10 Tips for Leveraging Twitter as a Professional

Twitter is everywhere.  New Twitter applications, additions, and syndication tools have made communicating your value and creating relationships amazingly simple.

Simple, but not necessarily easy. I’m sure that most of you already have a Twitter account, but are you leveraging it?  I only tweet a couple of times a day and I’m not a twitter fanatic, but certainly see the value in growing your followers.   Randy Gage, a colleague “@Randy_Gage” has really leveraged Twitter. He sent out a tweet and within an hour he had 150,000 people visit his Prosperity Blog.

Here are a few tips to help you leverage Twitter as a professional.

10 Tips for Leveraging Twitter

1. Create a custom background image and set up your Twitter Profile properly in the settings tab. Your bio information is vital when people are making a decision to follow you or not. Tell people what you do and how you help or work with others.
2. Focus on adding value and topical relevant tweets. Don’t make it all about you and your company and don’t post the same type of update over and over. Post useful and helpful information that others will see has value.
3. Don’t tweet that you’re at Starbucks, because unless you’re famous (and I’m not talking about just in your own mind) nobody cares.
4. Respond with a direct message when someone sends you a personal direct tweet.
5. Retweet other tweets  you think are interesting. Not only is it beneficial and flattering to the person you are retweeting, but it is another way of sending your followers relevant, helpful and valuable advice and information. Just remember to add your own voice as well.
6. Make sure you share a variety of information in your tweets. Talk about your business, but balance it out with tweets that will help people get to know you as a person.
7. Get a desktop or smartphone application to help you manage your Twitter account. If you are serious about social media marketing and follow more than 100 people, you’ll need an app likeTweetDeck .  I use Tweetdeck for my laptop computer and for my Iphone I use Tweetie. Twitter Apps have many benefits, including ways to organize people, messages, and other information that might otherwise be overwhelming. The wide variety of apps available today assures there is one that is right for you and your purposes.
8. Follow people. As you follow more people, more people will follow you. That’s just the way it goes. People are interested in Twitter Friends – those they can follow and who will follow them back. There are services that will let you automatically follow those who follow you. Check out Socialtoo or socialoomph. Also, services like www.Twellow.com, the yellow pages of Twitter, are a great place to find people to follow.
9. Don’t send “Auto Thank You” direct messages to people. The only thing they are good at is annoying people. It also gives many people a reason to UNfollow you because you appear more like a robot than a real person.
10. Join in Twitter conversations with others by sending replies to interesting posts, or even a direct e-mail or message.

Post your Twitter Tips and comments below… You know how important “link-backs” are…