SEO BLOG

Tweet is a Creative Commons image by Phillie Casablanca

How to Twitter? A question asked by millions of clueless but eager to learn new Twitter users. First off: It’s either “how to tweet?” or “how to use Twitter?” The rest isn’t that simple.

Twitter seems to be simple from the way it looks and the basic functionality but it’s not simple to master.

After 18 months of almost daily usage of Twitter I know by now how to do it. Of course what works for me doesn’t have to work for you. Thus I compiled a list of 101 tweets on how to use Twitter including different use cases.

You tweet differently for social networking and blogging than you do for business or marketing & SEO purposes. Many Twitter best practices are one size fits all though. Everybody should comply with them to succeed on Twitter.

I divided this list into several sections to make it easier to use it:

General how to use Twitter advice:

• basics
• advanced
• even more advanced

Twitter use cases:

• social networking
• blogging
• business
• SEO/marketing

Avoiding Twitter pitfalls:

• twittiquette/twittequette
• safety & security

Please note that every item in this list is made to work as a standalone retweetable tweet. They in most case make sense on their own and are short enough to get retweeted a few times.

Basics

1. Use an avatar
2. Customize your Twitter homepage
3. Say in your bio who you are, what you do and what you care about
4. Be concise
5. Shorten links
6. Tweet daily
7. Reply/retweet
8. Don’t only tell us what you eat
9. Add your URL to “Web”. LinkedIn is OK
10. Don’t follow 1k people if only 5 follow you

Advanced

1. Use Firefox add ons like TwitterFox & PowerTwitter
2. Subscribe to your own tweets via RSS
3. Don’t use tinyurl.com anymore. It’s unreliable. bit.ly is better
4. Use #hashtags
5. Tweet important things 4 times, for all time zones
6. Create a Twitter landing page
7. Track mentions of your keywords via Twilert etc.
8. Ask questions
9. Use Twitter on your mobile
10. Add images via TwitPic or imgur

Even more advanced

1. Use a Twitter desktop app like TweetDeck or Seesmic
2. Use an URL shortener on your own website
3. Subscribe to your best friends via RSS
4. Use a social CRM app to save your Twitter contacts
5. Create user groups with crowdstatus.com

Social Networking

1. Don’t follow everybody
2. Follow people you care about
3. Don’t follow bots and RSS mashups
4. Mix links, @replies and “what are you doing” tweets
5. Retweet your friends
6. Retweet unique sources not only main stream ones
7. Do not broadcast, Twitter is not TV or radio
8. Participate in #followfriday
9. Spread memes
10. Follow those who reply/retweet or mention you
11. Start conversations e.g.: I wonder why people…
12. Organize tweetups (real life Twitter user meetings)

Blogging

1. Don’t tweet instead of blogging
2. Ad a twitter button to your blog
3. Display your tweets in your sidebar
4. Add a “follow me” badge to your blog
5. Announce your best posts on Twitter
6. Crowdsource posts
7. Add a @twittername input to your comment form
8. Tweet it when your plane crashes
9. Blog about Twitter
10. Tweet about blogging

Business

1. Tweet as a person not only as a firm
2. Offer discounts to followers
3. Announce special offers on Twitter first
4. Give away freebies
5. Reply to disgruntled customers
6. Establish a social media policy in your company
7. Monitor brand mentions
8. Claim @usernames related to your brand & products
9. Create a twitter team
10. Use a Twitter CMS like Hootsuite

Marketing & SEO

1. Tweet StumbleUpon and Sphinn links
2. Add yourself to Twitter directories like Twellow
3. Add your Twitter @username to your website
4. Display your Twitter address on your business card
5. Employ Twitter analytics like Clicky
6. Create Google Analytics campaigns for Twitter
7. Claim your keywords as Twitter user names
8. Use many hashtags
9. Follow everybody if you can
10. Move to a dedicated server or cloud hosting to handle traffic peaks
11. Add “rt: @source” at the end of tweets using “via”
12. Use exclamations like OMG! WTF? FAIL!
13. Use numbers in headlines
14. Break news
15. Use a sexy avatar like @sexyseo
16. Address power users like @zaibatsu
17. Tell people to follow you and explain why
18. Wear a ridiculous hat
19. Use a funny username like @nakedpizza
20. Make people happy

Twittiquette/Twittequette

1. Don’t follow/unfollow the same person more than once
2. Don’t message people you don’t follow, they can’t reply
3. Don’t swear in tweets
4. Don’t autofollow based on names. Tad Chef is not a chef
5. After the 3rd @reply switch to dm, email, Skype or IM
6. Don’t expect a reply when addressing others out of the blue
7. Disclose affiliate links with [aff] or [ad]
8. Tweet only important stuff more than once
9. Don’t tweet the same thing several times in a row
10. Don’t automate tweeting completely
11. Don’t sell on Twitter unless your name is Dell outlet
12. Don’t use URL shorteners that frame content
13. Read first then retweet
14. Do not suggest your site each time someone mentions your trade

Safety & Security

1. Don’t tweet scam links, not even asking “is this a scam?” You’ll get banned
2. Never tweet email addresses. Spam bots harvest them
3. Don’t tweet travel/vacation plans. Burglars read them
4. Don’t tweet while driving
5. Refrain from complaining about your employer or clients
6. In countries like China tweet anonymously
7. Don’t use your Twitter password for Google and online banking
8. Don’t tweet where you are
9. Don’t tweet private photos of your kids
10. Tweet only things you would say on TV

You might have noticed that I don’t heed my own advice with many items referring to blogging. I were quite busy in the recent months to implement most of it. All of the blogging advice combined leads to clutter so you got to choose which options you prefer.

I hope these 101 tweets on how to use Twitter will be useful for you and your followers. Make sure to add your won or comment on those list items you don’t agree with. You might like to follow me on Twitter: @onreact_com

Also I write a weekly “Twitter Friday” column over at the SEOptimise blog you might want to check out.

In case you don’t know whether you want to use Twitter at all read the pros and cons article. This time I told you how to use Twitter but I didn’t tell you what to tweet, what to write on Twitter. I will tell you in a follow up. In short: Try to tweet something useful for others and tweet

1. 1/3 @replies
2. 1/3 retweets + links
3. 1/3 “what are you doing” tweets.

Related posts:

1. Hey Marketers on Twitter: It’s not a Link List
2. Top 7 Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing Purposes Correctly
3. 5 Keys to Twitter Headlines
4. Are You a Real Time Idiot? A Racing Rat on Steroids? A Twitter Zombie?
5. Twitter Lists for SEO How to