10 Steps To Untwangling Twitter To Make It Useful

Are you using Twitter effectively? Twitter can be a very useful tool for marketing your site, establishing a brand and making valuable online connections. However, it takes a combination of the right tools and strategy to make Twitter useful.

Now is the time to get started with Twitter

Is Twitter worth the time for businesses, bloggers and entrepreneurs? I’ve been experimenting with Twitter over the last couple of months and I definitely see value. In fact, I’m going to focus a lot of time on Twitter this year to reach more people with my message on super-charged living.

The key is to get organized, have a plan and be intentional in the way you use Twitter.

Twitter is still a toddler so now is the perfect time to get established. A lot of the big boys in the online and blogging world are investing time in Twitter. For instance, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger recently started TwiTip which is dedicated to sharing useful tips on Twitter. Also, Corporate America is finding useful ways to connect with their customers using Twitter.

All this attention is going to further fuel the fire under Twitter so, don’t be left out!

10 steps to make Twitter useful and enjoyable!

I created an account at Twitter.com several months ago, but failed to see how to get any value out of it and quickly gave up. I came back to it recently and I believe I’ve found a good combination of tools and techniques that have helped me get going in earnest.

The steps below assume you already have an account on Twitter, but if not we’ll call that Step 0. Get signed up and then proceed with these 10 steps.

1. Download and install TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a software client for Twitter. It allows you to tweet (send messages on Twitter) and read the tweets of those you are following. The real power of TweetDeck is that it groups, filters and searches incoming tweets. Without this capability, the volume and speed at which messages come at you on Twitter will quickly overwhelm you.

I recommend watching the video at Video Post: How To Use TweetDeck to learn to get the most out of this powerful tool.

2. Learn proper Twitter etiquette (important!)

As with most social media sites, you should learn something about the unwritten rules of Twitter use before you start clunking around like a bull in a china shop. Otherwise, you can shoot yourself down before you ever really get started. Here are a few articles that I recommend that you read before becoming too active on Twitter:

• 10 Twitter Commandments
• 26 Keys to Twitter Success
• My Top 10 Twitter Facts

You can decide which of these “rules” to abide by for yourself. Bending a few of them from time-to-time probably isn’t going to kill you, but complete disregard for them will certainly make the value of Twitter for you evaporate rapidly.

3. Get a custom Twitter background

I recommend this because you want your presence on Twitter to be consistent with your overall brand. If you do not know how to do this or don’t want to spend the time on it (I didn’t), then I recommend visiting LogosForWebsites.com. Peter will make you a custom background to your specifications for only $25! It is well worth the small investment.

4. Find people to follow

Fortunately, it is very easy to find good people to follow to start building your community on Twitter. For starters, you can follow me! Once you’ve done this, try these things:

• Visit sites in your RSS reader and follow those that indicate they are on Twitter.
• Once you find a few people to follow, then look at their list of followers and selectively choose others to follow. (See caution below!)
• Visit Twellow.com. On Twellow, you can search for people to follow by name or by category. As of this writing, Twellow has over 780,000 tweeple in their directory!
• Visit Mr. Tweet. On this site you just click the button to follow Mr. Tweet. Once you’ve done this, then they will start monitoring your tweets. You will receive a direct message via Twitter with a link. Click the link to find quality people to follow. Mr. Tweet will update you with more suggestions bi-weekly.

Caution: Do not indiscriminately start following tons of people. Real people that truly want value out of Twitter will look at the ratio of people that you are following compared to your number of followers. You want to keep this ratio pretty close to one-for-one.

5. Make it easy for others to follow you on Twitter

Update your site inviting others to follow you on Twitter. You will notice that I have included reference to my Twitter profile on my contact page, in my sidebar and in the header for each post. Originally, I also created a specific post announcing that I had signed up for Twitter.

I also added an easy link at the bottom of each post asking my readers to tweet about my post if they enjoyed reading it. This will draw others to your site and to following you. You can find free Twitter graphics to use simply by doing a search on Google.

6. Tweet and retweet!

Micro-blogging on Twitter is just a succinct way of communicating things that interest you and that you think will interest others. What you tweet about is going to reflect your personal style and intent for using Twitter. Here are some tips to consider:

• If you are a blogger, then you might want to sign-up for TwitterFeed to automatically send a tweet on your behalf every time you post something new.
• Retweeting the tweets of others is a great way to get noticed and garnish the respect of others on Twitter. Remember, we are all trying to spread our message!
• Be conversational! Take advantage of the group feature in TweetDeck. I set up a group called Friends that I add followers to that I know, have common interests with or just show a propensity to chat. This highlights their tweets and gives me a chance to respond.

7. Sign-up for TweetLater

TweetLater is a valuable free online service that I find indispensable. It offers several services. There are three that I find very valuable. The ability to schedule tweets to be publish at specified time, automated thank you notes for new followers, and keyword alerts.

I regularly use TweetLater to schedule tweets in the evenings. This is time that I spend with my family, but I still want to reach my followers during this time. So, during the day, I schedule tweets to be released about once an hour throughout the evening. Don’t go crazy with this or you’ll get deemed a spammer. Scheduling tweets for about once an hour is probably safe.

The keyword alert feature is nice if you are researching a particular topic. It monitors the tweet stream and will then send you a digest e-mail once a day with any tweets containing the keyword you provided. This way you won’t miss any valuable information!

8. Cleaning up a Twitter mess

You may have already created a mess on Twitter by following a ton of people that are not following you back and that send you a bunch of spam tweets all the time. Good news! There are some tools available to help you untwangle this mess! Here are some that might help:

• Twitter Twerp Scan – This handy site will scan all your followers and show you the ones with certain characteristics that might indicate that they are spammers or people to unfollow.
• Friend or Follow – Friend or Follow will show you who you are following that isn’t following you back. Again, this might help you separate some of the wheat from the chaff.
• Karma – Karma is another tool that will show you who you follow that isn’t following you back. However, it claims to let you bulk unfollow or bulk block selected followers. I’ve had mixed results getting Karma to work, but you might give it a try. Be careful! This is the nuclear option. However, it can help you clean up a mess quickly.

9. Monitor your qwitters!

Qwitter is another free online service that will send you an e-mail anytime a follower stops following you. It will also let you know the last tweet you sent just prior to the unfollow.

This can be useful information in two ways. It might be an indication that certain types of tweets aren’t working for you and it gives you a chance to reach out to the qwitter to try to mend the relationship.

10. Watch your following grow!

After you’ve completed these steps, it is likely that you are going to have a growing list of followers. Stay consistent with this strategy and Twitter will build your brand, generate traffic for your site and become a valuable resource of information.

Here are some resources to help you celebrate your success with Twitter:

• Check out Twitter Grader. It will calculate a score and tell you how you rank compared to everyone else.
• Twitter Counter will show you a graph of the growth of your following. It also offers a free badge that you can display on your site to show off how many people are following you on Twitter.
• Tweet Stats will show you a lot of statistics about your tweeting habits. If you like numbers and graphs, then check out this site!

These 10 steps will untwangle Twitter for you!

I have used these steps myself so I know they work. What are you waiting for? Twitter is ripe with opportunity. I urge you to get started today to avoid missing out on such an exciting opportunity. These steps will help you untwangle Twitter and make it super-charged!

Here are a few more Twitter resources that you might find valuable:

• How to Use Twitter as a Twool – For you visual people (like me) here is a visual version.
• Twitter Survivial Guide – This is an eBook that costs $24.95, but if you need a crash course, then the cost would be worth it.
• Twitt(url)y – Will show you what others are linking to in their tweets. This will give you an idea of what’s hot on Twitter.

What other cool resources should be added to this guide?

Photo by *davierae*