Social Media is great for building your network. If you’ve yet to join Twitter because it seems overwhelming, it’s time to change that. Just a few tips can help you to truly utilize the service and grow your network and influence.

Engage

Once you join Twitter, don’t go silent. This isn’t an open invite to babble either, unless you don’t want any followers. Balance your general statement tweets with tweets that engage others. Post that engage other can be ones that ask questions or any post where you @ another user. You’re not limited to engagement with your followers; you can tweet @ anyone to start a conversation and hopefully a connection.

Build a Following

Why do you follow someone? This is the question to ask yourself when building a following. The qualities that cause you to follow one user are those you want to emulate and build you follow. Post content that is worthy of a retweet like great videos or blog posts. Tweet on the trending topics that you can find on the left-hand side of your feed, other users following them will see your tweet. Stay topical. Tweeting on the news and current trends helps you to set yourself apart as a thought leader people will want to follow. The followers you gain can quickly become part of your network as you engage with them.

Don’t Link Blast

Sending out only tweets that link to your WebSite or blog is a quick way to get people to ignore you. Balance any links to your own site with tweets without links, conversations with others in your network and even retweets of others. This shows you are on Twitter to engage in conversations and not just self promote.