TomTravel2

People ask me often how I got where I am on Twitter. It has been a long and interesting journey. I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to get on the Twitter by a trusted associate. I created an account and followed a few people I knew and some that were recommended. I really wasn’t getting it for quite a while. It took me several looks to see the value in Twitter. The first great leap for me came with a webinar from @pistachio (Laura Fitton the author of “Twitter for Dummies”). Thus began a search for the meaning of and best practices for using this exciting medium.

I started following people who seemed to know what they were doing on Twitter. I also looked for people who were noted for their success on Twitter. In addition to learning from their tweets, I read their blogs where I learned even more. I also searched off Twitter by googling specific areas within Twitter I wanted to learn about. My interest has always been for what the best way to interest and engage people, and what the best etiquette for use of the medium. At the end of this post you will find some links to many of the blogs I found most helpful, interesting or amusing.

Starting with a very modest presence on Twitter, I began to consciously implement a simple strategy based on what I felt were the best practices based on my studies. Within a few months I had to make some adjustments because what I was doing worked. In the beginning I followed back everyone who followed me. This quickly became unmanageable and filled my tweet stream with spam and mindless self promotion. I started looking carefully at every new follow to see if their tweets were something I wanted to add or not. I came to a twillosophy on following that I have stuck to since.

What will follow is the main rules I tweet by and that I think might be helpful to anyone who wants to create an interesting and meaningful experience on Twitter.

• Engage! Twitter is not a broadcast medium. It is an interaction medium. The key to getting the most out of your use of Twitter is to interact with people. If something interests you, retweet it, as it will probably interest your followers as well. See a thought provoking tweet? Comment on it. Get engaged with the rolling conversation instead of being a passive consumer of tweets. If someone does something nice for you thank them. Common courtesy goes a long way to creating goodwill.
• Fetch! The people you want to interact with and respond to are out there, but until you find them it does no good. Use the people search feature on Twitter to look for people you already know you want to follow. Look for your friends and business associates and follow them as well. You can also search by keyword (I found people looking for many combinations with the word travel for instance. I also periodically search cruise(s), hotel, tour, tourism, cvb, and other associated terms). You can use Twellow to search profiles by keywords and I have found this very useful!
• Add! Try to add something of value with your tweets everyday. I frequently post links to travel news. I also tweet my observations on the business of booking travel. If I see a trend in pricing for instance I try to point this out to my followers. These types of useful tweets are often the most responded to and retweeted things I throw out into the Twitterverse.
• Entertain! I try to make my tweets as entertaining as I can. I rewrite news headlines in a quirky or funny way to get more attention. This also has had the effect of creating an identity for myself as the witty travel tweeter. I also feel tweets that make one think are very entertaining. New or innovative ways of looking at things can also be very entertaining and can make a tweet stand out from the crowd.
• Play Nice! Nothing has helped advance my interests on Twitter more than doing for others. RT are the two most important letters on Twitter. Every time I retweet someone I am creating a sliver of good will that when added up over and over becomes something more. Commenting on tweets can also please people. Giving recommendations to follow on #followfriday or #traveltuesday is another good deed that will serve you well. I also try to acknowledge the good deeds others do for me. Thanks are almost always appreciated on or off Twitter. All of this brings me back to my first point": engage, interact, and get into the mix!

Some Helpful Links to Learn More About Twitter:

http://pistachioconsulting.com/

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/the_thoughtful_user_guide/writing_my_twitter_etiquette_article_14_ways_to_use_twitter_politely.php

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/norman-birnbach/pr-back-talk/10-twitter-etiquette-rules

http://mackcollier.com/five-reasons-why-no-one-likes-you-on-twitter/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/01/25/35-twitter-tips-from-35-twitter-users/

http://mashable.com/category/twitter-lists/

http://www.gissisim.com/2009/03/how-to-twitter-like-a-pro/

http://danzarrella.com/the-20-words-and-phrases-that-will-get-you-the-most-retweets.html

http://twitter.pbworks.com/

http://www.randygage.com/blog/tweet-this-a-twitter-manifesto

To Follow, or Not to Follow? That is the Question!

I just spent about half an hour going through all the new people who followed me this week. I try to get at that task more often, but on a busy week I just don’t. I was pleased to find many interesting folks who showed up. I followed most of the new tweeps back. There were a few I did not choose to follow back which is the subject of this missive.

When I started on Twitter six months ago, I followed everyone back. I did this until I started hitting limits on who I could follow when I hit the magic number of followers. I began to look at who I was following and who was following me in a new light. I also became more selective in who I decided to follow. What “follows” is the loose set of rules I now use to pick who I will follow and who I will not. If you are new to Twitter you might find this helpful if your goal is to have people follow you.

I won’t follow you if…

• If I can’t figure out from your profile and your tweets who you are, I won’t follow you. You may be a swell person, but how am I to know? Put a picture of yourself or an icon that says something about you on your profile! Describe something about your work, your interests, or where you are from. Put a link to your website or at least a Facebook or MySpace page. Write some tweets that tell me something about who you are and what you are about. I look at all this stuff, and if I still don’t know anything about you, I won’t follow you.
• I won’t follow you if you are a robot. If your tweet stream is  just tweeting the same link over and over, I have no use for it. If your tweet stream is a constant flood of news items or press releases you can count me out (I made exceptions for airport updates and my local weather). If you are relentlessly selling something you are not for me.
• If you are trying to recruit me for anything then you are barking up the wrong tree. I generally will not follow MLM , network marketing or affiliate marketing people whose sole purpose on Twitter is to recruit. I make some exceptions for those who offer interesting tweets and only the occasional self promotional tweet. Twitter is a social media not a broadcast media. If you are sociable you are more likely to be successful promoting yourself.
• If your tweet stream is trying to convert me to your religion I will not follow you. I am very happy with my own, and I neither want to hear about yours nor want to tell you about mine.
• If you are angry, extreme in your views, or mean spirited, I will not follow you. I have no room for hate or flame wars in my tweet stream.
• I won’t follow you if you are linking to your porn site. No matter how hot your picture looks.
• If I think you are trying to game the system, I won’t follow you.

Some Leeway?

These are my general guidelines for who I follow and who I don’t. They are not set in stone, and I do bend them quite a bit. I don’t have much time to decide “Do I want to follow this person?” I do take the time to look at each new followers profile though. If I can’t see a reason that I would want to add them to my tweet stream, or I do see a reason not to I just move on. I am much more likely to follow you anyway if you are in the travel business. I am more likely to follow you anyway if I can see that you live in Arizona.

I am not the only person who uses discretion in following. Many have expressed some similar philosophies in blogs and tweets. If you are wanting more people to follow you back, you might learn something from this post that could benefit you. If I did not follow you back because you lacked a complete picture for me to look at, add to your profile, post some friendly tweets, send out some @replies, unfollow me and then follow me again. Chances are good I will follow you back.

The Twitter Trick

If you’ve been tweeting for a while, you have seen DMs, profiles and posts kindly offering to share “The Twitter Trick” or some such nonsense. After following one such link to a dead-end page with a video and a form for my email etc, I lost all interest in a few seconds. I am not a big fan of anything “auto” on Twitter. If I DM you, @ you, or tweet anything  you can be assured that I am doing it manually.

Everything I have done on Twitter is personal. I have sought out people with common interests and common geography to follow. I have chosen not to follow people who are out for a quick buck or a quick bazzillion followers. I have responded to people who @ me, retweet me, and #followfriday me. I have tried to put my personal touch on my tweets even when I am posting the travel news.

Slowly at first, but with growing momentum of late, I have built a good size following. The most important part to me is that I am now connecting with people I want to connect with. Many share a common field of work in the travel business. Many are people who love to travel and looking  for news and insight. Some are in website design, SEO and SEM which are my means to the end of connecting with travelers. Some are Twitter experts who I learn from daily. Some live like I do in the AZ particularly the Valley of the Sun or Phoenix metropolitan area.

“My Twitter Trick”

All in all, “My Twitter Trick” has worked for me. Since I am not out to get as many followers as I can, but rather out to build a quality community I want to interact with, I call it a success! I will lay out the particulars of what I think the Real Twitter Trick is:

Interact, respond, entertain, inform, inspire, and play nice.

Interact

If you are not on Twitter to interact, go home. Twitter is not a broadcast medium, I repeat, Twitter is not a broadcast medium. If you treat it as such you are doing more harm than good to your image, your brand, and your reputation.

Respond

If you are asked a question, answer it. If you receive a comment, reply. Join in the conversation. Better yet, spark up a conversation of your own. Find people with common interest and shoot them a question or comment. Then be ready to respond again. Search your @ replies daily and let people know you see their tweets. Thank those who #followfriday you. Give out #followfriday shout outs of your own, and include people with whom you have interacted.

Entertain

Throw me a bone! Make me smile, make me laugh, make me groan, or make me spray coffee out my nose and I will follow you to the ends of the tweet stream. If something strikes you as amusing I might like it too. Tweet it out there! Many of my most retweeted tweets have had a good dose of humor in them.

Inform

Tell me something I don’t know. I learn something new every day. Now that I am on Twitter, I learn dozens of new things every day. I look for articles or blogs that have something unique in them to link. The “same old, same old”, is not going to get as good a response as the “no kidding” or the “I didn’t know that.”

Play Nice

If someone does something nice for me such as retweeting or giving my tweet a thumbs up, I try to find a way to do something nice for them. I also try to generate random acts of niceness whenever I am tweeting. If I see something I think is of value chances are someone else will gain value if I retweet it. I will do this for any tweet even if I don’t know the tweeter. If I see some one playing nice I will thank them for it.

If you have the urge to play badly restrain yourself. Twitter is a dangerous place to engage in a flame war. Insulting people will get you nowhere fast as many have learned to their dismay.

I hope you like “My Twitter Trick.” Take for a spin and see how it drives for you. I’ll be tweeting you!