11 Ways to Make Tweeting More Fun
Ever started working on a project enthusiastically and somewhere mid-way you noticed that it started to feel more and more like work and less and less like fun? Twitter can sometimes feel exactly the same way. Whether you tweet for your company, to promote a project or just for fun; Twitter is a network, which is great to generate immediate response and receive feedback on whatever it is you’re doing. But building your Twitter follower base will require you to keep working at it constantly. To ensure that the fun doesn’t get lost somewhere along the way, here are eleven tips from a passionate Twitter user:
1. Don’t overdo it
That’s maybe the most important piece of advice I can give you straight away. I’ve heard this many times before and it’s happened to me too with two Twitter accounts I used before this one. At the beginning many people will try to read everything that’s said on the stream of tweets that appears in their accounts. They also try to tweet constantly, thinking that their followers might be disappointed if they don’t say anything. But in fact, no one is disappointed at all. They’re much more likely to thank you for not “blabbering” all the time. But seriously, don’t tweet unless you really feel like you have something to say and if that’s once a week, then so be it. Your followers will appreciate that you value quality over quantity and it’ll most definitely keep you from burning out.
2. Use a professional Twitter client
Using Twitter with it’s official UI is like watching TV on a black and white screen, where you have to stand up in order to switch the channel (ugh, I still remember having to do that). Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are two examples. They’ll help you organize the information that goes through your Twitter client and fetch the parts, that really interest you. Read more about all the other advantages in this post.
3. Communicate
Twitter is great to get direct feedback about anything you want to share. Whether it’s your new blog post or a thought that just popped in your head. Just go ahead and ask a question for example. The response you’ll get will be unexpected, I guarantee you, and you’ll immediately be able to engage into conversation about a topic that interests you. Try it out!
4. Take your Twitter page a step further
Did you know that you can customize the looks of your background and the rest of the layout too right under “Settings”? Use that feature to your advantage and personalize everything from your profile picture to the color of your links. Actually it’s done really quickly and it will give everyone a much better glimpse at the person behind the Twitter profile. Make it so you enjoy looking at it yourself. The positive side effect is that it’ll attract more followers too.
5. Don’t try to be funny
Trust me, in most cases people notice immediately when someone tries to be funny. The more desperate you are the more embarrassing/boring it gets to read. And it’s really not necessary. No one will unfollow you because you don’t fulfill a certain quota of funny/tweet. The response you get won’t be the one you expect and it will be frustrating over time. Let the jokes come naturally, when you really have something to laugh about.
6. Share useful information from time to time
If you see an interesting article somewhere on the Web be sure to share it with your Twitter followers from time to time. You’ll be surprised how thankful people can be for useful information and how it might encourage your followers to interact with you and to spread the information by retweeting.
7. Engage in events
There are on-line events right on the Twitter network (also called trends) and there are off-line events where you can meet up with fellow Tweeps in real life. A great example for an on-line event would be Follow Friday (check out the “Trending” box on the right sidebar of your home profile to see which hashtags/trends are popular currently; clicking on them will mostly suffice as explanation as how to participate in the trend).
On twitter.meetup.com you can search for meetups close by, where local Tweeps get together in real life!
8. Go mobile!
If you have a Smartphone like the iPhone you can take your Twitter account with you, wherever you go. Not only can you stay tuned on everything that’s being tweeted but you can tweet, reply, DM yourself from everywhere, just like from your home computer. Advanced Twitter apps even allow you to use and manage lists on the go and handle multiple accounts through one app!
9. Use lists
Lists are a great way to stay informed and interact with people on a certain topic and follow the stream of tweets of a selected amount of people without necessarily following them with your Twitter account. More about lists and how they are used. Basically it’s a great way to aggregate information otherwise spread on the Twitter network and share it with other people.
10. Follow the development of your account
Building up a Twitter account really isn’t fun unless you track your performance. Twitter Counter is a great tool for that. You can sign up for free and let it record your progress, so you can see a graph showing the development of your follower base in real time. Also the service will estimate how many followers you’re probably going to have in about 30 days.
11. Find interesting people to follow
You can invite people based on their popularity or the content they tweet about. Here are resources for both:
- The Top 100 Twitter accounts
- Twellow – A directory which helps finding Tweeps with common interests
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Girl Goes Tech (GGT) is about a 26-year-old, female tech-addict exploring her geeky side and writing about social media, mobile trends and applications.