by clicking the compose icon in the top-right of your profile page. Be sure to include the letters “RT” (retweet) and the handle of the person who originally tweeted the information or picture. Your re-tweet now appears in your timeline, with your profile pic and your comment before the original tweet.
6. However, do note that you may have to use a “Modified Tweet “(MT), that is, a MT is placed before the retweeted text when you manually retweet a message with modifications. E.g. shortening an original Tweet as your own comment may be a little long to include the whole original tweet
7. Use #hashtags – which is a way to “group” a topic and is a discovery tool that allows others to find your tweets, based on topics. Add a couple of hashtags to your tweets and retweets. Don’t overdo it though
8. When is the best time for Twitter? Try off-peak times. Swim against the stream to make your posts stand out by trying off-peak times like weekends, when click-through rates tend to be highest. Consider the rhythm of the day for your audience. For instance, lunch times or before and after a meeting are when folks are likely to be taking a quick peek at Twitter, so try timing posts for the lunchtime period and for time just before or after the hour to knocking off work
9. You can also manage your tweets to be shared to your other social media accounts like LinkedIn and Facebook. Go into the settings of each account to set them up.

Have a go! Tweet away!

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