by Melanie Spring, Sisarina
When you started tweeting, there are a plethora of articles about what to do, what not to do and how to make the best of it. The problem, it's all terribly overwhelming and most of what you learn is from just doing it. Over the last two years I've tried helping out my fellow tweeters and have put those helpful tips into a quick list to help you tweet well.
1. Starting a tweet with a twitter handle: If you start a tweet with an @name, only that person and everyone following both of you will see it. This allows you to have a conversation with that person and let those who know you both in on that conversation. If you want others to be in on it or to tell people about that person, add a period (.@name) or a word before their name to ensure everyone following you sees it.
Examples:
- Conversation: @Sisarina Well, I'm definitely watching out for those! :-) Thanks.
- Sharing: .@jattal tells you to go to the Apple store and get inspired by everything you see there.
2. Keeping up on conversations: Ever notice the 'in reply to' link under tweets on twitter.com or TweetDeck? Those are there so you can see what the conversation was all about. When someone clicks 'reply' on a tweet, it keeps a log of the tweets so you can go back and find the source of the comments. This helps when someone replies to something you tweeted yesterday & you can't remember what it was.
3. RT vs /via: Starting a tweet with "RT @name:" is almost like saying "This person said something great" first instead of getting into the meat of what they said. If you add "/via @name" at the end of the tweet, it allows people who skim their stream to see what's really going on quickly instead of seeing a bunch of twitter 'code.'
Examples:
RT: RT @Sisarina: Starting today, @Starbucks launches its Frappuccino Happy Hour w/ half-priced frapps from 3-5pm
/via: Starting today, @Starbucks launches its Frappuccino Happy Hour w/1/2-priced frapps from 3-5pm daily til 5/15! /via @montagepr
4. Track your links: If you sign up for a http://bit.ly account and either paste links into it or add it to your TweetDeck settings, you can track how many people clicked all of your links. That will show you what people are responding to or if you need to get better at the teaser you tweeted about the link.
5. Who's not following you back: Wish you could know which folks you are following that aren't following you back? http://friendorfollow.com allows you to see so you can unfollow accidental spammers, inactive accounts or tweet the people you really hope will follow you back.
Have more tips? Write a guest post for us and tell people what you've learned!
