(Blog-Off II Entry) Ten Types of Tweets

There are a lot of people who just don't get Twitter. I understand that. After all, your introduction to the site probably involved a visit to the Twitter home page, which doesn't really give you much of an idea of what it's all about, or to someone's profile, which often seems like a bunch of random comments full of strange characters and acronyms.

Despite that, someone may have convinced you to sign up anyway, and now you just don't know what to type into that little box that's asking you "What's happening?"

If you take a look at what other people are doing, you'll start to see several typical kinds of tweets. Here are some of the ways I've seen people using Twitter over the last day or so:

@HSPCliff: #HSP alert. Don't get upset by mistakes. No matter how smart you are, you'll never know everything. There's always something new to learn. (Tweet Type #1: motivational)

@HouseandHome: Get free design tips and exclusive offers in our eNewsletter http://bit.ly/45ZLds (Tweet Type #2: promotional)

@organizedhome: I just wanted to say thanks to all my twitter friends. Just check stats on my blog. You are all so supportive. Thank you! (Tweet Type #3: appreciation)

@garagerev: Website for my new business has just gone live. http://www.handmadewoodworks.com (Tweet Type #4: announcement)

@Letscooktonight: Just made a recipe from my cookbook. Sausage pepper & onion heroes. MMMM tasted great. (Tweet Type #5: casual chatter)

@ProsperbyDesign: Do you have a daily SUCCESS PRACTICE or HABIT you can share? I write My Brilliant Today each day, and say 5+ thank yous! (Tweet Type #6: initiating a discussion)

I've included the user names here to show that even seemingly non-business tweets are often related to the tweeter's area of expertise, and you'll notice that most of these messages are at least a little bit self-promoting. Let's face it; most of us are using Twitter as a marketing tool, but if you don't want your followers to just skip over your tweets or, even worse, to stop following you, you need to be careful that your tweets don't look like a running stream of ads. One of the cool things about social media is that it allows us to be authentic, so take advantage of that and let your personality shine through! On the other hand, don't try so hard to show your human side that you bore people or put them off by sharing too much information. No one's really interested in your baby's poop! (Tweet Type #7: mundane chatter)

It's important to remember that Twitter isn’t about throwing out random promotional messages and hoping they get noticed - it’s about engaging in conversations. You need to take some time to read and reply to what other people are saying, especially if they ask a question. (Tweet Type #8: replying to someone else's tweet)

Another popular way to let someone know that you read and liked what they said is to pass it on to your own followers, often with your own comment added. (Tweet Type #9: the retweet)

Twitter is also a great platform to ask your own requests for information you need for a project, upcoming trip, or just about anything else. (Tweet Type #10: asking a question)

I've just shown you ten different types of tweets, which I hope you'll find helpful the next time you're stuck for something to say on Twitter, but I've barely scratched the surface of the possibilities! I'd love to hear some of the creative types of tweets that you've seen or have posted yourself - I'm sure we can get this list up to 20!

About the Author: Janet Barclay, co-owner of Organized Assistant, provides Internet Marketing assistance and website services to career coaches, professional organizers and other small business clients. You can find her in various places on the world wide web, including Twitter and her blog, From the Desk of Janet Barclay.

Comments

[Janet Barclay]

Ariane, it's true that Twitter shorthand can be hard to understand, especially when people try to cram too much into those 140 characters. In some ways, Facebook is a lot more user-friendly, but where you may get fewer ads, you get more drivel like Farmville, and that drives me even more crazy!

You've raised an interesting question about whether personality type influences a person's preferred social media platform. I don't know whether anyone has studied that specifically, but they did a survey on the MBTI blog on personality types on Twitter http://www.thembtiblog.com/2009/06/updated-what-is-most-common-mbti.html and there's another interesting conversation taking place at http://www.trainingreality.co.uk/blog/Google-wave-and-thoughtless-communication.php so clearly you are onto something!

[Ariane Benefit]

Excellent and very enlightening post Janet! I think you achieved your goal of making Twitter easier for people. But I still like Facebook better : ) Like you said, there are too many ads for me on Twitter. Also, I find that the restriction of 140 characters makes people use so much shorthand that I don't understand what they are saying a lot of the time. Like you said if you don't follow and engage with other's, there's not much point. I also like being able to see people's photos with their post.

Would love to see a study of personality type and how it correlates to people's choice of Twitter or Facebook. Most people seem to prefer one over the other. Any thoughts?

[Janet Barclay]

Tim, I'm glad it was helpful! It took me several months from the time I signed up for Twitter to when I actually figured out how to make good use of it. Now one of my goals is to try and shorten that learning curve for other new users.

Darlene, it wasn't until I looked through my feed specifically to get examples for this post that I realized what a high percentage of the tweets are ads in one form or another. It worries me that the value of Twitter may decline if people just start tuning out the messages altogether. That's why it's so important to engage with others, and not just tweet.

Jeff, thanks for the compliment! My post focuses mainly on business because that's how I use Twitter, but it can also be used to communicate with people with other shared interests, such as hobbies, local events, just about anything really! Feel free to ask if there's any way I can help you use Twitter effectively.

[Jeff]

Great post Janet. I can see now how Twitter would be very helpful if you had a business. From your Tweets I see you are using it quite well! Thanks for the info! Keep up the great work.

[Darlene]

Great post, I have been on twitter now for about six months and I know that everyone is selling something to me. They all want the same thing and then it is fun to just throw something enlightening in the tweet, along with maybe, the name of your product.

[Tim]

Therran and Janet hit this right on the head. Congrats both of you for letting us know more about social media and everything that revolves around it. I love your 10 steps. I have just started to use twitter and from here on in I will be utilizing your techniques.

Thank you

[Janet Barclay]

Melodee, just be thankful I couldn't come up with two more examples! :)

Anne, I know just what you mean. I think of all the social media platforms, Twitter may be the hardest to figure out. Everyone seems to use it differently, and there's so much information out there that it's next to impossible to digest it all before you have some actual experience under your belt. Of course, the fact that they keep changing things doesn't help either!

Since getting started is the hardest part, I'm hoping this post will help some people (maybe Melodee?) get their feet wet.

[Anne Blumer]

Janet, Thank you for such a clear explanation of how to and how not to use twitter. Great tips--wish I had know these when I first started tweeting!

[Melodee Patterson]

Great explanation of the different types of tweets, Janet. One of these days I just might give Twitter a try :-)

Silly question - can you say the title of this post 3 times, fast?

[Janet Barclay]

Therran, I noticed your post while I was working on mine, and was much relieved to see that we weren't covering the same ground!

Your post provides a much more comprehensive explanation of what I refer to here as Tweet Type #9, so the two do go hand in hand very nicely. Thanks so much for your comment.

[Therran Oliphant]

Love the post, Janet. I think it gives a clear descritpion and explanation of how people use Twitter. I am often confronted by people in my organization saying how dumb they think it is, because they don't get the conversations. That is usually followed by, "it doesn't make sense to me, why this is valuable."

Check out my post about valueing the Retweets! http://www.communitymarketingblog.com/my_weblog/2009/12/social-media-roi-via-retweets-and-forwards.html.html

They could be used in conjuction, to bring people up to speed with how and why!