Jeremy Spiller.

With the UK in the grip of Twitter fever, after Stephen Fry’s now legendary tweets while stuck in a lift, now would seem a good time to offer a few tips on how to get started with Twitter.

For those who are not quite sure what all the commotion is about, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform which asks participants one simple question: ‘What are you doing?’ You can post information on what you’re doing, watching, reading, listening to or, even, thinking but all answers must be within 140 characters. Your posts can be sent via mobile phone text, instant message, or the web.

‘Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter's success. People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple,’ according to the sites founders, who sum up the concept like this: ‘In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens – from breaking world news to updates from friends.’

Tip One

As soon you start using Twitter, download a good client application which will greatly enhance your experience. My personal favourite is Tweetdeck which allows you to set up customised columns to sub-divide the Tweets you receive into manageable categories like real-world friends, customers, celebrities and so on. Then, I would recommend setting up an app which tells you about your new followers and unfollowers. My favourite is Social Too which tells me this by email every day. 

Tip Two

If you don’t want to annoy people I would strongly recommend not using the auto Direct Message feature in some apps including Social Too. This is a feature which automatically mails people when they follow you. It is now considered by many on Twitter as spam.

Tip Three

You’ll also you need analytics and a site I can recommend is twitter-friends. This is an excellent website where you can find all sorts of useful information about your own and other people’s behaviour on Twitter.

Tip Four

It’s worth thinking about what your follow strategy is going to be. Some people automatically follow everyone who follows them; some are more choosy, manually looking carefully at the people who follow them and then deciding whether to follow them back. Some people, generally celebrities or well-known institutions, follow very few people. My advice on this is to do whatever you’re comfortable with.

Tip Five

Early on, look for people you already know in the real world to follow. It’s probable that many are already using Twitter and by mutually following each other you will be able to stay in close contact by public conversation or through the system of direct messaging.

Twitter: 140 words or less.

Tip Six

When you start and are only following a few people, some people will seem to fill your time line with multiple tweets. My advice here is to look for more people that you’d like to follow, and then follow them. You can find people to follow from those people your friends are following. As you follow more people you will find some which are very interesting, while others are less so. You can filter these through an app such as the previously mentioned Tweetdeck.

For business reasons I find @zaibatsu and @mashable excellent and a few of my favourites for fun are @darthvader, @cdarwin, @apod, @jodrellbank and @DAVID_LYNCH, but there are many others.

Tip Seven

To gain more followers, put your Twitter id wherever you can. It can be added to blog posts, forum posts, in your LinkedIn profile, and in the signature of your email as well as many other places. This will encourage people to follow you. 

Tip Eight

There are many styles of tweeting and the best advice is just to be yourself. I’ve read many fascinating things through Twitter, but there are also the small things that people tweet about in their day to day lives that are also often interesting. Conversations start up about almost anything and following these can be intriguing and fun.
My advice when tweeting is not to sell anything overtly but rather become a part of the community and general conversation by offering useful advice and a positive contribution. Ifyou’re reading something interesting, then tweet about it and, if you’re lucky, people may Retweet (RT) it. Also, RT other people’s tweets. Having someone RT your tweets is good because it’s likely that many others will see your tweet and start following you.

Tip Nine

As the number of people you follow grows, it becomes impossible to read every tweet from all your followers – but I think to try to do so is missing the point. By using Tweetdeck, you can filter in or out whatever you like but, even when doing this, it becomes impossible to read everything of interest. Using Tweetdeck, I filter out the people and organisations I find most interesting and the people I know.

Tip Ten

Enjoy yourself. Like many, I joined Twitter because I thought it might help my business and it has in many ways, including some I didn’t expect it to. The experience so far has been very enjoyable. I’ve tweeted with some interesting people all over the world and learned about and read a great deal, and will be continuing to do so.

If you would like to follow me, you can here: www.twitter.com/jeremyspiller. Jeremy Spiller is managing director of White Hat Media, .

You can also follow editor Nick de Cent via www.twitter.com/NickdeCent and publisher Neil Warren via www.twitter.com/NeilWarren.

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