Providing Value On Twitter

So now that I've told you what NOT to do when it comes to Twitter... you might be wondering,
“what should I tweet about?”

This is an example of one of my tweets when The Open Education Project went live;

Just as with your blog, website, and forum posts, your main goal should be to provide value. If you can manage to do that, you're golden!

Here are easy ways to provide value that don't take much effort at all:

Retweet an interesting update from someone that you're following.

Offer links to free and interesting stuff, like articles, pictures, and videos (not all your own stuff).

Comment on current events / news.

Post funny/profound/inspiring quotes.

Tweet about interesting things that happened in your day or upcoming events that you're excited about. (actual things that your followers will be interested in, not the new episode of American Idol airing tonight.... unless your niche is American Idol of course!)

Find something on Digg, Stumbleupon, etc. that really catches your attention. Write a blog post about it first, and then link to your blog post in your tweet. This way, instead of linking directly to the source, you're linking to your own blog. If it's something really neat it may go viral, causing a potential hurricane of traffic.

After you have been on Twitter for a while, look at your tweet history. Are you selling too hard? Not selling enough? Are you providing value with your tweets or just rambling on about random stuff every day?

Would YOU follow yourself?

Analyze your tweets carefully and modify your strategy accordingly. Just as with a PPC campaign, monitor, track, and make changes as needed.