Twitter has become an important communications tool. Here are some tips to optimize your tweets.

Who would have thought? I have to admit that when Twitter was first launched, I was one of those folks who thought it was downright silly. Who cares that you’re sitting in a coffee shop texting a 140 character status report? Sheesh. Bound to disappear in a few months…

Wow, was I ever wrong. Twitter has taken the world by storm, providing communications for everything from patriots in repressed regimes to emergency information services. And, yes, you’ve still got those nerds tweeting about sipping a latte at Starbucks, too. Oh, well…

Twitter has been a natural magnet for SEOs and Internet marketing tweeple, er, people.  Twitter allows an unprecidented way for an individual or company to get immediate insight from around the world, allow you to break out of your social group (follow friends of friends, industry leaders), grow your channel of distribution and build your brand.

Here’s a list of twips, er, uh, tips to make your tweeting twouble fwee, ah, er, uh, trouble free!

• Don’t follow every conversation. It will drive you nuts. Be selective, but participate. Jump in and out of conversations.
• Incorporate “Tweet This” functionality on your landing pages to encourage, well, tweets! For WordPress blogs, check out the plugin appropriately named Tweet This.
• Ask questions. There’s no better way to get started, make friends and become known.
• Answer questions. Let others know that you are an authority. This is particularly great for companies.
• Bring attention to others, not just yourself. Keep self promotion to a minimum.
• Answer all of your direct messages (DM) and replies (@).
• Tweet brief information that is not worthy of a full blog post, but valuable information nonetheless.
• Tweet regularly, but not too often. Think value, not volume, just like with links in SEO.
• Drop links to valuable sites and information.
• Reweet good stuff. This can be really powerful and can become viral.
• When someone retweets you, thank them.
• Seek out and engage people who retweet in your industry.
• Keep your tweets to about 120 characters to allow room for retweets.
• Tweet with care. Remember, once you tweet something, it’s out there and can’t be deleted.
• Follow folks who you might want to direct message (DM). You can only DM with folks you follow back.
• Follow @spam. This is where you can report spammers by DM. @spam will follow you back.
• Be personable. Even if you are using Twitter for a company profile, make it appear there is a person there, not an autoresponder.

And, chances are you will find yourself monitoring multiple Twitter accounts. Check out the Twhirl client, my current favorite. Not only does it handle several accounts, you can set it up to auto update Ping.fm and Jaiku with your tweets.  Seesmic offers the Seesmic Desktop client, too, which now interfaces with Facebook. And, a lot of folks swear by TweetDeck. Check them out. They’re fwee, uh, FREE!

Read more SEO 101 articles in the SEO Training category of this blog.

This article is an original post from The Web Optimist – SEO in The Desert.

SEO 101: Twitter Twips, uh, Tips for Tweeps is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO