Here are just a handful of Twitter tips that are written with the Twitter newbie in mind.  These  few tips will help you get more out of Twitter, and probably help you contribute more as well.

Using Links in your Tweets

You see links to websites being used in tweets all the time.  That’s because they’re effective.  They allow you to send your followers to more information.  They give you a means for engaging with your followers.

So, be sure that your links are easy to use.  If you’re going to use a full link, make it a “hotlink” by including the http://www… portion of the link.  That way, all someone has to do is click on it from the tweet and they’ll be sent right to the website or page you intended for them to see.

Because Twitter limits you to 140 characters, you may find that the full URL takes up too much space.  For that, there are several URL shortening services.  These will not only shorten your URLs (which you then copy and paste into your tweet), but many of them will also track the shortened URL and give you statistics on how many people clicked on it from your Tweet.  Two of the most common URL shorteners are bit.ly and tinyurl.
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To start building your network on Twitter, you follow people who are in your industry or have similar interests. You can find them through keyword searches, or by following suggestions from Twitter.

Many people won’t automatically follow you when you start following them on Twitter. In that case, your only option is to engage those people in conversations, and give them a reason to follow you. (more…)

Working with small businesses that are trying to figure out how to use social media to their advantage, I am repeatedly asked about ROI.  Everyone wants to know how using social media is going to help them do business and generate sales.  To this I say, “It’s not about making money, but about creating value.”

Of course, I’m not so naïve that I don’t understand that we’re all in business to make money.  However, there seems to be a misconception that social media was created and designed to give marketers an easy answer to generating sales.  This is when I want to scream, “Hey, it’s called SOCIAL media, not MARKETING media.”

But businesses and marketers still want to criticize social media channels, saying that there seems to be an awful lot of talking but not very many people listening.

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