Twitter is in constant flux, an ever changing being of infinite possibilities.
Why? because its driven by me and you!
There are so many genuinely amazing friends out there we have yet to meet and engage with. The world often seems a harsh and nasty place, my aim has always been to spread a positive and happy tweet every time I hit the send button.
I get a lot of friends asking for help and am always more than happy to oblige.
In order to save some time and give a small point of reference, I’ll use this page to document lessons discovered so far, any great tools that I use and help you learn from mistakes I have benefited from already.
Hopefully the combination of all these will help make your Twitter day a great one.

Twitter Resources I use a lot..
1.check who has followed/unfollowed you..

http://who.unfollowed.me
great site. standard version is ok, at time of writing its only $4.99 to go to pro version yearly. Visit the site for details. I use this many times every day to do my follow backs and can’t recommend it highly enough. Also works superbly from my iphone. follow @whounfollowedme

2. Twitter support pages.
Often overlooked, but Twitter support is a fantastic resource for anyone who takes the time to read up on it.  There are masses of information on all tweeting essentials. Access them from your twitter web account.

3. Tweepi
Another great tool but his time I use it solely for finding new friends. Yes, it is okay to go and find them yourself! Most people rely on ‘shoutouts’ to gain, my opinion is…why wait?

It’s all be done before, someone, somewhere has already given plenty of advice on what I’m doing now, don’t be afraid to look elsewhere.
Here are some excellent places to read up :
101 Twitter Resources
Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable

General tweet tips

Be yourself.. always! don’t try to be a clone of someone else. Stay positive on the main timeline, save your moans and gripes for somewhere else.
No one wants to read how depressed/bored someone is all the time.

Your Twitter picture is a ‘brand’ just like your username, whether you are there for personal(like me) or business, your picture is your logo.
Tweeters will look and recognise it quicker than your name.
Choose carefully and stick with it.

Promises made, are promises to be kept. If you say you will tweet someone back then do it. You won’t know how much it matters to them for your help and everyone knows an answer to a different question, Sharing is caring.

There are loads of ‘management’ websites around to tell you who has unfollowed etc..

Try not to tweet how many followers you have lost, it doesn’t matter. They have gone for whatever reason, so there isn’t a valid reason for doing it.
Instead use the time to let friends know that you are there and say Hi!

Stay positive.

Sarcasm might seem funny to you, to someone else it may read as a very rude or worse, a nasty tweet. That’s a very quick way to alienate and lose friends.

People can’t see your facial expressions, nor hear the tone of your voice, READ your tweet before sending it. Once you have sent it the world will read it and form an opinion of you based on it. As an example.. if you have 1000 followers, your tweet could be seen tenfold. Look at how many ‘celebrities get themselves in trouble for tweeting!

Protecting your tweets may seem like a good idea, if you do, others can’t properly retweet any of your great tweets!
Social Networking is about connecting with others, so try to avoid protecting your account where possible.
REMEMBER the BLOCK button is there for a very good reason!

Lots of people unfollow because they want ‘ a clean timeline’, ‘without clutter’ etc. That’s what Facebook is for. Get a decent twitter app for your devices and learn how to use it.
My favourites:

desktop: tweetdeck for pc/mac (free download) or.. Hootsuite also free

iphone/ipod  : twittelator pro (paid app from app store)

Once your app is up and running, get LISTS of friends set up. Name the lists by common interests, how often you tweet them etc. Visit my profile page for examples. ..

As a final set of main tips:

1. use the Twitter Support pages.. these guys rock! follow them @support
2. don’t be afraid to ask friends on Twitter questions. You have a great resource in front of you and most are happy to help you. If you aren’t comfortable asking on the main ‘timeline’ then send a DM (direct message).. just remember timezones are different so the person you DM may be sleeping!

Twitter essentials 1- sort your followers into ‘lists’

Google will give you a mass of information on setting up ‘lists’ for Twitter.

There is always a mass of information but like a lot of friends I found it boring and tedious to wade through.. so I didn’t bother.

At first.

After gaining many new friends, I came to realise my main timeline couldn’t cope with everyone, nor could my mind nor eyesight. I needed a solution and that was setting up the lists.
So.. looking at what others had done already, i created the following lists:
tweetersthattweetme
vip
getsufollowers
toppromos
oh and a few more. Again I didn’t really know what i was doing and put the same people into loads of them. Not a good idea. I quickly came to see that wasn’t working so revised them.
Information on lists are found in two great places

Twitter Support
This link will open in a new window and take you directly to what links are about and how to set them up using the web Twitter client.

Tweetdeck Support : setting up lists using Tweetdeck
Once you have set the lists up, the hard part is adding people to them, this will take a while to do it and you’ll probably still be amending them each day.
Take the time to do it. Your Twitter day will be better and you will be more able to keep track of everyone.
≥≥≥≥≥≥≥≥≥≥≥

Twitter essentials 2 – who has access to your account?

Friends often ask .. ‘ how come I’m getting so many random tweets’ ?
One place to look is via Twitter web.
Look to see WHO you have granted access to your account. These are sites you use for retweeting news, checking unfollowers, adding ‘extras’ to your profile picture or doing mentions through.
To check who has access do the following:

log into twitter via web browser
click on your username as shown below then click ‘settings’
next step is to click on : ‘applications’
once there, revoke access to anything you don’t ABSOLUTELY need or want.

Remember that the more applications that you give access to your account the chances of spam can increase. By giving all these ‘apps’ access to your account you are agreeing to give access to all your followers, make changes to your profile, make tweets without your knowledge.
So be careful who you give access to..

This isn’t an exhaustive list, nor is it a ‘magic formula’ for Twitter. It’s simply me passing on experience