Now that we have formed Mom It Forward and our community from #gno largely is a twitter group, I find myself needing to promote activities and events through this medium, because that’s where the gals are. I also find myself needing to connect/re-connect/stay connected with at a greater pace with people in the #gno community, because one of our goals is to be as inclusive/genuine as possible.

That said, the difficult thing for me is striking that balance between connecting enough (staying true to what I came to twitter for in the first place), promoting (through RTs) others, and getting the word out about the our community’s events. While we have gone to other mediums to offset some of this, we still find there is nothing like a DM to get the attention of our twitter followers.

Great post! Love the three Rs. Any other suggestions for striking a better balance would be so appreciated.

It would be hard to deny that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all equally accepting of the same behavior. So my advice is still to be yourself, but tread lightly a the beginning, at least until you find your niche, or get the rhythm or feel for how the site works.

Although of the three sites, Twitter is in some ways the most forgiving, because following and unfollowing is so easy, that for every person you loose due to a specific message or tone in your message, or what have you, you may gain one or more other person who chooses to follow you because of that thing that upset someone else.

But I have seen some folks get a slow start because they used Twitter as a bullhorn, and a mechanism for almost exclusively tweeting out their own material. It took them weeks to get more than 30 followers. If they had listened bit more, and followed a more balanced approach that many others follow, they might have been more successful faster.

One thing I might suggest (or *disagree* with) is the mention that you “learn the culture” before being yourself. If only from it being a slightly counteractive measure.

If you can’t be yourself until you know the culture, isn’t that making you something that’s conditioned? Being yourself is exactly that – some of it may work, some of it won’t. Either way, you’ll attract the *audience* that your own self would normally attract offline.

Just a thought? :)

I like your: “Those are my 3 R’s of Using Twitter – Referrals, Research and Reputation. ”

And I love your summing up quote: “My suggestion to anyone getting started now would be follow the crowd, learn the culture, and THEN be yourself.”

My suggestion with using Twitter is to walk softly at first because the culture is important, and that culture seems to change every couple of months. That said, I tend to communicate what’s on my mind and trust that it will land in the right place. Retweeting seems to be on the rise, so I’m doing more of that. My suggestion to anyone getting started now would be follow the crowd, learn the culture, and THEN be yourself.

I believe you have effectively covered that!

Jeff Korhan