10 tips to help you start your twitter account


I will be the first to admit it, twitter is not as easy as it looks. If you look at it on the surface it can be hard to find your particular part of it all. Unlike Facebook where new friends, pages and groups are constantly suggested, twitter can sometimes be a one man island. Yes twitter has the “who to follow” feature but these are usually celebrities who are unlikely to follow you back at first. Without the right strategies Twitter can be a very lonely place.

The second reason many of us struggle with Twitter if the feeling that we need to be tweeting at least 3-4 times a day. Something that is uncommon on other social media platforms. Whether we admit to it or not this can be a bit overwhelming. There is nobody out there saying we actually need to do this but at the same time it’s not too hard. A tweet has a limit of 140 characters, many of us would text that before leaving the house in the morning.

What I often hear is “How can I tweet every day, when I have nothing to tweet about?” This is one of the most common reasons for people soon losing interest in twitter. Yes this is a problem. Not having anything to tweet about is the social media equivalent to being on a debate team of a language you don’t understand. Like a debate, social media and the web as a whole is all about trading ideas. So here are 10 ways you can be inspired to tweet more and getting your twitter life up and running.

Step 1: Follow your friends, family and co-workers
As mentioned above Twitter can be a lonely place, without friends, family and work mates. So why not change that? Ask people on other social media platforms to follow you. Ask your friends when you meet them in person. Ask the postman, it doesn't really matter. The idea is to follow people you are interested in and in return are interested in you. A common short cut to finding people you know on twitter can be done on the site itself. All it takes is one account to get you started. This technique is to go into your friends account and see who they are following. They are more than likely following people you also know. Now that you have found them, follow them and suddenly watch your network grow. A piece of advice would be to change your profile picture to a picture of yourself just so people know it’s you.

Step 2: Follow celebrities you are interested in
Now that you have found every Tom, Dick, and Harry from your own circle, it’s now time to go further and take things to the global stage. If you are a buddingentrepreneur you can follow Richard Branson
 (@richardbranson). Sports fans can follow maybe famous sport stars such as WayneRooney (@WayneRooney) and LeBron James (@KingJames). Not to mention hundreds of music stars and actors. If all that stardust was not enough for you why not take a trip into space with NASA (@NASA). There is something for everybody in the world of twitter and all this can be done by just typing a name into the search bar.


Step 3: Get news instantly
Social media is often seen as a time consumer, but when it comes to news and current affairs Twitter will give you a chance to get news instantly. First we had word of mouth, then newspapers. Next it was websites and now social media. By following newspapers such as The Guardian (@Guardian) and news stations such as the BBC (@BBCBreaking) information will be tweeted in your home page. You don’t even need to go to the effort of looking at the website anymore. You can simple click on the link of any tweet that peaks your interest.

Step 4: Figure out what your niche is
You have followed everybody and everything, you have an interest in. With that you are now getting bulldozed with a lot of great content. At this stage you may not have realised what your niche is, in other words where your interests lie. Have a look at the tweets coming into your home page.
What themes and topics are popping up most often? When you figure this out you are ready to join the conversationand get tweeting.
Step 5: Have your own voice
There are thousands if not millions of interesting people on Twitter. All of them are trading ideas and opinions. It is now time to get involved yourself. You can start by Re-tweeting others but in the long run it is better to tweet yourself every now and then. Find an interesting article? Tweet it. See a funny picture? Tweet it. You get the idea. There will always be room for a personal element to a social media account, but be careful what information you share about yourself. It is advised not
to tweet out your address, phone number or travel plans. It would be best to hold back posting those pictures until you get home from the week in Italy.

Step 6: Get involved with hashtags
A hashtag is simply a way for people to search for tweets that share a common topic. A fun fact is that they are not case sensitive. Hashtags have three main purposes. First of all they can be used as an alternative way of telling people what you are talking about. For example instead of tweeting “I really enjoyed the Kodaline concert. You can tweet “I really enjoyed the concert last night. #Kodaline” By using the hashtag, your tweet will be visible to anybody who searches “Kodaline” on twitter even if they do not follow you. Thirdly a hashtag (#) gives you the opportunity to join the conversations of trending topics anywhere in the world. Again this opens your account up to people who do not follow you.


Step 7 : Use your mobile
According to the Wall Street Journal Twitter account, 86% of Twitter uses use the site via mobile devices. Twitter mobile is very easy to use as tweets are no more than 140 characters. Even the smallest of screens will not become overwhelmed and overcrowded by content. You can also read all of your personal/direct messages without leaving the app. A criticism of social media rival Facebook.


Step 9: Add more colour
It’s not a must but after a while a bland lookingprofile can get a bit boring for both you and your
followers. Twitter gives you an option of changingyour cover photo (the photo behind your profile
picture) as well as changing the theme colour. You can take this further but even these few steps can
jazz up a profile in a very positive manner.


Step 10: Enjoy
Twitter is all about being social, and usually something social is a lot of fun. So go out and tweet till your hearts content, make a few friends and just enjoy everything one of the world’s most popular websites has to offer.

Written by Diarmuid Gillingham