Great Resources for How to Use Twitter

Update: 6/23/11 - How To Answer The Question “How Often Should I Tweet?”http://j.mp/kyTYGR http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/how-to-answer-the-question-how-often-should-i-tweet_b10529 I saw a tweet today by Chris Brogan called "50 Power Twitter Tips." I want to remember this post and go back and read it often. As a side note about blogging: A lot of times I think of my blog as a self serving tool, a second "brain" if you will, for storing stuff that I may need months later. I had this happen twice today. I was trying to network my Linux machine to my Mac to transfer some files. I had dug up the techno info months ago and made it a blog post. I can't keep that stuff in my brain all the time, especially when its something I use a few times a year, and its not a task that's in my everyday profession. So today, using WordPress's search function, I easily found the post and got my task done quickly and painlessly, because I had done the painful leg work of finding the info months before. Now, yes, I could just as easily store that same info on my Computer, no doubt. But the additional benefit of the blog platform is that it makes the information available simultaneously to anyone in the world who may have the same problem. The blog becomes a "scaling" solution as well as a self serving one, simultaneously. The great benefit of computers and the internet is not only in processing mundane work, but offloading mundane but necessary information onto your "second" brain, so as to free your organic brain to be more spontaneous. I'll keep adding to this list as I discover more great resources. Do you have any of your own you would like to recommend? Leave a comment. I'd love to read it.

• 50 Power Twitter Tips - ChrisBrogan.com - I need to read this list every day, or at least every week. These tips are succinct (they are all short enough to be "tweeted" individually) , and they can be put into practice immediately. These tips will not only help you to get the most out of Twitter but also make it more fun and additionally increase your "influence" in the Twittersphere in a natural, authentic way. Chris Brogan is a special guy. He's a bonafied internet, blogging, twitter "celebrity" but he has no hubris. He really likes people. He really likes to help them. He's genuine, down to Earth. He's not trying to impress or be part of some "elite" class of individual, although as a by product of his activities he has become part of that group, maybe even at the top of it, through acting in a way that's the exact opposite of most of the Twitter "illuminati." A genuine "Trust Agent" as his book goes. And one of the most enjoyable speakers you'll ever watch.

Update: 09/17/10: Just saw this blog post by Brian Solice: "The Science of Retweets on Twitter" It's a very interesting post about how to construct tweets to give them the most chance of being re-tweeted. Interesting read. I just tried it myself on a tweet I just did: I wrote a blog post and tweeted: "Please Retweet: New Blog Post: The Best Way You Can Use Twitter http://bit.ly/d9bgUi Stephen Pickering"  (link to tweet) I asked for the Retweet. I used the words Blog, Post, and You in there. I used a bit.ly shortened link also. But judging from the post, I should have waited until about 4pm EST to tweet it, instead of 6:30am. But according to the report Friday is the best day, so I did get that right. We'll see if I get any retweets. Update 9/18/10 Ran across this today. It's a similar topic as Brian's but more quixotically taken on by Tim Ferris: Blogging by Numbers: How to Create Headlines That Get Retweeted It's mostly about how to write headlines, headlines for blog posts, but then as those headlines also become Tweets, it fits nicely into this study.