Hi Maha, great tips – and definitely agree…I had a twitter account for years but didn’t ‘get it’ really until I started using it purposefully – using hashtags and mentioning specific people when tweeting stuff to kickstart interactions / conversations and so that people interested in the same things can ‘find’ you; big one is MOOCs and participating in twitter chats, getting involved with communities. Even when I don’t have time to scan the feed or a hashtag (often, these days…), I’m drawn back to interact or chat when someone mentions or pings me.

The other big thing I’d add, is – don’t focus on the number of followers you have!! This is most likely to lead you down the ‘surface’ approach. It’s not about the numbers but the quality of followers (i.e. whether they’re relevant and relate to your interests or expand your thinking etc) and the interactions you have. All social media sites unfortunately display your followers, friends, connections etc upfront intentionally to get you to focus on this (I see this as a form of ‘gamifying’ social interaction) but really unless you stop fixating on numbers and start focusing on interactions, you’re probably not going to get that much value out of it. Once you start participating in events, and interacting with people you’ll naturally start to build followers – meaningful and relevant ones.