11 Tips to Tweet Properly

11 Tips to Tweet Properly

Twitter is not only for the young, tech-savvy kids; parents, businesses, and even politicians have hopped on the wagon to Twitter Town. Similar to cell phones, emails, and social marketing tools – you can only outrun Twitter for so long.

As a beginner, you’ll find that Twitter uses cutesy names to describe its tools and functions, which can be frustrating at the best of times – like a secret code that you need a special decryption machine for others.

So, here’s our helping hand with 10 tips to get your head round some of the necessary terminology that Twitter uses and how to tweet in the right way!

 

 

1) Your Twitter ‘handle’

A twitter handle is essentially your name on Twitter – the @username that you see everywhere. Choose a simple name for yourself, so that people can easily find you.

 

 

2) Your Twitter profile

Make sure that your profile picture is in high resolution and write a bio that explains your interests and what you do. Lastly, having the right URL is essential (especially for businesses!) because it is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website.

 

 

3) Re-tweeting (RT)

Make sure you give credit to the person you have just re-tweeted – otherwise, you could be on the receiving end of some serious hate! Here’s how you can credit someone when you copy their tweets:

a) Type “RT” (for retweet) followed by “@” and paste the twitter handle and tweet in the compose box before you hit send

b) Make sure that if your friend has a private profile that you don’t re-tweet them – the only reason why they set their profile to private is so that they can choose who reads their tweets!

 

 

4) Be respectful

It is important to be respectful. Never use Twitter to demean or bully anyone – it should be a place to make new friends, not enemies.

 

 

5) Don’t be spammy

Never ever spam people’s Twitter feeds with @mentions or direct messages, because you’ll quickly end up with a bad reputation. Yes, Twitter can be used for marketing, but keep in mind to not get carried away, because people are likely to unfollow you.

 

 

6) Always think before you tweet!

We know you’ve had a rough day and you want to rant – but be wary because no one wants to read how depressed or morbid you are every five minutes. You can easily lose your followers that way. Try to tweet important or funny messages that will draw the interest of the crowd.

 

 

7) #DON’T #Hashtag #every #word #you #say

It is simply ridiculous and meaningless to hashtag all of your words! One or two is fine, and a good way to get new followers to your account.

 

 

8) Get out of your comfort zone and tweet others!

We understand if you tweet your mates from time to time; but if they are the ONLY ones you are tweeting – why bother tweeting anyway? You might as well call or text them. Follow friends of friends, see what the trending topics are and you may even find a common interest – and follow a few new friends along the way.

 

 

9) Don’t be afraid to unfollow

Sometimes, you follow a ton of people, but they just don’t reciprocate the favour! If your balance is getting out of hand (i.e. you’re following 1000 people, but only 20 are following you), then it’s time to take control. You can vet through who you’re following and unfollow spammy or inactive users with tools such as manageflitter.com or justunfollow.com

 

 

10) Set up lists

Twitter allows you to set up lists of followers – that makes it easier to track what your favourite tweeters are saying, as you can choose to only see the twitter stream from those peeps. The lists can be public, where anyone can view them, or if you prefer, you can keep them private.

 

 

11) Tweets images or videos

In the past, videos and photos used to be displayed as only a link, but recently Twitter has changed it so that if you tweet an image, it will show up in the twitter stream. Using an image or a video (YouTube or Vine videos can also be played right in the twitter stream) makes your tweet far more eye catching and attracts more followers.

New and looking for someone to tweet at? You can follow us @p1buddy – say Hi, and we’re sure to message you back!