I don’t want to know what you had for breakfast

Even if you are Penélope Cruz (or Tom Cruise for that matter) I don’t want to know what you had for breakfast. Most of us suffer from information overload and we want to know about what you are best at, which probably isn’t having breakfast.

Twitter has huge potential for establishing yourself as an expert in your field. So use it to give your very best advice. The beauty of Twitter is that it forces you to be concise, pithy and to the point.

Twitter is a wonderful opportunity to hone in on your key abilities and to convey to your followers those things that you understand well. Why else should anyone follow you than to tap into your knowledge and wisdom? Of course, people may follow you for friendship or for your social skills or for your ability to build communities. And I have no wish to be prescriptive about this. Twitter can also be used effectively as an ongoing discussion or to arrange spontaneous events. If this is the way that you wish to use Twitter, and this is the area that you excel at, then go with your instincts and ignore what I am saying here.

Like most relatively new tools, users are still working out Twitter’s value and the best way to use it. Of course you can use Twitter to give a running commentary of your daily life. Many people do just this. But, in a business context at least, I would try to step out of your life’s daily happenings and focus on your dreams and ideals when you write for Twitter. In this way, you will be positioning yourself in the arena that you care most about and providing the most help to your followers.

In offering excellence to your followers, you should also offer excellence in who you follow. Do not follow the big guns necessarily but the people who have offered value to you or who you have a particular reason to follow. As in life, you will be judged to some extent by who your friends are so be discriminating. Don’t follow the herd. Follow quality instead.

By the way, I had porridge for breakfast! You would probably rather not know this though it’s said to be one of the best nutritional foods. And you can certainly do without knowing that some people hold porridge eating contests. In all your conversation on Twitter, it’s not a bad strategy to set your eyes on the horizon rather than the trough:

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