How I Use Twitter

I’m quite well known for my dislike of “Twitter Rules” posts. There was a period earlier this year when every post I read about Twitter seemed to suggest a set of rules to follow – a right way to Tweet, a wrong way to get more followers and so on.

My view of Twitter is simple – just let it be whatever people want it to be. If you want to just blast out links to your site, then do so. If you want to just tell everyone what you’re doing every minute of the day, that’s fine. If you want to send cheesy DM’s asking me if I want 16,000 followers in 90 days, go ahead. If I don’t like any or all of these things, I can simply press that little unfollow button, and so can you.

So this isn’t a Twitter Rules post. This is how I use Twitter, and if there are any things I do that might help your Twitter experience, then I’m happy.

Following

I don’t follow everyone who follows me. I check their bio out, and if it interests me in any way, then I follow.

Unfollowing

If someone is simply constantly Tweeting links to their site, or generally Tweeting rubbish, I tend to unfollow them. Every now and then I check out Twitoria, which is a great site where you can see which of your followers have been inactive for a period. I unfollow those who haven’t used Twitter for a month or more.

General Communication

I really enjoy just chatting with people about things that interest me. I’ve made lots of new scuba diver and Formula 1 fan friends via Twitter. It’s easy to set up a search on Tweedeck or via Twitter Search on a key word and find other people interested in the same thing. The whole “international” thing is very appealing to me – I love the fact that I’m chatting with people in so many countries and get so many different points of view.

Lifestyle

I enjoy sharing my life on Twitter, so I'm quite active in telling people what I’m doing and sending Twitpics via my Blackberry. I do this because I live in an unusual place, and I enjoy seeing other people’s lifestyles in the same way. It also contributes to promoting my brand, and therefore my blogs, on Twitter

Tweeting Interesting Links

I’ve got in the habit of Tweeting links to sites I find interesting – again because I find so many interesting things that other people Tweet. I do my best to retweet the good stuff onto my followers.

Tweeting My Blog Posts

I Tweet my own posts, usually 2 or 3 times over a 24 hour period, to catch the different time zones. I feel as long as that’s not all you’re doing, it’s acceptable. I find about 1% of my followers visit the link each time. That seems low, but remember that at any given time less than 10% of your followers will actually be logged into and reading Twitter. I have a theory that this percentage rises as your authority increases on Twitter – so could it be that 5% or 10% of Chris Brogan’s followers check his links? Maybe Chris will let us know.

Auto DM’s

I don’t use them. In fact I don’t use any automation tools at all – it feels weird to me to automate something that’s social. I don’t like receiving auto DM’s, and I suspect the majority of users feel the same way – do you? When I get the standard kind of “Follow this link to make money” style DM, I tend to reply “No thanks, but I look forward to chatting anyway.”

And that’s it! I tend not to think too hard about any of it. I try to give value as someone to follow, and try to get some benefit for my business.

Do you need some help with Twitter? Check out my Beginners Guide to Twitter.

How do you use Twitter? What do you do differently? Are you following me yet? @mikecj

You might also enjoy:

1/ Stop telling me how to Tweet!

2/ Eight things I hate about Twitter

3/ Eight things I love about Twitter