Good tweeters

I arrived at an obvious conclusion the other day: Some people are really good at using Twitter.

And I don’t mean that they have a large audience. The number of followers is actually a poor proxy for how good someone is at Twitter. For instance, many people are quick to follow a celebrity profile just because they’re famous, and not because they have particularly insightful tweets.

Good tweeters create real value for their followers. Their tweets are routinely interesting enough that people momentarily pause to read them while scrolling their timeline. Good tweeters don’t necessarily have an enormous audience. But it’s clear by the relative level of engagement—comments, likes, and retweets—that they’re providing real value to the people who follow their account.

I am terrible at using Twitter. Partly because I’m mildly allergic to most social media platforms. Deep down I’m shy and have always been reluctant to engage in online communities. So I haven’t put much time and effort into learning the platform. I just didn’t see much value in doing so.

More recently, that opinion has changed. I’m warming up to the opportunities available on Twitter. Twitter is a fantastic way to meet new people, get inspired, and share new ideas. Even with a modest following, if you’ve built enough trust and credibility online, people will pay attention to what you have to say, granted that it’s interesting and/or helpful to them.

So last week I purchased a Twitter course in hopes to improve my prose with 240 characters. It didn’t teach me cheap hacks to gain more followers. Instead, I learned what was intuitive from the beginning. Being good on Twitter boils down to three things:

1. Establish credibility
2. Give before you ask
3. Don’t be boring

After that, all that matters is being consistent. You get better at Twitter just like anything else—by showing up and doing the work.

With a grand total of 66 followers, I’m essentially invisible on Twitter today. However, I’m convinced that I can get better at with practice. If you’re curious to follow along, you can do so here.