I’m not going to explain the usual Twitter advice about needing to engage people in an open, honest, transparent, and timely manner to succeed. Blah blah blah. Duh duh duh. You know this already. I’m going to tell you about what you need, down and dirty style, to master Twitter.
1 Imperviousness
You will make enemies and piss people off on Twitter. If you don’t, then you’re not using Twitter’s full potential. Some people are looking for fights. Many people will tweet things to you on Twitter that they would never say to you in person. You should develop imperviousness, ignore these attacks, and keep on tweeting. You cannot make everyone happy on Twitter, so don’t even try.
2 Curiosity
The way Twitter works changes all the time. Sometimes Twitter explains the changes. Sometimes the changes just happen. If you want to stay on top of Twitter, you need to frequently run experiments and to see if you can improve your results. For example, post at different times, repeat your posts, include bigger pictures. Pictures preview at 2:1 ratio or they don’t show the whole image. You can’t stop experimenting.
3 Skepticism
Many “social-media experts” will tell you how to use Twitter. They phrase their recommendations as if they “know” what’s happening. Truly, at best, they are guessing—often they are repeating what another “expert” said. (And before you even ask, this includes advice from me.) There is no right and wrong on Twitter; there is only what works for you at a moment in time. {click to tweet}
Power tip: Be especially skeptical of advice from anyone who has fewer followers or tweets than you.
4 Humility
Finding great content is difficult and time-consuming. Eventually, you will realize that other people can find great content too—perhaps even better than you. At that point, you should re-tweet other people’s tweets in order to provide content to your followers and to acknowledge the originators of the tweets. Focus on great content—don’t be proud about how you found it. Other people may point out your mistakes and better ways to do things, graciously accept this help too.
5 Diligence
Succeeding on Twitter is hard work, and the payoff is often ill-defined. If you want to use Twitter as a way to build your personal or corporate band and to use it as a marketing platform, it will take at least one year of working two to three hours per day. This is less than the 10,000-hour theory of Malcolm Gladwell, but the process requires great diligence.
To succeed on Twitter, you need to pay the price—like any other skill worth acquiring.{click to tweet} Don’t let anyone tell you that this is easy but don’t let anyone tell you that it can’t be done either. Now you know what no one else will tell you, and with eyes wide open, you can begin the process.
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