Over the years, I have been a public naysayer of the value of Twitter.  It was approximately one year ago that I called the messaging platform "creepy" on this blog.  I felt like Twitter needed more privacy and features, more loyal members to build a critical mass of usage, and less saturation of valueless content.  Relative to social media vehicles like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, I thought Twitter would be best used by major brands or celebrities to find an unfiltered alternative to the outdated and costly model of offering periodic newsletter subscriptions.

In December, I decided I would give Twitter another shot.  I realized that my own personal use of the service was not very exemplary.  On @simonmutlu, I muse about a variety of subjects and regretfully contribute to the online "noise" of self-centered content.  I was using that handle for shouting into a vacuum rather than gathering an audience and facilitating discussions.  Thus, I thought I should create a second Twitter account to experiment with best practices to see what would transpire.  On December 5th, 2009 (as I was checking in for the Santa Barbara Marathon), @we_run was born.  Here are some things that I have learned during the past six months:

• Pick a short handle - Why did I call it @we_run?  The idea was to pick a handle short enough to be retweeted easily.  If your amazingly viral message takes up 115 out of the allotted 140 characters and your Twitter name is @NorthernCaliforniaWindsurfingExtraordinaire, trust me, you won't be credited in any retweets.

• Stick to one subject - On my @simonmutlu account, I follow a lot of worst practices when it comes to this point.  One day, I might talk about Salesforce.com and a customer relationship management consultant will start following me, hoping I will have something valuable to say about CRM in the future.  The next day, I might talk about my power numbers on my bike and the following day, I'll repost a link to an eMarketer article that I found interesting.  To be honest, I don't know why anybody follows @simonmutlu.  I would have unsubscribed from myself a long time ago out of frustration or boredom!

• Say something valuable - Whether you are on Twitter, writing a blog post or simply talking to your spouse, there is a big difference between conversing and emoting.  Does the whole world need to know that you are tired, hungry, or wearing your favorite scarf?  Surely, not even your friends truly care about those things, but strangers will divorce you altogether after a rogue post like that.  Before you announce something to the twitterverse, first use the acronym HEART: Is your post going to be humorous, educational, affirmative, retweetable and/or timely?  The majority of your followers want to be entertained or they are looking for advice, news and encouragement.  Stop your tweets that are lacking HEART before they happen.

• It's not a numbers game - I started my Twitter adventure with the notion that I had to amass as many followers as possible.  I thought that numbers equated to influence or success, which is the same trap that many direct marketers fall into with their newspaper distribution or email subscribers.  Followers are easy to count and they look good in marketing reports, but they are an indirect success metric.  If you simply want numbers on Twitter, I have a magic formula for you:  for every 100 potentially interested people you follow (for example, for @we_run, the potentially interested people are runners), 60 of them will follow you back.  @we_run has 1,200 followers right now.  If I wanted to build that number to 2,000, I'd simply need to go to @runnersworld's subscriber list (posted publicly) and follow another 1,300 of their readers.  Why would I do that, though?  If everybody blindly follows everybody else, it's like a bunch of ships rising with the tide.  The boats are still at the same level relative to each other, but the additional water (in this analogy, content) simply creates "noise."  You don't need 1,000,000 followers...you just need a manageable number of truly engaged ones.

• Stop namedropping - There are a lot of people on Twitter who are name-droppers and hashtag whores.  They think that adding a lot of high-follower account names and trending hashtags will help new people find them.   They're probably right.  However, how would you feel if, in casual conversation, your friends continually referred to a cousin's former roommate who was remotely famous ten years ago?  I do believe that hashtags can be a great way for people to find each other (at a trade show, or following a particular topic, for example).  It's just excessive or disingenuous use that turns me off. 

• Consolidation is a service - There is much more information on the Internet than any of us have time to read, and the summarization of headlines and truncation of content is always valuable.  Twitter is no different.   I am a happy follower of @retailretweets, an account that simply summarizes the top news in the retail sector.  I also enjoy @runningtimes, where Rodale Press (parent company of Runner's World and Running Times, among other magazines) publishes unique headlines for serious runners.  Along those lines, more than half of my tweets for @we_run are retweets of accounts that I follow.  Why don't my followers simply subscribe to all of the sources from which I gather my information?  The simple answer is that they don't want to.  Having me consolidate, summarize and (in many cases) repair grammar errors makes it easier to follow @we_run than to befriend every runner on Twitter.

• Still, have something original to say - You can retweet interesting headlines and posts, but you still need to offer a perspective and some expertise to your followers to keep them interested.  As a runner and a running coach, it's easy for me to find topics and tips to deliver to my audience.  It all goes back to the HEART acronym...if you are being humorous, educational, affirmative, retweetable and timely, your jokes, tips, encouragement and news will be well received.

• Dialogs, not monologues - Sure, tweeting doesn't provide the same kind of instant feedback that speaking to a live person does.  That doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities to interact.  A couple of weeks ago, a friend was considering running skirts, a subject which I know nothing about.  I asked my female followers for their reviews of different ones.  The other day, a friend asked me about ultramarathons (running races between 31 miles and 100 miles long).  Again, I was not an expert, but at least 50 of my followers are, so I asked them for guidance.  Try to ask your audience questions, and be sure to respond when they talk to you.  The same rules that applied in kindergarten are pertinent on Twitter: acknowledge people, be congenial, thank them and help them.

• Tweeps are people, too - Twitter is simply a platform by which people can converse in short phrases.  The technology doesn't change the fact that they have families, careers, hobbies and homes.  By tweeting about a particular subject, you will find a lot of people with whom you have something important in common, but ask them about their perspective on other topics as well.  I have had the opportunity to meet a few followers in person, and they are exceptional people who happen to enjoy running, too.  Many of them are also excellent writers, which makes their blogs, articles and books just as interesting as their tweets.  This is one area where getting to know a few great people is better than building an army of disengaged followers.