As someone who is new to social networking, I find that the Twittersphere is a microcosm of the Internet - you have to wade through a whole lot of garbage to get to the good stuff.  As someone who runs a business (not home-based) and teaches 3 days a week (for fun and profit) I'd love to get to the good stuff quicker!  That being said, it is fascinating to read what people are tweeting.  I agree that finding the right balance between education, humor, genuine communication and self-promotion is the key to using Twitter to its fullest.  Now I just need 3 extra hours a day to spend tweeting - twittering - twhat do I call it?... :)

This is a great post - I love the comparison to a cocktail party, and it's so true.  To add to that - it's one thing to have an ego and self promote - its another thing to have an ego and be genuine!  If someone has an ego - and is deserving of such - then perhaps we can learn from that person. 

I personally gain more when I give more, especially on Twitter.  I enjoyed your article.  Thanks!

#payitforward

@SocialPMChick

Thanks for the article, Mark! I'm fairly new user even though I had my account for more than a year. I had no idea why people would post what they were doing and who thought it important. After I started using Facebook and adding friends who started promoting their business every time you "friended" them, I quickly got tired of the constant promotions.

I re-discovered Twitter and found some pretty awesome synergy where people were really making friends and having fun!

So, with all that being said, I love being on Twitter and even the promotions, however, the people are more real and a lot of fun!

I haven't run across too many who only "sell" and I don't promote my business either except to share a new post or you ask me. There haven't many I've been unable to stop. They usually go away on their own anyway if you never respond to them.

Thanks for inviting me to your party and putting my two cents; I learn a lot of great stuff!

Jackie Licurse ((@JaxLicurse)

You're right, Marc.  Just be genuine.  Be your authentic self.  Don't try to impress anybody.  Don't say any more or less than you would at a "non viral" cocktail party.  It's an analogy I always try to keep in mind -- the cocktail party analogy.  Don't push yourself on friends any faster than you would in the offline world, or at a cocktail party.  Which means don't push yourself on your Twitter friends at all -- make friends in a gradual way, at a normal pace.  If you do so, your mutual followers will be friends that will stick around, and eventually, they'll WANT to read what you have to say!  As you stated, "be helpful, be funny, be that person people want to hang around with."  I would also like to add, if I may, Sir: Be fun, have integrity, ALWAYS be nice, never embarass a fellow tweeter.  If you need to speak to a tweeter about something that you think others don't need to hear, go to the DM.  If you have business talk that involves them alone, then DM them.  If you have a disagreement, DM them only. If you want to chit - chat with them about something, DM them.

Thanks for a great post, Marc!

krissy knox :)
follow me on twitter:
www.twitter.com/iamkrissy

This is a great article and I could not agree more.  As a business owner on Twitter, I may mention the activities I'm up to, but I talk about way more than that and I don't outlandishly self-promote.  I've seen people go from providing interesting discussion and valuable content to simply using Twitter to promote themselves over and over again.  ("I'm here at this book signing today.", "C'mon, how many of you can meet me for this online interview."  "Meeting with so and to on this radio show today, tune in!.")  It was a big turn-off.  Thanks for sharing this viewpoint, I think it is much needed.  jack 

I have a home based business that I am passionate about and I love helping people but I found our real quick NOT to help people who do not want help. Now I just let people come to me. It really is less stressful and I am developing relationships with people that otherwise would have been put off. Good advice and great looking blog page. I was looking to get ideas for my FIRST attempt at a blog. Glad that I followed you.

I am newer to the "Twitter Scene" so this is good information - AND there is alot of good stuff on general relationship building.  I have a good feeling reading more of your material will lead to additional positive insight - thank you.

Beautifully put, Marc! I've connected with new design clients on twitter and it's always started off with some random conversation about life in general. I've met some pretty impressive people that way ... without intending to. I think on twitter, you attract the right people just by being you! Awesome article, love it!

Well said. I have been talking with many of my clients about getting started using Twitter. The key to it that I've been stressing is that it's a relationship builder, not so much a sales tool. I love to find great posts like this that qualify my points. Thanks, and I'm looking forward to the book.

Marc,

So spot on, and so very timely.  I'm still fairly new to Twitter, myself, and I'm happy to say that I think that I am starting to feel some of the very things brought up by this post.  I really love Twitter.  I love what it does for my business (I've had several clients pop up as a result of using Twitter, talking to folks, experimenting (read: playing around) a bit and such.  But I did make the mistake, the "newbie" mistake, of getting too caught up in the numbers at first.

Luckily, my own experiences are kinda steering me back more strongly toward the "human" aspect of twitter, the "social" part of social media.  I say "luckily", because I'm really glad this is happening for me *now* instead of later on down the road, after goodness knows how many meaningless numbers, and everything is still small enough for me, right now, to make those changes without feeling too much of a ripple effect.

Love the analogy. It's so true.  Thanks for writing this and just making a little easier for me to refocus myself and spend more time discovering the *real* treasure of social media apps like Twitter - the unbelievably fabulous folks you might not have met any other way!