This might some trivial, but just wait before you tell me, “Dude, Tell me something I didn’t know”. Many folks do not get twitter, even though they do well with Instant Messenger’s and one-on-one chats. After, 13k tweets and many great conversations, here are the secrets. 😉
The Basics
First you need to understand is that, Twitter is not a chat; it’s a never ending party. When you have a conversation, with someone, you two are not the only listeners. The world is listening; well, at least it seems so 😉
Since every tweet gets logged into the timeline of all followers, on twitter, people seldom use the normal IM formalities and the trivial responses. Don’t expect people to say ‘bye’, or ‘see you later’. They might just leave without any notice. That’s the way it is supposed to be, remember it’s not a chat.
Your First Chat
For a start, unlike IM where you start with a hello, I often jump into middle of some conversation already going on. Maybe he or she tweeted something that interests you, and you can start with a reply to it. When you do that, he or she gets the message that you are listening. If you reply with something that can be easily replied upon, it’s a great start.
For instance, someone tweets, “My Dog seems to like Candies more than biscuits”. If it was me, I might say, “@someone Lol, I should try that on my Dog too, what dog is it?”
Building on @replies, one after the other.
If you want to have a successful conversation, make sure they have something to say to the last reply you sent them. People seldom reply with just ‘lol’ or a simile, as in IM. Those things are taken for granted. So if you want a good talk going on, make sure the person will have something to add to it.
In the previous example, if I had just said, “Lol, I should try that on my Dog too”, the person would read it, maybe pass a smile and not reply anything at all.
Twitter is a Blog
The tips we have been hearing for getting user interaction and comments on blogs works really well. Ask questions; ask for their opinion, and the like. After all it’s a micro-blog. Wish building RSS readers was just as easy as building followers. Lol.
Mix things Up
Depending on what you use twitter for, spread out your tweets so that your followers won’t get bored. If you share links, tweet some awesome links in between talks. Tweet the normal things you do in between the conversation.
#HashTags always help
How will you do a group chat on Twitter? That’s easy, use a hashtag for the talk, and ask all participants to search for it. Many clients have in-built search, if yours don’t have, turn to TweetDeck. It’s simply awesome or better said as Simple and Awesome. The participants can follow the hashtag and reply to each other while others listen.
Me and some friends have been using this effectively for over a year to hang out in the evening and have random chit chat with the hashtag #coffeeclub. Feel free to join when you feel like talking 😉
End with Statements.
Conversations naturally end when you reply with something that doesn’t have a reply. Like, what reply can you think of, when someone says, ‘yeah, I agree to that’. On the other hand, if you deliberately want to end it, you know what to do I guess. Like, ‘see you around’ or ‘nice talking to you’ or what?
Payback time baby, how do you handle conversations? Some tips please.
Hope it was useful. A conversation makes good friends. Tweet ON 🙂
I am a WordPress product developer and creator of Image Attributes Pro. I am passionate about solving problems and travelling the world.
I love to take part in debates in Twitter.
Remember, WordPress v/s Blogger debate we just started in Twitter, but bad I can’t take part.. I went out! 😀
Oh boy, how did you find that tweet anyway? We still have lots of debates most evenings, mostly non technical. Feel free to join in the #coffeeclub if you are around 🙂
Coffeeclub, me to will have a sip . you explained the things well here, even though i use twitter , I never think about writing these ,
so keep concentrated on your blogging than your studies 😉
Lol, wish to, Blogging is much more interesting anyway. Can you speak with my dad please 😀
Me too agree, good conversation make good friends. Thats how we are 🙂
Great Tips Arun! People often use Twitter as any other Chat Client resulting in a lot of chaos..I wish all Twitterers read this post!
Thanks for the words dude 🙂
Very interesting thoughts.
I remember when we started using SMS (on mobile phones), it was a little like Twitter. Every message I received ended with a question. It would never stop, even though I wanted it stop. People just wanted to keep writing SMS, because it was new and the cool thing to do 🙂
I never use Hashtags myself, but I’ve been to a few conferences where they used hashtags in order for people to follow the conference live on Twitter.
Hashtags are very useful, and they bring more traffic to your tweets if you use the right ones, a must try, esp when you have a blog on twitter 😉
Yes, I’ll try them soon 🙂
But, every since Twitter search has improved, what’s the difference between searching for #coffeeclub or coffeeclub? Wouldn’t I get the same results?
Yeah, you will get the same results, but then if you use a hashtag it would be easier visually.
For instance, if I tweetout ,
“Hey guys, how are you doing today? coffeeclub”
and I tweet,
“Hey guys, how are you doing today? #coffeeclub”
the second one looks a little better rt?
It is part of a custom. Functionally both are same 🙂
That’s what I thought 🙂
.. I remember that hashtags was a lot more important before Twitter search was improved.