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A lot of people still miss the point of Twitter’s original functions. It was not exactly made to be a huge chatroom. Though having a conversation on Twitter is great, for some of your followers, it may make them unfollow you. There are people that believe having thousands of followers is the way to get ahead. It only does in your own mind if you do not influence anyone. Influencing your followers means engaging them in what you have to share.

I have put together a short Creed for Twitter Tweeps (“tweep” is the actual word for people who use Twitter.)

The Creed of a Twitter Tweep

1. You are not obligated to follow back everyone.

2. You are in control of your content, so make sure you are aware of articles you Retweet. Retweeting an article blindly could affect your trust if the article is not up to par with what your followers expect.

3. Do not expect others to follow you back even if you keep sending them tweets. It does not necessarily mean you are being ignored, but they may be a bit busy to respond to every tweet, especially celebrities on Twitter.

4. You should use Twitter for more than connecting with others. There are sites that send their articles through the Twitter stream that could prove beneficial to you or even just be of interest. (Be open and expand your knowledge.)

5. Advertising is okay, but excessive advertising is seen as spam. Be cautious and do not become a spammer.

6. (For Newbies) It is okay to have more than one Twitter account if you are a person who tweets as an individual, for a company, or even for a particular website if you have more than one website. (Example, I have 3 accounts I tweet under, in the process of making one for my webhosting and design company, and tweet for the company that I am a social media intern.)

7. Do tweet your blog articles to your followers. How will they know you if you do not share your content with them?

8. Be active and choose your conversations wisely. While someone might be offensive, it is best to just unfollow or block, and not give them the joy of your ire.

9. The number of followers are NOT important. It is the quality and trust. You can have thousands of followers, but what benefit is that when none of them have any interest in what you want to share? Without quality or trust, there is no influence among your followers.

Of course, there are more that can be added. I have left this a bit open so you, the reader might be motivated to add to this list.

Follow Nile on Twitter at @blondishnet.

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Does Twitter Build Relationships that Draw us Closer?

- by Timothy Caron

In a recent article from the New York Times there is a lot of talk about the latest digital fad — “ambient awareness.” Being aware of hundreds or even thousands of other people’s lives, while still not knowing any of them.

So what is Ambient Awareness?

Kevin Thomspon (who has had a great deal of online teaching experience) states,

ambient awareness is ‘social presence,’ the connections with and awareness of connections within a group. This awareness creates a feeling of intimacy and community.

If we dig a little deeper into this type of awareness we find that Twitter is not just a community, but as Harold Rheingold puts it,

it’s an ecology in which communities can emerge. That’s where the tweets comes in: idle talk about news, weather, and sports is a kind of social glue that can adhere the networks of trust and norms of reciprocity from which community and social capital can grow.

Connecting on Twitter

We recently did a search for the term “Ambient Awareness” on Wikipedia and did not find anything for the exact phrase but did find something rather interesting in regards to “Ambient Intelligence” (which refers to electronic environments) when you read a little further in the definition we find that the electronic environments are not that far from a human environment, at least in regards to Twitter.

Here are some parallels to try and help you understand what I’m trying to get at.

Say for example you have a computer chip and that chip consists of many connections to different parts of your computer. This is called “networked integration.”

Twitter works in very much the same way, if we connect with our followers we in essence are building connections. And this is what Twitter should be used for.

The content that we put on twitter allows others to form an opinion about us, which makes it more personal, which then in turn allows us the opportunity to learn how to adapt or become more aware of the nature and demeanor of each person we come in contact with.

This starts the process of building relationships. When that relationship has been built, then we are better able to help or provide the information our followers are looking for.

So in answer to the question, Does Twitter Build Relationships that Draw us Closer?
Absolutely!

If it didn’t draw us closer you would not be reading this post right now. Case in point.

But think of this…
As you communicate your thoughts and ideas to your followers, think about how they perceive you and start tailoring your tweets that would engage your followers to respond to you. Without that response, there is no connection.

Think about this,
What would happen if you never spoke to the girl or boy next door, your teacher, your parents or even your doctor, would they ever get to know you or even build a relationship with you.

What’s your take?
I’d love to hear your comments.

Until next time, be on guard with Twitterwatchdog.

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Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

Follow Your Pal Al Ferretti @AlFerretti

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

The secret to networking on Twitter is to harness the power of your tweets. All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.

With that being said networking on Twitter is all about three core values; engaging, building relationships and providing value in your tweets.

7 Tips for Networking on Twitter

1. Engaging: You will make more friends and attract more followers by becoming interested in other people versus trying to get other people interested in you. The key to engaging with others on Twitter is making the other person feel important. A great way to connect with someone new is to give them a compliment. There’s always something nice to say about someone.

2. Building Relationships: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. With Twitter, People can get to know, like, and trust you much faster and more efficiently than traditional means of marketing by focusing on one major step when building relationships, the follow-up.

3. The Fortune is in the follow-up. Many successful business owners have discovered when following up with people has made all the difference to their business. If you don’t follow-up with people, your competitors will.

4. Providing Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you provide in value than you take in payment. When you effectively engage and build relationships by providing value and give people what they want you will gain new and repeat customers with Twitter.

5. Be the referral source: by referring a persons business to other people. There is simply no better way to get someone to want to do something for you, than first doing something for them

6 Connecting: Before you connect with someone go to their blog/website and do some basic research. Visit their about page and send a tweet with a positive comment about them or their business. Doing this will show them you took the time and are being thoughtful.

7. Tweetups:This is an excellent opportunity to meet with multiple people at one time in person. Meeting your friends and followers in a group setting will give you the option to share ideas and take your relationships to the next level.

Using these 7 tips for networking on twitter can generate beneficial results for your business fast and it can also be a lot of fun.

Confused on how to use Twitter the right way?
Take advantage of this step by step Twitter System

Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

Follow Your Pal Al Ferretti @AlFerretti