I thought I would give some advice to those of you who don’t understand Twitter. You’re we.. (character limit)

Yea, I know what you are saying, “But Kris, I know Twitter. I know how to tweet“. You are wrong though, you do not really know how to use Twitter. Times have changed, my friend. Twitter has changed. The world has changed. It now wears high-hip pants. #Ewww.

How Was It Before?

Twitter started a while ago. And everyone was like “Well this is silly. The only thing it is good for is following celebrities without them knowing you follow everything they do.” Creepy. It was also really messy. Everything was thrown into a big bucket full of tweets. #BucketFullOfTweets is something you should tweet, called a hashtag. Look at you, getting educated.

So there was never any real purpose or organisational structure to Old Twitter. There was no real social aspect to it. I guess you could say, and you should, that Twitter sucked.

Should I Give It A Second Chance?

You have been burned before, I know. So should you put your trust back into the big bad birdy machine? The short answer is yes. Twitter might not have changed much, but the way to use it has changed a whole lot. People have figured out the shortcomings of the old way and figured out a better way of using it. And by “people” I mean me, Kris Adams.

I, am going to give you the correct method for using Twitter. You’re welcs.

Who To Follow

Sure, you can still follow your celebrity crushes. I know you were going to ask that. However, there is a problem. You are going to need to follow quite a few people to get Twitter working correctly. And Justin Bieber’s tweet about how his cereal tastes weird today may get lost… #Tragedy. Just deal with it. Or create another account called @YourName_Stalker which can be used exclusively for your weird stalking tendencies.

The main point of New Twitter, is to have a social web. You have a lot of people who you interact with. You then get all sticky and personal with those people. Those people can be regular friends, random Tweeterers, friend’s of friends or just people who follow back. If “Those People” sounds like a racial slur, you have a guilty conscience. Bad you. Tweet an apology. Do it now. I’ll wait.

To start, just have a look at a Trending Topic that interests you. Find some people who seem people-like and follow them. Follow some more, follow some people who follow them. Follow some people who they re-tweet. Basically, do your best impression of a lost puppy. Follow as many names as you see.

Now that you have a fairly decent sized follow list, you can start with the real point of New Twitter.

What Is The Point Of New Twitter?

The real point of New Twitter is to have conversations. This may seem weird for a platform that is built on stalking your favourite celebrity without them knowing, but it’s true.

You @mention someone regular on your list and they will normally reply. This, my friend, is called the start of a conversation. I am sure you can figure out how to continue a conversion on your own. When in doubt, mention Hitler.

The more active you are, the more conversations you will be a part of. So become active. Join a gym.. No wait, that’s not right.

And How Should I Do All Of This?

I would suggest using TweetDeck. It has everything in a nice, neat interface. It also makes it easier to separate the random garbage from the mentions that you actually care about. Because, it’s all about you, right?

You can follow me with my handle @krisadamstv. Say hello.