I haven't been using twitter the way I should. The main reason for this is I don't write a column for a newspaper and don't have the social following or popularity that develops from such activities. This however doesn't mean I don't see how Twitter is "suppose" to be used and how those that are far greater at finding the right topics and embellish opinion can utilise it as a tool in their arsenal online.
I reason the steps are simply thus:
- Firstly have a Blog/website or discussion board watering hole where you are going to post your topical content in finer detail. You need this as any links you add to your tweet are going to point back to that location.
- When you have a new topic of interest, work out the simple summarising sentence that captivates interest: (e.g. Do cross-border collies actually cross borders?)
- Create a shortened link to the Blog/website/discussion board article from one of those shortening sites (e.g. bit.ly, goo.gl, ow.ly etc)
- Add "hashtag's", They are just keywords that people might search twitter for to find topics that match their interest. So best not to be to ambiguous with the keywords used. Keywords are prefixed by # (a hash) and you can direct comments to another member of twitter using an @ (at sign)
I would gather that building a following literally just means being patient and active. The more tweet's made the more those tweets appear in the most recent activity (which is publicly viewable) and the more likely you'll gain interest from people that didn't know of you previously.
So if you've created an account before and haven't really used it, perhaps it's something to re-look at.