10 Ways to Really Enjoy Twitter

Twitter is a compelling social media service with all kinds of benefits for different people. But Twitter can also be a time-suck, productivity-killer and brain-musher if used improperly or too much. Here are 10 ways to enjoy Twitter without going overboard:

1. Recognize you don’t have to be on Twitter all the time. When you’re in the zone and have the personal and professional cycles, by all means get your fix. But if you’re busy, it’s okay to walk away because Twitter will still be rumbling along when you get back. It’s a parade that never ends so if you miss something, you miss something.

2. Make a contribution: It’s good to give and receive. In fact, offering advice or providing updates on interesting blog posts, online services and newsworthy events lets you make a contribution to the Twitter ecosystem. In some ways, it also helps justify the time you spent using Twitter.

3. Use Twitter to replace or complement your RSS reader: Given the growing amount of digital noise, effective filters are increasingly important. By building a good group of people to follow, you’re also putting in place a system that helps decide what’s the most important and interesting things in cyberspace.

4. Walk away from Twitter.com. Instead, use a service/software such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic or Hootsuite, which provide a user-friendly view of the Twitter landscape or, at least, the part of the landscape that matters to you. Create some columns with pre-determined keywords to find what you need quicky.

5. Take a Twitter holiday. Twitter can be all-consuming and mentally taxing so it makes sense from time to time to simply not use it. Don’t think about it using, just do other things. If this isn’t an option, then shut down your Twitter application for a couple of hours each day.

6. “Favorite” interesting items rather than trying to check out everything semi-intriguing in your live stream. This gives you the luxury of reading items when when you have the time.

7. When it comes to people to follow, it’s about quality over quantity. Sure, there are people who follow thousands of people but it’s impossible to really follow someone when there’s so much traffic comes down the road. You’ll be better off following fewer people who bring it on a regular basis.

8. It’s okay to read but not write, or retweet but not tweet. You don’t have to tweet every day. Instead, let others do the “dirty work” while you enjoy their efforts.

9. If you blog, give it as much TLC as Twitter. When use in parallel, blogs and Twitter provide a nice and healthy balance to your social media existence. Blogs make you think about what you write, Twitter is an impulse buy.

10. Be helpful and answer questions that other people ask. It will not only make you feel good but give your some “points” to ask questions in return.

For more thoughts about “Twitter Zen”, check out The Freelance Rant.

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