Top 10 Twitter Revelations

I am delighted to welcome Kathy Meyer as a contributor with her first ‘guest post’.  Kathy is an amazing person to follow on Twitter for her consistently interesting, informative and entertaining Tweets and links about Social Media, Technology and a lot more.  You can find out more about her @2cre8 and also on her 2cr8 Blog.

Top 10 Twitter Revelations (in stages)

I officially opened up a Twitter account back on March 9, 2009 as @2cre8, a side biz I started in 1998. Wide-eyed with no clue, I began my journey. I scoured the Internet like a sponge finding everything and anything about Twitter and social media. So it’s now been a year and a half later and I have to tell you it’s been quite a learning experience. I’m still discovering many new things, but I wanted to share a little snippet of what I consider my ‘Twitter revelations’.

1. Wow, people really hate auto DMs

As a newcomer and not knowing any better, I created an automated direct message (DM) which I pondered over to get just right. I really thought that was the right thing to do. WRONG. One day I got a really harsh DM response saying, “I’ll follow you but don’t EVER DM me again. I’ll unfollow you so fast!” Wow, I think my face changed to every color imaginable after reading that! I won’t name names but she happens to be a renown speaker and blogger, and highly influential in the women’s community with hundreds of thousands of followers. So ultimately I decided to remove my auto DM. (And then decided to unfollow her too he he!)

2. You are who you follow

For a short period there, I also auto-followed people. I began noticing that there were people that I wouldn’t hang out with in real life so why the hell was I following them? I’d never retweet (RT) anything they tweeted and some never tweeted anything at all. So now I take the time to check out individual bios, Twitter streams and manually follow. It’s time consuming but well worth it to follow quality people who add value to your stream and have something in common to share. (Imagine posts on how to get your teeth whiter  appearing on your personalized newsletter from paper.li…not good!)

3. Don’t be so quick to unfollow just because they don’t follow you back (yet)

There are people that I’ve been following for quite a long time and they still have not yet followed me back. Don’t be so quick to unfollow though, especially if they bring value to your Twitter stream. Since being on Twitter, I’ve realized that sometimes people who you converse with or even RT your tweets don’t realize they’re not following. It was funny when @clementyeung and @panah thought they were following me all along. (chuckle!)

4. Tactics that can help you obtain followers that you respect

This ties in with #3. It took a while for @AskAaronLee to finally follow me (over a year I think)! I don’t believe in brown-nosing and I’ll RT a post or converse back if I have a genuine interest in the topic or think it’ll bring value to my followers. Aaron tweeted an open question about how he should title his next blog and I responded. I’ve discovered that a good balance of genuine conversation and RTs will definitely draw attention. (Geez Aaron, was that all it took? Ha ha!)

5. I can be on auto-pilot and still be engaging?

After being on Twitter for about a year, I had noticed that some people I respect immensely were on 24/7. My first clue was @ruhanirabin and then noticed @Flipbooks, @AnnTran_ and @AskAaronLee. Aaron actually wrote a blog post about scheduled tweets, as well as @2morrowknight who supported Aaron on this controversial topic on his blog. My personal take is what’s wrong in wanting to bring value and share tweets with interesting people in different time zones? And when I’m actually on ‘live’, I try to thank or RT people who have retweeted me (reciprocal retweeting) and answer @mentions and DMs.

6. A picture is worth a thousand ‘followers’

I always thought my company logo was a great avatar. That was until I read an article that @GlenGilmore tweeted back in April. It talked about how a photo brought a human element to your brand and that ‘people want to interact with people, not company avatars’. I resisted for a long time until I thought I’d just experiment with it. I scoured to find a decent picture and updated my profile. A month later, @Flipbooks sent a DM asking if there was a noticeable difference since the change. To my amazement, I DID notice a difference! I started getting really positive feedback and more followers in larger increments! Who would have thunk that such a small change would garner such amazing results!

7. Spanning the globe

I love this quote from Nicky @rocksstar10, “Twitter is like traveling the world without moving an inch.” And there’s so much truth to that! Where else would I ever have the opportunity to ‘virtually’ meet amazing people from all over the United States and around the world? It’s just so fascinating to me! I feel like sometimes I can live vicariously through their experiences. And I admire the fact that some people I follow tweet in both English and their native language like my friends @igcstudios and @MegOyanagi, just to name a few. Simply blows me away!

8. Your reach is much farther than you think

Ever type in your Twitter handle on Google or Bing? It’s pretty incredible (and scary) the amount of information that gets listed in the search results. Try it out. So to my point, everything you tweet is public information. Now whether you care or not about reputation management or on Twitter just to have fun, remember your tweets are now public domain. If you’re on the job hunt, trying to build credibility or represent a brand, always think twice what you’re about to tweet! (Comments on blog posts also show up in search results as well!)

9. Privacy, privacy, privacy!

I read a post about how all these third-party Twitter apps have access to your DMs. Prior to that tweet trending on Twitter, @IamPramit was kind enough to point out to me to check my Twitter Settings/Connections. To my amazement, I had a long list of third-party apps…some I don’t even remember allowing access. So I cleaned house and revoked most of them except for a handful I use everyday. And just recently, a CNN post talked about how digital photos can reveal your location (credit: @keewood @AnnTran_ @sheconsulting). Additionally, I highly recommend you read “30 Things You Should Not Share on Social Media” by @jeffbullas.

10. OMG I think I’m a Twitter Addict!

Yup, I confess…jig is up…I’m a Twitterholic, bona fide and true! My husband, who really has no clue what Twitter is all about, refers to me as the ‘twit queen’ who constantly ‘tweets’ ha ha! (Should I be offended?!) Well I just can’t help but love Twitter. It’s provided me the opportunity to get up to speed and really learn about topics near and dear to my heart. More importantly I’ve been blessed to meet so many truly amazing people. I would love list them all, but I don’t think Tony would appreciate that! So when you have the time, please check out my lists!

Thank you for letting me share my ‘Twitter revelations’. I hope I’ve bestowed some knowledge or reinforced a few things that will make your Twitter experience that much more enjoyable. Oh, and one more thing. If anyone sends you anything disparaging or disturbing…ignore it! It’s just not worth your VALUABLE time! So until then, have fun and tweet ya later!

Many thanks Kathy for a fascinating description of your Twitter journey, this may be your first guest post but I don’t think it will be your last!

Do you have any ‘Twitter revelations’ of your own?  Please let us know if you have anything you would like to add.

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*Photo credits:istockphoto.com/

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