As a self employed marketing professional working from home, it isn’t always easy keeping up with the latest trends. When I first heard of Twitter, I thought the same thing as a lot of people – Is it just a bunch of status updates? So in other words, it’s like a mini Facebook that tells me what everyone had for lunch? Well… Not at all!! I’ve been tweeting for about a month and I must admit I’m definitely not an expert but I’m starting to get it. Here’s what I’ve learnt so far, the things I still don’t get and other useless thoughts.

1. Decide on your goals for using Twitter. For my situation, I’m using Twitter to connect with other entrepreneurs. Facebook is for personal social networking (sharing pics, social events, status updates on how I’m feeling, what I’m doing, my thoughts on Heidi and Spencer.) I admit I get more from followers than I give but I try to share news on marketing/pop culture/graphic design/mompreneurs. One of my favorite tweeters tweets about twitter http://twitter.com/mashable

2. Quality over Quantity. Don’t automatically follow anyone who follows you. People obviously add as many people as they can just so you will reciprocate and follow them. Soon after, they delete you. It’s not a contest to see who will get the most follows (except for Ashton vs. CNN – that was a contest). Make sure you check out your new followers before you agree to follow them. 

3. If you don’t have anything to say, don’t Tweet (but you can Retweet). When you’re desperate, that’s when you start to tell people what you had for lunch. Since everyone has a different group of followers, don’t be afraid to retweet something you find interesting. Just put RT”username”.  Ultimately, I think Twitter is about sharing information and opinions so share share share, just give credit where it’s due.

4. TweetDeck is a great tool. It helps organize those you follow as well as Facebook updates. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date. http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

Now what I don’t quite get. Twitter is a global community and I want to follow anyone I find interesting but it gets too much. As it get bigger and bigger, it needs to be better organized. You should be able to group your followers like on Tweetdeck. I have about 4 very distinct groups that I follow – entrepreneurs, moms, friends and celebrities. These are times I’m in “work-mode” and want to read business tweets. And there are times I just want to know what people think of Jon & Kate. Or perhaps I know of a local event that I only want to tweet to local followers.

I also find the replies quite confusing. There should be a way to turn off your followers’ replies (or is there and I don’t know). I also think new users are probably overwhelmed and most people don’t have the time or patience to figure it out. I’m sure there are many many inactive Twitter accounts just from people who sign up and that’s it.

With Blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, uploading, downloading, retweeting, emailing, enewsletters, and trendspotting, I don’t have any time left to actually work. With that said… that’s all for now.