Again and again people I meet in real life or on Facebook tell me that they do not “get” Twitter. Thanks in particular today to Miriam Bauman and Tania Carroll for saying this too me and inspiring me to write this note

Twitter is very simple!

It is essentially about 6 kinds of messages (called tweets).

Conversation (like text messages) You can all do this right??!!
For example: Posting links to good info or maybe posting a quote you like. The aim of these is to get them shared by others (see No 4) Anything goes!

Expressing opinions or thoughts or simply what you are doing or a combination of 2 or 3 of these things.
For example “It’s a beautiful day in #Tokyo. Hope we get a good crowd for the @Beers4Books Party at the @PinkCowShibuya tonight” or
“Time for Japanese to follow the lead of Germany (not like in WW2 haha but in embracing non nuclear energy alternatives) “.
These kind of tweets will often get your Twitter followers to comment and conversation will ensue that will often drag in others.

Sharing good tweets from others. (“Retweets” or “RTs”)
For example ” RT @IamPramit Signs Of Twimg, #Twitter’s Photo Hosting, In The Wild http://tcrn.ch/jglai2 by @alexia RT @mqtodd @gogvm” So someone called @alexia wrote this. @gogvm saw it and shared it and so did I and @Iampramit then saw my tweet and shared it too. So the orginal content by @alexia went to potentially hundreds of thousands of people.

Connect and promote. Tweets designed to connect or promote other people.
For example “Key Social Media networkers in Asia Follow @kzamri @lonniehodge @osakasaul @nealschaffer @goodpeoplejapan @askaaronlee”
So here I have connected Kaz, Lonnie, Saul, Jason and Aaron with each other plus also recommended them to all my followers. Can you see the power of doing this in public rather than doing it just in private??

Thank! The power of gratitude.
If somebody shares your tweet or connects or promotes you or adds you to a list of their favourite followers then thank them. This seems absolutely basic by only around 1% of people do it. The ones that do are invariably the ones who succeed the most. Dale Carnegie would have loved Twitter

So this is pretty much what Twitter is so just keep a balance of these 5 different kinds of tweets.

Firstly decide 3 main things that your account is about. You can easily see that mine is about Japan, the Environment and Twitter/Social Media. Talk mainly about these things and people will then go to you for info and/or recommend you to others.

At the start do 40 % of Number 4 as that will make you known to the key people in your niche and gain their engagement with you.

Do 10- 15% of each of the other 5 kind of tweets and you will soon see your account blossom.

Follow aggressively (it is not like friending people just simply indicating you are interested in what they say).

Unlike Facebook where things are extremely formulaic Twitter has NO rules. What I have said are basic guidelines you may choose to use to get started with. Many have succeeded by doing things a completely different way and solely post links or solely converse or solely offer opinions!

3 more slightly high level things that are not absolutely necessary but if implemented will make a massive difference for you.

1. Study what #hashtags are ( I have made a You Tube vid about this). They link conversations and links about a particlar subject together and enable search and branding.You can see that in Number 3 and 4 above I have hashtagged #Tokyo and #Twitter .This makes me stand out as being interested in these topics and gets my tweets searched for by people wanting info about these things.

2. Build lists of your favourite tweeters on your different favourite topics.You can make 20 lists and have 500 people on each lis. Why wouldn’t you?? Even non twitter users can then go to that list as a constantlt updating source of fantastic information. For example I love my list http://twitter.com/mqtodd/mediatechnology for the very best in tech news

3. Use people’s twitter names when mentioning them.Then they will see your tweet and your followers will be able to connect with them readily too. For example in Number 2 above I used @Beers4Books and @PinkCowShibuya rather than for example their real names Beers for Books and The Pink Cow. Twitter language I guess

Twitter is not so hard right?? It is an amazing community and we welcome everyone warmly.

Be fun, have fun, be giving and receive. It’s a party!

Thats about it! Any questions???

Anything to add by way of advice for newbies that I have overlooked?

Twitter is at least 10 times as powerful as Facebook for meeting great new people, finding relevant real time information and spreading messages. Just do it!

Let’s get together and feel allright
Michael
@mqtodd