I have a daily routine to log into Quora every day and answer questions regarding Twitter as part of my daily learning session. There was a question which stood out yesterday; someone posted a question on Twitter asking

"How can I make Twitter useful?"

"I've been on Twitter about a year, and I really don't understand its benefits at all. I really struggle to find anyone interesting to follow, and while I do tweet what I believe to be humorous/interesting content, I can't see how anyone beyond my existing friend base, or spammers, would find my account.

Also, I find that too many follows equals a timeline that's too bulky to read, too few means there's nothing going on. Is there any optimum number of followees, or should I spend more time using lists to separate people up?

We exchanged a couple of comments and I told him he doesn't have any objectives as to what he is trying to achieve on Twitter and that he can't judge someone by "how interesting they are" without getting to know them better. I then told him that everyone has a story to share and everyone is interesting in their own ways and he too has his own tales to share. After that I advised him to follow and engage with at least five people a day to get more out Twitter to get started.

He replied me later on saying that he uses Twitter to learn, however, he is less interested in making new online friends unless they are knowledgeable in a topic that he is interested in.

My respond to that is that one wouldn't know who is knowledgeable or interesting unless:

• You get to know them better (making friends)
• You read their blog
• You met them somewhere else (conference..etc)

After that I explained to him how Twitter changed me from being a teenager (when I started with Twitter) that used to play games (on Facebook.... blame games like Farmville) and got me more serious with what I want to do, and how it connected me with so many people when I started to engage with more people.

His respond

Thank you Aaron, you make some valid points - I think I need to approach Twitter as a source for people, rather than 140 characters of text. I've scorned it up to now, but obviously it's a powerful tool and I want to get the most out of it.

Twitter is a great source for people, you wouldn't use Twitter to its potential if you don't plan to engage with anyone or meet new people. Twitter took away the relationship boundaries and gave us a big opportunity to market ourselves internationally.

If Twitter didn't exist, I might still be using Facebook and I wouldn't have met YOU... yes YOU reading this now.

Go out there, get to know someone today. You're welcome to get to know me too. I respond to 80% of all my tweets (just an approximate random number which was in my head) and I would love to know you better.

How did you make Twitter useful for you? The comment box below is for you. Don't make me beg! J

photo credits: Lego Life Story