Ok, so first I tell you that you need to tweet more… now I am telling you to tweet less?! (If you don’t know what tweeting is go here). 

The truth is, there is no specific magic formula for twitter. So, we have to look at two things:

1) The purpose of twitter: you can’t reach a goal if you don’t have one, and

2) What other people are doing: its like what my father told me once, “Sometimes you learn from people who do things the right way… other times you learn from people who do things the wrong way.”

…

Lets start with drafting a goal. For business professionals, the purpose of twitter is, to name a few, to 1) prove credibility through sharing knowledge and thoughts; 2) gain trust by showing your human side; and 3) gain new leads by networking, making friends leading them to your website/blog/email/convergence method. 

How can you reach any of these objectives without first getting people to read your tweets? Right? This is, of course, after they are following you.

1) It depends on the number of people they follow. If they follow 10 people, chances are they will read all of your tweets. But if they follow 300… chances are its impossible. Especially if they are busy people. 

2) You write something that catches their attention. They need to notice you – write something that they can relate to, that is unusual, or something they are interested in. 

3) You build a relationship with them. @ Reply to them, direct message them and mention their twitter names in your twitter feed. Have a conversation with them through twitter!

Ok, so once you have their attention, you need to keep it. This is where overtweeting comes in! If you under tweet, they won’t notice you. But if you overtweet, they will get annoyed and stop reading your tweets, or stop following you altogether. 

The issue of device following

One of the biggest problems with overtweeting is that when you do have people reading and paying attention to your tweets, sometimes they follow you via “device updates.” Device updates allow you to follow tweeple via SMS. The tweets come as text messages! So, you can just imagine, that if you overtweet… people are going to be looking at their text messages EVERY time you tweet. I can just hear them now… “Oh, ANOTHER tweet from xxx…” 

So, my lesson for today:

Twitter strategically. Give people value, show them who you are, but do it effectively… don’t give them more than they can handle at one time.