This was a pretty good article for the clueless tweets like me: http://www.thetrafficblogger.com/2011/09/what-to-tweet-to-get-more-followers.html
Most of that appears to be good advice to me, though really I'd just suggest the following: be social and be a human (i.e. don't tweet exclusively with links to your site [or at least put some human explanation into the link you're posting instead of just the link and hashtags...I know Carlos will disagree with me on this, though ], answer mentions directed at you, retweet relevant/interesting things in your timeline, etc.). I'd shy away from auto-following, though, since it comes off as spam a lot more than I'm sure it used to (especially if your picture is of a half-naked woman).
Yes that was a great help. I tweet interesting stuff as well as breaking news related to my niche. I make sure that my tweets are too promotional though as it can put off your followers.
This one can be a really good one. I don't use hashtags in every single tweet, but when I do, I seem to end up with new people in the conversation that I wouldn't have ever found or talked to otherwise. Why? Because some people follow very specific hashtags/keywords and then interact with others talking about those same things, so if you call attention to your own tweet by using the same hashtag, you'll end up with new followers who are interested in what you're saying, too.
I just tweet what comes to mind - or depending on what the content is that I am feeling at that moment.
Well, DO NOT tweet each and every post as I have noticed some forums do. It's annoying and will get people to unfollow. What do I tweet for the 12 subscribers my forums has? 1. important site events - a new month in our 'forum starters' program, a new feature on the site 2. new articles - when I write an article, I promote it on Twitter too 3. few great threads - we had an amazing case study offered by a member (she had to close down a forum because of member abuse and was kind enough to tell her story) - it's one of the best threads, since she's sharing her experience, we came with ideas etc. I'd promote such threads that offer a wealth of information.
Like you, I'm an amateur tweeter (is that the right word?) and the article you referenced was very informative. I wonder how effective it is or whether people would get annoyed at get tweeted all the time.
I prefer to call myself an amateur Twit. On my 'ghost accounts', that is accounts only active to tweet for different sites I post every blog posts I write. The better ones I'll retweet from my main account. I've been realizing that you have to actively participate in Twitter to get anything out of it. For the most part I open Tweet Deck post a bit and close it. I should be leaving Tweet Deck open all the time but I hate interruptions.
I am tweeting a forum and it's posts. I use as website called twitterfeed and choose the forums that I tweet and how many it chooses an hour so that not everything gets tweeted but alot does. I have managed to scrape just under 300 followers with no effort other than setting it up.
