This is another in a series with those whom I've had some great conversations in workshops and meetings. This post follows a meeting I had last week on the topic of Twitter with a group of new friends at our local ASTD-OC Chapter.
Related posts:
I had a great meeting with a bunch of you recently at the ASTD chapter in Orange County. And, thanks to you, most of us who attended that session are now connected with each other on Twitter. So, the question you probably now have is, what to do next?
Here are the next six things I recommend you do right away. I've listed them in order of priority.
1. Post a picture of yourself. I was real happy to start seeing tweets from many of you. The thing is, I'm still seeing the same bland old default brown avatar when I see some of your tweets.
Since most folks still like to carry conversations--even if short and
clipped--with people, it's important that you place a picture that will
best represent you. It's easy to do. From your Twitter home page, just
click Settings and then the Picture tab.
2. Post a biographical tag line and a link to your web page. You do this under the Settings menu and then selecting the Account tab. Look for the line labeled One Line Bio. Your biggest challenge here will be in trying to say everything you want to tell folks about yourself in 160 characters or less. Even though that's 20 characters more than the space you get for tweets, it'll still require a little creativity on your part to squeeze it all down. That's why I also recommend adding a link to a web page where people can learn more about you. You can add that link by entering the web address, or URL, just one line up from your one line bio. And, here's a tip. If you don't have a web page or a blog, then I still think there's lots of value in putting a link to your profile on LinkedIn or VisualCV.
3. Start finding people on Twellow.com. We didn't get a chance to talk about this in class. But, Twellow.com is a free online service that lists many of the folks who have Twitter accounts. The neat thing is, everyone they list is pretty much associated with at least one category. You can browse the categories or even perform keyword searches for folks in professions or with bios that match your interests. If you want to start boosting your participation right away, I'd recommend doing a couple of keyword searches a day and then Following at least 20 people a day from your search results in Twellow.com who match your areas of interest.
Just a quick side note here about building followers. Every now and then, you'll see messages from others about subscription services that allow you to automatically follow 300 people a day with little or no effort. It's really up to you if you want to use a service like that. But, my philosophy has pretty much been to build my connections organically. That is, without the help of services like that. I think if you're conscious about the people with whom you initiate follows, then you stand a better chance of having a network that's more relevant to your professional and personal interests.
4. Learn about link shortening sites. This one's important because often, you'll find value in sharing with others in your Twitter network some of those interesting articles you find online and which you feel are worth sharing with your network. Over time, the trail of articles you share will sort of define you in the social web. So, make sure they're professional, or at least, not inappropriate. The trick is, when you're only given 140 characters to post your message, some of the web addresses you may choose to share can dang-near take up all of that space, and then some. So, link-shortening sites come in very handy. The way these work is you go to a site like bit.ly, tinyurl, hootsuite, and the like and find a field that tells you to enter the long web address that you want to shorten. After you've done that, you simply click a button that executes a script to "shorten" your link (or "make tiny" or something similar). You'll be presented with another--much shorter--URL (web address) that acts as an alias for the original link. You then want to copy the shortened version and use that in your tweets. This then allows you to (important!) use the remaining space in your tweet for a few words about why you're sharing that web site with the folks who are connected to you.
Below is an example of using the service at bit.ly for shortening the long URL for this post "http://www.businesscasualblog.com/2009/09/the-six-things-to-do-next-after-starting-with-twitter.html" (100 characters!) to "http://bit.ly/13UVuf" (20 characters).
5. Change your background. Though not something to worry about immediately, at some point you'll want to think about changing your Twitter background. Unlike personal/face-to-face interactions, we don't always get the benefit of body language, facial expressions and hand gestures to communicate our message or personality online. That's why things like your tweet history, blog posts (if you have 'em), profile pics, bio taglines, and backgrounds take on some importance. It's the collection of all the things we do online that help indirectly communicate to others about who we are. Each of these things--displayed over time--creates a trail, of sorts, about our interests, values and passions. A personalized background on your profile page is one of those things. If you need help building a background, there are many free online services available to help you do it. A simple Google search will turn up a bunch of these, or you can use these guys at Free Twitter Designer.
6. Tweetdeck. This point I'm listing last, not because it has low value. Far from it, Tweetdeck is a very useful software application. In fact, my opinion is that it's a necessary application when your connections start rising above a hundred, or so. And that's mainly why it's listed last. It'll take you a little time to get to a hundred or more followers on Twitter. (Though you might be surprised. For many folks it can be only a matter of hours or days.) When you get there, you'll want to remember I mentioned Tweetdeck. I talked a bit about it in a previous post, so feel free to read more about it here.
I hope that helps. What'd I miss? Have you anything to add to my list? If so, please add them in the comments below.
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