expertSEM

Tarla and I attended the Colorado AMA luncheon last month and we were lucky enough to listen in on Joel Comm’s Twitter wisdom. One of the most interesting pieces of knowledge we took away from this talk was The Art of the Tweet. According to Joel, there are 13 different types of tweets that show up in peoples Twitter account. I will briefly recap these below.

1) Ask questions

2) Provide answers

*3) Pithy sayings such as quotes, word of the day, etc.

4) Share news – it is clear that Twitter can act as a source for breaking news

5) Provide links – news, photos, videos, etc.

6) Give compliments – because everyone loves them!

7) Retweet (RT) generously – it is the newest form of flattery

8 ) Recommend others to follow

9) Use media – audio, video, photo

*10) Mundane info

11) Contests and giveaways

12) Market yourself – either blatant or subtle (or a healthy dose of both)

13) Help – use Twitter as a support desk

If you paid attention, you would have noticed I placed an asterisk (*) beside pithy sayings and mundane info. These are those tweets that literally answer the question, “What are you doing?” These tweets can be a great way to get to know your fellow tweeters or a prime target for future blackmail, depending on how you look at it.

When we were discussing these different types of tweets in the office,  a very interesting point was made. We welcome pithy sayings and mundane info but if this is the only content you provide, you may get un-followed. There are accounts that promise to deliver nothing but humor, such as Chuck Norris jokes or that one guys dad, but I would guess the majority of accounts are on Twitter to deliver something more.

I follow people based on a few factors, but the most important ones come from the profile and last tweets. If I see in your profile you are in marketing and that you like dogs, I am going to expect tweets about marketing and cute photos of your dog eating your slippers. I do realize that you can’t sum up your entire life in 140 characters or less so venturing outside of that tiny box is to be expected. However, when you go months without sharing anything that was listed in your profile, I may start to lose interest or question why I followed you in the first place.

I suppose the lesson to take away from this (besides the 13 listed above) is to use your profile to let people know who you are and what you are going to tweet about. Don’t promise one thing and then deliver something completely different.

Your turn – do you enjoy a mixture in your tweet stream or do you prefer to keep it straight business (or pleasure). What factors do you use when deciding whether to follow someone? Would you be disappointed if a person’s profile listed one thing and then that person never tweeted about it? Let us know in your comments below.