From Twainee to Twending

I’ve recently started making some tip-toes into Twitter. According to socialmediatoday.com, 175 million people have a Twitter account, so I’m only slightly behind... I started my own (@bainseybaines) so I could learn how it worked without practicing on the agency account (@tbgagency). And crikey, it’s a funny old world, is it not? In the last week I’ve noticed trends from “Sophie Ellis Bextor” to the potential sale of the nations beloved BBC Television Centre to a personal favourite, “Liesforlondontourists”. Trends can make me laugh, make me cry (well, almost), and in many cases, make me just ask, ‘why’?

A colleague of mine created a free guide to using twitter for the first time (thanks @kerryhjames), she called it “From twainee to twitterati?”. And what a help that has been. As Kerry points out the main advantages of having a twitter account as a company or individual are increasing networks, developing brand awareness, being at the forefront of hot news (and lets be honest, hot gossip) and we’ve already found it can be great for driving business. In fact, we have just quoted on our first enquiring. Twenquiry? Nope, that’s going too far.

I thought when we started that we had to find thousands of followers and become major players in the space. In fact, we don’t. Baby-steps are fine, and perhaps this is a part of the appeal. Our community might be small, but it’s ours. It’s all people we want to talk to and who want to talk to us. So my thoughts are this. Don’t think too big when it comes to twitter. Don’t go jumping in with your big size tens following anyone and anything in the hope that they’ll follow you back. Follower/ following ratio is important and an even ratio shows a natural growth and interesting like minded community. It’s really not as hard as I thought but we’re constantly on the look our for tips and ideas, so do let us know if you’ve got anything to add! We're @tbgagency and we looking forward to tweeting with you...