I was on my way to being a Twitter aficionado. I say that–really I was just on my way to using it a lot. I kept TweetDeck open most of the day, tried to remember to tweet about what I was reading, stuff I did (within reason), and re-tweet (RT) things that captured my attention. I was on everyday. And every day I was on, I saw power tweeters, no matter what time of day I was on. It was amazing to see this.

These guys weren’t auto-tweeters either. Well, if they were, it was a very sophisticated application they were running. At one point, I followed back an account that followed me. He would auto tweet the same tweets in a cycle and all were related to his site. I let this go on for a week before I finally unfollowed his account. So, I have an idea what cheesy auto-tweeters can look like.

The people I follow are creative writers, poets, news personalities, IT, marketing, and social media gurus, and more. They are people who want to share what they read, write and are busy doing. Sounds reasonable, right? So, what pushed me away?

It’s not About Multitasking: Rhythm and Courage

These people and organizations I follow are reading and tweeting and doing whatever else they do. So am I. Only they have this rhythm that just didn’t sing to me. Not enough to overpower my hesitations.

When TweetDeck loaded, it was in the background until I found something I was brave enough to Tweet. It took me a while to get the hang of what I wanted to say and when. It took me longer to push the button. Even after having loaded a comment with my bit.ly link, I would pause for long minutes before I pressed ENTER.

Sometimes it was a matter of sheer nerve that got me to send my tweets into the cyber-sphere. Sometimes I just changed my mind and decided to do it later.

Who am I Following Really?

I pushed through it all and got my tweets in there. In the space of a year, I managed a thousand tweets with a very small community including all the perks, a little conversation, link sharing, re-tweeting and very few direct messages (DM), (mostly in response to a received DM). I got with the program as it were, even though it wasn’t what I expected. When I signed up to Twitter, the main site sported Lee LeFever’s video about Twitter being a great way to say what you’re doing and how things are going in your day. Talking to friends and family, though.

I have over 300 people I follow and who follow me. Most of them are not my friends and family. In my immediate family, I have one brother on Twitter. I hardly ever see him on Twitter. My group consists of new friends I met from blogging, some just through Twitter, and business. Business is the overarching theme and it took a bit of getting used to.

Changing My Game Plan

You see, the only commodity I have is me and my services. I can write articles for companies, and blog posts, and design websites. But telling people what I can do is difficult because I’m somewhat shy about that.

If I’m doing it to promote a friend or a company, that’s a whole different thing. But it’s important to be established. I actually saw a job lead that said writers were expected to tweet daily. It brought up a whole lot of other questions, like whether or not I wanted to give my name to the product. But that’s for another post.

So, I decided, while I can, to tweet less. I’ve dropped down to a day or two a week. And, I’ll build back up to three or four days and go with that until it’s time to change something again. It’s important that I stay in the habit of tweeting, so I’ll have frequency to be my variables.

People ask me about Twitter because I’m doing it. I would love to tell them something insightful, wise and born of my months of tweeting. But really it’s something that you have to do to learn how to do it. And relax on demanding that you understand it.

I can share with confidence, some of the good connections I’ve made through participating. Inspired by the fun I’ve had on Twitter, I waxed a little poetical and what came of it is my #FollowFriday submission. #FollowFriday is a Twitter way to share your community with each others and those beyond your community.

How to Have Fun with Twitter

I read a formula for participating in Twitter. It was a good one, so I to follow it and write my tweets with the following in mind:

• Tweets should included almost equal parts: statements, replies and linking to others
• Links to personal work should number the least in your tweets
• Always be polite

If you’re still thinking about trying Twitter, do it. Have fun with it. And let me know what you think of it.

If you’re already tweeting, message me @sharils to let me know of your positive expriences.

I’d love to link to a Twitter post you write about it.

Remember how you first heard of Twitter? Did you have all sorts of ideas of what to expect? And when you read blog posts in which people referred to Twitter, did your expectations take on more detail?

Mine didn’t.

I first heard about Twitter from a Social Media expert. I’d joined StumbleUpon at his direction. That’s a social bookmarking site. And I’d had a fun time learning how that works. He suggested Digg too, but I’ve taken a pass on that one—for now.

Twitter is a great way to network he told me. I researched it a little more online, and checked out a few people’s profiles once I learned how. I watched the Twitter intro video at the site and it was still rather nebulous. Did people actually stop while mowing the lawn to tweet that they were doing it? Hmmmm.

Deciding When to Join

Then the social media guru said the magic words, “You really have to jump in and do it to learn it.” So I decided to join, with a few prerequisites:

• An internet-ready cell phone with a full qwerty keyboard
• Have three people to follow, including the man I was learning from
• Determine how I wanted to present myself to the Twitter world (name, site, etc.)
• Figure out what in the world to tweet

What I Figured Out Quickly

It’s been a little over six months and I’ve picked up a few things. Like, now I know people tweet about mowing the lawn before they actually start. Some of my early ideas were validated. Some things I learned the hard way.

1. Text messaging is best left off. You can’t really turn off Twitter if you still have notifications coming through text messages. And, if you’re like me and don’t have or want unlimited text messaging, keep your device notifications off.
2. Twittering from you cell phone demands a client application. Having a client application eliminates the need for text messaging. If you really need to know whenever any of your friends tweet, then this may not hold true for you.
3. Auto-following doesn’t really save time. There’s no need to follow every single person that follows you. Being selective can save time by sparing you tweets of no or negative value to you, and the subsequent need to unfollow. This leads into the next point.
4. I don’t follow people who offer things that I find offensive. One example: I will automatically skip the girls who want to pedal their suggestive photos. Duh!
5. Think of unfollowing as self-preservation. I unfollowed a guy who had a set twenty tweets (it looked like less than twenty really) that he cycled through including the one for his break. He shared only about his site, asked one question (the same question each cycle), and the set played for the four days I followed him. Definitely not my cup of tea.
6. Use http://search.twitter.com to find what interests you. Search for your subjects of interest and explore the profiles of people writing to them. It’s a good option in addition to exploring your friends’ followers.
7. I read about how to get the best from Twitter. Great resources are available on the web to give you insight into good ways to interact on Twitter, whether you want to know about twitter etiquette or running Twitter applications.
8. What to say gets easier to decide. There’s no hard fast rule, no matter what people say. I love weather tweets because it gives me further insight into the tweeter’s life on a particular day, even at a particular time. Some people say that’s on their list of things to definitely not tweet.

Eve though there’s lots you can read about it, as my friend said, the best way to learn Twitter it is to jump in and do it. You’ll see first hand what works for you.

Did your first days using Twitter work the way you expected? Did you discover anything that surprised you? I’d love to hear about your experiences.