How to use Twitter

Keep it interesting

Don’t Tweet for the sake of it. Think about why you are using Twitter and the followers you’re trying to attract – and tweet accordingly! Are your followers really interested in what you had for breakfast?!

Use your words wisely

140 characters isn’t much. It forces you to be direct and choose your words carefully! Don't use text language (l8r, tnx 4 ur hlp), it is annoying to read. You can save space by using URL shorteners like bit.ly or tinyurl. These help save space and allow you to link to other relevant information.

Join the debate

Follow organisations and people who are relevant to you and your organisation. Retweet things they post that might be of interest to your followers. Comment on other Tweets if appropriate.

Direct Message

If you want to ask someone on Twitter something without the whole Twittersphere knowing about it, then send them a Direct Message (DM). Don't clog up people's feeds with a message that only needs to be seen by one person. To send a Direct Message the format is "D <username>" not "DM <username>"!

Integrate Twitter with your other social media networks

Social networking works best when you can link to your other social media platforms. 

Make sure there are links to Twitter on your website and blog - so many organisations don't do this! Include your Twitter address as part of your contact us page and add to your email signatures.

Many organisations choose to have a live Twitter feed on the home page of their website. You can also tweet links to your other resources online; videos on YouTube, photographs on Flickr.

Use Hash Tags

By prefixing a word in a tweet with the hash symbol (#) it becomes a clickable and searchable hash tag. This is very useful for gathering buzz about a particular topic. Often conferences or events will be tagged in this way (e.g. #kbis10) enabling you to follow the conversation from anyone tweeting about that event.