Every week, we share one of our favorite ‘how-to’ posts about blogging, social media, and the community we LOVE to love. Our desire is you consider HLB a resource in your efforts to blog BETTER – we want to be stronger bloggers ourselves, and we see the desire for stronger posts and cleaner designs. We understand wanting to know the BEST plug-ins, aps, programs, and resources to keep your site in tip top shape. And nothing makes us nerd-out more than getting super meta about all things blog-world. We’re not experts, we’re simply bloggers ourselves – sharing our own experiences, tips and tricks of the trade each Thursday with a BTT post. We welcome your questions, your suggestions for future topics, and your ‘how-to’ post recommendations at healthylivingblogs@gmail.com!
Today’s post is from Callie from The Wannabe Athlete, and she’s filling your eyes with words about Twitter! Take it away, Callie!
In my humble opinion, if you’re not on Twitter, you are missing OUT! If you have a blog, it is absolutely essential. But even if you don’t have a blog, you might be surprised at the ways you can use Twitter to build your professional network.
I hear comments from people all the time who aren’t sure why they should “set up a Twitter”. And let’s just get one thing out of the way – Twitter grammar. Here’s how you use the word – tweet, tweets, tweeted, tweeting. You never “twit”, “twat” or “twittered”. Got it? 
1. Choosing Your Name
I may not be the best example for this one! My Twitter handle (aka name) is@AthleteWannabe. Why? Because @WannabeAthlete was already taken. (Darn it all!) You want something that is EASY for people to remember. Too many random numbers or spellings make it hard for someone to remember your handle.
Also, shorter is better. Sometimes it’s tough to include someone’s handle in a tweet since you’re limited to 140 characters. Keeping it short and simple increases your chances that someone will be mentioning you in their conversation!
2. Deciding Who to Follow
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with Twitter is deciding who to follow. Admittedly, I did this at first. I signed up for Twitter and started following the people Twitter thought I should follow. I followed celebrities like Oprah and Ellen. I followed singers, actors and news personalities. And I got bored. I wasn’t sure why I should care about reading what they were doing. I also wasn’t getting any followers. So I quit Twitter for a while.
When I got back on Twitter, I unfollowed those people and started following people I “knew” through the blogging world. People whose blogs I’ve been reading for years. People like @CaitlinHTP, @dailygarnish and@MealsAndMiles. They all had pretty big followings, but reading their tweets felt much more personal. I looked to see who they were following and started following some people whose profiles sounded interesting. I found new blogs and great new people that way!
Another big mistake I see is people who immediately start following hundreds of people – and have no followers. I’m sorry, but that’s not a good ratio to have. Build up your list of people you follow slowly – and hopefully some of those people will reciprocate and follow you back too. There is no magic “ratio” of how many followers/following you should have, but I can tell you that it always looks better to have more people following you than you follow!
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