How I Became DC’s Top Twitterer

Anyone can use Twitter.

Not everyone can use it well, and even fewer can be called “proficient”.  Indeed, for as much attention as it has received lately, and as many people as are currently using social media’s new “it girl” – very few people honestly “get” Twitter, why it is a powerful tool, and what it can and should be used for.

Courtesy of the fine folks at FamousDC, I have recently been named the top Twitter user in Washington DC.  You’ll forgive my head if it doesn’t fit through the door for the next couple weeks, but in a town full of people like this guy, coming out on top takes more than just a little effort.

Explaining how I did it is no small feat.  It is actually a two part discussion – first, how to really use Twitter right, and second, how to then mold your Twitter use for an entertaining contest of wills.

Prime the Pump

Lets face it – you simply aren’t going to win a competition like this if you are this guy.  Yes, the number of followers you have is a drastically overdone obsession of some – but in the end, it still does actually matter.  Somebody with a reach of 100 people following them isn’t going to have enough reach to truly compete with somebody who has a reach of 1000 followers.

Now, I’m not going to give away my secrets, and tell you exactly how I got more than 5,000 followers without turning into a spam machine who follows 100 times more people than follow him – but I will say this: go get some followers.  If you want to make a name for yourself, you need at least a few hundred.  People need to retweet what you say.  A large number of people need to @ message you back and forth.  What you tweet has to saturate into a large number of people, or it will just disappear into the wind.

But don’t get overboard with a follower obsession.  In the final matchup, I faced Michael Turk who had 3,000 fewer followers than me.  Clearly to get to the top, it takes reach, but at some point, the extra followers you get aren’t providing you all that much bang for your buck.  Once you pass 1,000, you’ve probably “arrived” enough to be taken seriously.

Oh, and for the love of all that is holy – follow people back.  Sure, you can look all trendy and important if you snobbishly refuse to follow people, but in the end, the Twitter community respects people who engage the community back, and you can’t do that if you follow 39 people.  Do that, and you’ll likely be knocked out early in this kind of contest.

Variety is the Spice of Life

This one doesn’t take much explaining.  There are people out there who just talk about what they are doing in a vain attempt at self promotion.  These folks regurgitate blog posts and tell us what they are doing, who they are getting interviewed by, and that is the end of it.  Twitter exists for these people to tell you why they are important – but as you and I know, that doesn’t make somebody all that important.

No, for one to truly make an impact on Twitter – famous or not – they must show they actually understand the technology enough to, well, use it.

Post some links of interesting things you saw.  Send some @ messages to people you do or do not know.  Reply to others who have messaged you.  Retweet others.  Send a declarative statement directed at no one.  Use hashtags.  Don’t use hashtags.

In essence – shake things up and do a few things differently.  Use any one feature of Twitter exclusively, and you aren’t even using it.  Demonstrating that you message in a number of different ways shows you deserve attention.

Show some Personality and Be Creative

This is easily the most important factor in Twitter greatness.  Anyone can just sit there and reply to messages back and forth and post up a few interesting links.  That does not make a Twitter user truly great.

What does?  Creativity.  Humor.  Personality.

Take my final opponent, Michael Turk.  In response to the Hammer’s destruction of peeps, he turned up the creativity by finding announcing that peeps would die – and then he proved it.

Then there is the random, hilarious comment.  Then there is playing with internet memes.  Sucking up via photoshop, works too.  And of course there is the sex appeal angle.  But often times, nothing beats a good rant.

The point is, Twitter is more than just messaging.  It is also about entertainment.  Engage the masses, but also make them laugh.  Be creative, and take them by surprise.  There is nothing special about reading Drudge and posting up your favorite links to Twitter – but if you find a way to be unique, and stay interesting, people will love you for it.