Everyone who uses Twitter boasts about what a great tool it is.  So I tried to get into it, I failed.  A few months later I read blog post that inspired me to try again, I failed again.  A few more months later, I learned about # (hashtags to follow things of interest, like a conference or an event).  This was pretty neat, I thought I would try one more time.  This time - it clicked for me. 

Now about four weeks later I have over 400 followers, follow almost that many people, and am usually following at least 3-4 keyword ‘twits' at a time.  Not only is this great distribution for my blog (Active Rain automatically feeds my blog posts to my Twitter account), but I get invaluable streams of real time information and I am brought into a whole new worlds of conversations. 

Now that this Twitter thing has clicked for me, it also clicked why I failed the first times.  I didn't really start with a purpose or a goal of what I wanted to get out of it. 

• Do you want to build a referral network of real estate agents, then connect with other agents, then talk about real estate.
• Do you want to connect with people (potential buyers/sellers) in your community, then connect with this group, talk about the community.
• Do you want to use it socially to keep up with a personal topic of interest, then seek out this community, then talk about this topic.
• Do you want the latest celebrity gossip, there are many celebs who are twittering multiple times a day who you can follow.  (ok, that was a personal interest plug, follow Ashton Kutcher at @aplusk) 

If you build of network of people you are following for the purpose of building a real estate network, then all you talk about is your kids' school, people aren't going to find you interesting and you won't be followed back or get read - the whole point of doing this. 

The next step of understanding Twitter for me was to download TweetDeck.  This allows me to easily group the topics and people that I am following - sort of bring them to the top of everything else. 

If you want to get started but don't know how, please read this great free eBook (35 pages, easy reading) that @niknik of MyTechOpinion wrote.  The beginning of the book easily lays it all out for beginners. 

If you are more experienced with Twitter, start with Chapter 7.  From here, she describes all kinds of tools and services to take you Twittering to the next level. 

FREE TWITTER EBOOK

Follow me at www.twitter.com/sbonert