Over the last few days I’ve provided some pointers to help you get started on Twitter. If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably signed up for an account, created your profile, sent out a few tweets, and found a few people to follow. What you do from now on is going to depend on what you hope to achieve from using Twitter and the amount of time you are prepared to spend on this activity. Since that will vary from person to person, and each individual’s strategies will likely evolve over time, I’m going to wrap up this series with a few general pointers.

Like many online activities Twitter can be quite addictive, so I highly recommend that you set a schedule and stick to it. You might want to set aside one or two blocks of time during your day, or you might want to check in for a few minutes several times throughout the day. Set a timer if you need to, to ensure that you don’t spend more time on Twitter than you should. Keep in mind that many tweets include links to blog posts or other web pages, so you’ll need time to read some of those.

There are many tools available to help you manage the way you use Twitter, and Bridget Ayers has compiled an excellent list of Get Smart Twitter Tools. I’ve only tried out a few, but the one I’ve found most useful is TweetDeck.

Working within the Twitter website can be overwhelming, especially if you’re following a large number of people, but with TweetDeck you can mark tweets as read and clear them off your screen, making it easier to keep track of those you still want to read. In addition, you can also reply to a tweet or retweet it simply by clicking a button, and it has a built in function to shorten URLs when a link will make your tweet exceed the 140 characters allowed. One other valuable function is the ability to create groups, which lets you separate tweets from certain people so they won’t get overlooked. I’m still experimenting, but I’ve set up three groups:

• News: allows me to monitor the headlines so I have a general awareness of what’s going on. Then, if something grabs my interest, I can click on the link to read the story.
• Personal Contacts: clients and other people that I actually know. Of course I want to stay on top of what they’re posting!
• Brilliant Minds: people who consistently post great information related to my areas of interest.

For such a simple tool, there is so much to learn about Twitter! There’s at least one blog that is devoted exclusively to Twitter tips, appropriately named TwiTip. There have even been entire books written about it! For examples, simply go to Amazon.com or Amazon.ca and search on “Twitter”.

If you have questions that I haven’t addressed, please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try my best to answer it.

I look forward to connecting with you on Twitter!