When CIO magazine offers “Nine Twitter Tips for Business” (originally published by MacWorld) you can pretty much assume that micro-blogging has gone mainstream!

Here are the highlights of their tips:

• Don’t automate it.
• Be conversational.
• Follow people who are relevant.
• Make sure your people are on Twitter, and refer to them.
• Answer your mentions.
• Search for your name.
• Consider creating sub-accounts for sections of your business or customer base.
• Use Twitter to ask your customers questions…and get good answers.
• Be a good Twitter citizen.

Here are a few of my own Twitter Tips. Here is my “do this” list:

• Point me to useful information, whether it’s news articles, blog posts, or photos.
• Tell me something I can use.
• Introduce me to new products or services.
• Advise me/teach me.
• Talk to me one-on-one.

Here are things that really bug me… a little venting!

• Don’t expect me to follow you if your last tweet is months old.
• Don’t expect me to follow you if you have an unbalanced “follow to follower” ratio; that is, if you follow thousands of people and only a few follow you.
• Don’t tweet about every meal you eat, every celebrity you see on the street, every time you get into the car, every cute thing your kid/cat/dog does. If you waste my time, you’ll get blocked.
• Don’t follow me if your profile page features sexy, nearly naked bodies – I’m not interested in having you in my “community.” You’ll get blocked.
• Don’t follow me if your profile page says that I will  make loads of money if I just do this/buy this/read this… You’ll get blocked.

Twitter is a fun and useful tool, but it can be a huge time sink if all we do is chit/chat. I need my communication tools to help me reach my prospects and clients in new ways, to learn new things, to communicate better, and to help me run my business better.

Come on in, join the conversation. Tweet me!

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