The Twitter Interviews – Crystal_Dunn from Matt Long on Vimeo.

In this interview crystal_dunn talks about how she is using twitter to support her Tupperware business ( Business twitter account is CrystalClearTW ) by engaging customers and networking with other Tupperware sales associates. Thanks for the interview, Crystal.

Matt Long is a guest blogger for GreenvilleTweets and can be followed at http://twitter.com/mclgreenville or you can view all posts by Matt Long

In this interview EMBARQ_Joey talks about how Embarq is using twitter to support and engage customers. It’s interesting to hear the background story of how initiatives like this get started. Thanks so much for the interview.

Matt Long is a guest blogger for GreenvilleTweets and can be followed at http://twitter.com/mclgreenville or you can view all posts by Matt Long

Every post we make influences the twitter community and hopefully in a positive way.

As part of our goal of becoming a valuable positive member there are certain pitfalls we should want to avoid.

Not Personalizing Your Account:
Fill out your profile – make sure you put up an avatar – give yourself a unique name that identifies you from the masses – let people know where you are from and tell people a bit about yourself in the bio. If you don’t do this, it makes it real easy for potential followers to press the delete/ignore button and judge that you are not going to fit into their community. It’s going to be hard to tell if you have anything to offer to their community if you’re not offering up anything about who you are.

There are a lot of ideas behind the “branding/marketing” of who you are – I’ll write my ideas on this next week.

Self-Appointed Authority:
Being a self-appointed authority might gain you the immediate gratification of a community that you quickly become a part of. However, the communities on Twitter are communities that listen – and as a community that listens they will see the authority you claim is self appointed – you’ll only be a member of that community temporarily. As an example, if you engage your community by negatively pointing out how you find a certain member doesn’t get Twitter or a certain brand is not using Twitter – you’re sending out negativity. Members of your community are not going to see you as an authority but more of a drag with loads of potential negativity to pull them under with. Instead, take that negativity and put a 180* spin on it and turn it into something positive for the community at large.

Used Car Salesman:
Don’t take every opportunity to sell me something. Most people have no problem if you’re trying to recruit members for a charity drive or if your hosting a kitchen products party. However, if your sole purpose on Twitter is to entice me into laying out 20 tacos on a Snuggie for every situation – I am simply not going to follow you – others are not as well – it’s hard to build and become part of a community if other twitters are not following you.

Being Someone You’re Not:
Be genuine – plain and simple. Do you find that employing an automatic direct message tool impresses people or insults their intelligence? If you want to connect with your new followers, take the time to send them a personal direct message. As Seth Godin says “authenticity is more important than getting noticed.” Twitter is the prime example of that. People want to get noticed, it is part of human nature. Being who you are will get you noticed on Twitter. Authenticity is going to get you into the community you desire.

Simply be yourself and allow your posts, your knowledge, your thoughts, your ideas and your conversation place you in the community.

Keep these points in the back of your head and watch as the twitter community flowers up around you this spring.

beebo.wallace is a guest blogger for GreenvilleTweets and can be followed at http://twitter.com/beebo_wallace or you can view all posts by beebo.wallace

There are a few different ways to positively initiate conversation on Twitter. Let’s take a brief look at a few of these ways.

The Broadcaster: We all know these types and sometimes, I feel, they get mislabeled as spammers – sometimes correctly but not always. There seems to be a source of negative feelings towards this type of user.

Broadcasters initiate the conversation by systematically posting information that is of potential interest to their followers and perhaps a link to a source of more detailed information. By staying on topic and not overwhelming their followers, broadcasting can be great way to bring awareness to your cause.

The Inquisitive: These twitterers are taking advantage of the potentially large pool of expertise at their fingertips. The Inquisitive twitterer initiates conversation by stimulating their community with inquiries – sometimes purely for the conversation that will ensure or simply for personal use.

The Conversationalist: This twitterer sees Twitter as a community in which they would like to make a connection with. This twitterer that wants to communicate with as many people as possible. They want to rant, they want to rave and they want to hold two way discussions with other conversationalists. The Conversationalist initiates & participates in conversation – The Conversationalist is a network builder.

The thing about Twitter is that there are really much more than just the three basic types of twitterers discussed above and depending on the type to twitterer you are you’ll probably follow more of one type than another. The simplicity of Twitter allows for the user to find their own niche in Twitter’s ecosphere – to become their very own Twitter species with their own characteristics initiating conversation in their very own unique way.

beebo.wallace is a guest blogger for GreenvilleTweets and can be followed at http://twitter.com/beebo_wallace or you can view all posts by beebo.wallace