When I first signed up for Twitter back in mid-2008 I didn’t really take it seriously. My view was that it was a toy and one that I intended to have a bit of fun with. I didn’t really think that it would turn into what it did. I certainly didn’t think it would be such an amazing source of information, nor did I expect it to give me contact with so many smart and interesting people.

The idea of investing so much time in a stream of text-bites that are no more than 140 characters long seems a bit absurd. That’s certainly what I felt when I first signed up. How could a meaningful discussion be had? Why is it any better than the likes of IRC? Why would I use it for anything than fire-and-forget with a goal of having a laugh?

When I first started, I felt like I was just doing a Facebook-style status update. I can guarantee that my first Tweets were uninteresting noise; the kind you can find in most people’s Twitter feeds even now. I did make a point of avoiding the kind of updates that Penny Arcade were having fun with at the time.

After an initial flurry where I played with the site and a few different clients I started to settle down and focus on a few topics that I was interested in. After following those topics for a while I slowly but surely found networks of people – smart people – who posted really interesting content. The content would often come in the form of a link with a tiny opinion alongside it which added to my ability to filter out the stuff I would and wouldn’t want to read.

It didn’t take long for Twitter to start making my RSS subscriptions a little cumbersome. The links and news were so fresh that the idea of using something that didn’t feel as “soft real-time” seemed like a waste of time. I felt that I had somehow landed on a more reliable source of information that was being filtered by people that I respected.

Being a sometimes vocal person in the technology world I thought I’d best do my bit to contribute to this new form of information sharing. While I kept up the fun side of using Twitter I put more time and effort into sharing the content I had found, passing on other people’s Tweets, adding my own short summation of the information being shared.

It took about 6 months for me to really realise the power that Twitter was giving me. I had, on many occasions, managed to get access to very influential people who work in or on the technology platforms that I was working with. I received personalised help, if not directly on Twitter then via email after a brief Twitter conversation. I was able to reach many people, varying from beginners through to experts, who were actively engaged in learning about languages and technologies, and having contact with those people helped me learn even more about what I was working with.

Twitter was a gold mine of information, and not just technical.

So is Twitter a muck-around tool? Perhaps for some is it, but for me it is way more. Should you use it? I think so, particularly if you’re a geek.

If you do decide to get stuck in and sign up for Twitter, or if you’ve got an account already but don’t feel you’re getting the most out of it, here are a few things that I highly recommend you do:

1. Fill out your bio and add a link to a meaningful website.
2. Make use of the hashtag searches. This facility will make it really easy for you to connect with people who are interested in the same topics as you.
3. Use hashtags yourself in you Tweets to make them visible to that same group of people.
4. Listen in on other people’s conversations. Browse through the threads as they’re often littered with interesting an valuable information.
5. Don’t but into discussions or make noise unless you really do have something valuable to say. In other words, add signal and not noise (yes, I should practise what I’m preaching here).
6. Don’t be scared to be yourself, you’ll find that it’ll be easier for others to garner respect for you.
7. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion and be honest.
8. Don’t worry about offending or being offended.
9. Don’t feel obliged to follow people back just because they’ve followed you, and vice versa. Twitter isn’t Facebook or Linked In.
10. Make sure you spend time once a week going through your followers and removing any spammers. When people first discover you on Twitter they’ll look at your bio, your site and your followers. The last thing you want others to think is that you’re a spammer yourself, or are closely associated with spammers.

Oh, and enjoy yourself! Have fun with it. You’ll learn way more and engage more people if you do.

You can add me too if you like (no pressure).

PS. This post is, at least in part, a response to a question that Lisa posted just a few days ago. Feel free to share your own story with her if you feel like it.