Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? YouTube? What should a beginner to social media try first? Better yet, does any of this stuff really work? Should I bother? You’ll also likely ask: “I hear so much about ROI online, and that social media has the worst metrics, doesn’t convert – what’s all the brew-ha-ha?”.

We’ll attempt to share some practical tips to Twitter specifically in this post, and address other questions over time. However, social media is here to stay, super easy to use, and ROI (return on ignorance) is your biggest enemy. Get started today, and congratulations – you have a chance to input comments and questions in this blog, and we’ll be happy to address your concerns.

Social media is a tool, and not a religion. It’s a listening and conversation tool, there are really very few rules – and technology allows you to engage on global level. Think of yourself visiting and dining (if you’re cool) at the super-duper exciting  and fun “BBQ party of the globe”!

You have awesome platforms to share your thoughts and tips, news, humor, controversial posts, and be a publisher of information. This can be from you directly, or sending other people’s information and / or Re-Tweeting (word of mouse activities) their information. It’s not hard to do.

We have an issue in our current time. Folks are afraid to hang out with each other, but we all have a need to belong. Well, you don’t have to be the dirty ‘ol guy in the dance-club, you can join the party at any time, and share how you please. (Note: but, don’t be an ass).

Twitter is a great place to light the fire, and you can send your followers around your network, and others. More on that later.

So, how do you start?

(After you have set up the account in your OWN name (and also company name if you are an employee there), added a nice clean picture (avatar) with a great smile, looking straight into the camera, and with a kick-ass, fun bio, you’ll be ready. You can add backgrounds and other “icing” later).

1. Start by listening. Use http://search.twitter.com and start typing your keywords and brand (company) names of your marketplace, including competitors. See what they are talking about. Use related words, and another things you can think of.  Don’t worry about following people at this stage, but start taking notes, and write down the ones @xxx that you see more than once in a given day or time period. Do this for at least a day or two, noticing trends and keywords that keep coming up. Don’t stop either.
2. Start following. Pick the top 10-20 people in your marketplace that you find interesting, and have a “repeat” schedule into the twitter streams. These are active people. Check out their blogs and sites, to see what they are promoting. If it’s just a “thin” link stream with a bunch of offers to sell stuff, drop them, or bookmark for later re-visits.  You simple click the “follow” button to do this.  Keep this up, and try to do 10-20 a day for 30 days.
3. Start conversing. In the first week, and now that you are familiar with the ‘active’ ones, getting a sense for the chatter, start engaging in the conversation. If you follow the ‘right’ people, and you ask questions, you’ll quickly notice responses. You may find something they said interesting, and make a comment, either directly into the Tweet stream, or go to their blog and engage there. If you think “I am a value provider of information”, you’ll get far. Oh, and there are no “stupid” questions, no “right or wrong”, so drop your MBA at the door, and just do it!
4. Start Re-Tweeting. Nothing gets you further than flattery. A distribution of somebody else’s comments/links using their name will place you high in the socialsphere on Twitter. In fact, there are folks in Twitterverse that 95% of the time use RT’s (Re-Tweets) solely as their strategy for building the ultimate online: “know, like & trust”.
5. Business Building. As you start moving through this activity (1-2 hours a week to start), you’ll notice that people will begin to ask what you do, or check out your profile, etc. You’ll notice visits from Twitter as a referrer to your website in your Analytics (Google Analytics, GetClicky.com), and you can check where they go on your site, how long they stay, etc. As you build this reputation for yourself, and continue growing your trust-network, it’ll be easy to send traffic and your visitors to wherever you please. If you are building a list, send them to a custom landing page. If you want to further the conversation, have them test or proofread materials (exclusive to your list, limited, urgency and scarcity included), you’ll notice a pretty big change in 30 days. Think quality, not quantity.

When you follow people, studies have shown that 1-3pm during the day works best (in terms of people following back), and 8-11pm at night. Weekends from 6-11pm works magic. However, all should be tested.  You can track lots of detail using tools like hootsuite.com (more advanced), budurl.com and others. Even Twitter has a tracking/shortening service you can try.

Lastly, to the point of a “Value Tweeter“: Some of the pros think about “how to make people’s lives better” (30% of the time), “how to’s for your niche market” (10%), “my own blatant, self promo stuff” (5% of the time), and the rest? Well, “fun and interesting” (55%).

Lack ideas of content you can use?

You can get ideas from StuffToTweet.com, if you have no clue on where to find content.  Then, go to blogsearch.google.com and find interesting blogs within your niche, and start following the RSS feeds (Google Reader, anyone?), and Tweet those out, as you check them every morning.  You can set up Google Alerts for these blogs and keywords and get content sent to you email in-box every day, if you so choose.

What experiences have you had with Twitter, and what’s your top 3 most burning questions?