Alice

Twitter, as with all social networking, is only as good as its player. How you use it depends on your mind-set, goals and aspirations, friendly and sociable disposition, altruism and willing to share, natural curiosity and having some time to spare.

Of course, if you look at it in the wider perspective, how much does your one little tweet matter amongst all the rest of the babble? That depends on what you have to say, how it is presented, whether it is relevant to subject matter or trends that are poignant at that moment, to whom it is addressed, who will be around at that time to read it, whether it will be retweeted or not, or whether it commands an answer.

You don?t have to read every tweet that passes through the timeline, either manually updated or relying on various Twitter applications to automatically refresh the stream. Frequent Twitter attendees learn scanning techniques to catch tweets that interest them as they fly past, and columns and lists help trap worth-while contributions whenever they are posted.

Participation is paramount on Twitter if it is to succeed for you. Those accounts that only include statements, with no evidence of interaction or conversations, will not gather followers, even if the posts link to valuable sources elsewhere. Social networking means being sociable, communicating to receive a response, passing on and sharing information, commenting on another?s post or retweeting something that you want others to read too. Acknowledgement is an unspoken requisite, as it also contributes to the social factor; nobody bothers with people who aren?t polite enough to thank anyone.

Twitter has been likened to a cocktail party to which everyone is invited. It is here you will be able to rub shoulders with all kinds of people, but it is up to you to choose who is worth listening to, asking a question of, sharing a discussion with, or however you want to communicate in this ever-increasing online social world.