1 – Choose a good avatar – I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, an actual photo of yourself is best, people like to see who they are tweeting with. If you are tweeting for a large business then the logo will be appropriate… sometimes.  However people prefer to “talk” to a face.

2 – Write an interesting bio– write what you are interested in, you are then more likely to get followers with the same interests as yourself and of course people then know you are real. Or just write a witty comment, this also works for me, it makes me want to find out more.

3 – Add a URL of your website, personal blog, LinkedIn, MySpace  – anything that people can see you have an online presence and they can learn a bit more about you.

4 –  Publish your Twitter profile on your blogs, websites anywhere you can, so that those followers have the choice of following you also on Twitter.

5 – Tweet – you need to tweet, tweet things that interest you and followers will come. Try not to be too boring although we all do it.  *Guilty*  I can’t really advise you on what to tweet or how often to tweet as different people like different things but you will work it out eventually.

6 – Retweet – retweet interesting content that you have read, whether it be exciting blogs, website entries, articles  “its called sharing” and if  you share other users tweets then hopefully they will share yours, doesn’t always work that way and it doesn’t matter, you are still sharing. Also people searching for followers will see what you are in to. (I would advise reading the link before you just retweet it and sometimes you might just need to do a little research to make sure its real, its embarrassing RTing something that’s then found out to be fake.)

Example; when you see a tweet that a celebrity has died, don’t just retweet it – Google it!  Or find out where the tweet originated from.

7 –Engage in conversations, that’s what twitter is all about, don’t be frightened to just jump in and chat with people, that is what they want, its why we are there. If what they are tweeting was private they would be talking in DM or another medium.

8 – Reply – reply to your @’s this to me is just good manners, if someone has taken the time to tweet to you then its only fair and decent that you should reply – also to those people that RT your tweets, its polite to say thank you.  Okay, sometimes we all miss tweets or we are not around but most of the time, there is not excuse not to just acknowledge an @ even with just a 😉

9 – Follow people back that interest you – this is maybe a choice thing, some people don’t want to follow lots of users back, they say it hard to keep up with the timeline if you have over a certain number, and they like to keep to a small, personal group. I am not saying you need to follow EVERYONE back, check them out first you are under no obligation.  However, I do think its polite especially if you have had conversations with a person that is following you.  They are good enough to tweet with then they should be good enough to follow.  When you are both following each other it seems more intimate, more of a friendship, and if there are groups of you all following each other, that is when the fun starts!   Also following someone makes them feel valued. There is always a good chance that if you haven’t followed back that you will lose that follower anyway.