The value of Twitter is still grossly misunderstood by many of my aged peers, whose view is generally from the “why do I need to know what someone I do  not know or care about is doing now?” school of thought.

Following are some very simple ideas that may make it worthwhile:

# Only connect with those from whom you can learn something, or have common interests. Finding them is getting easier with tools like Tweetdeck, and once you have found them, engage by retweeting, commenting, and connecting with them.

# Do not be afraid to ask for help, for things of interest to be retweeted, and for information. People when asked nicely, can be very generous with their time and connections.

# Don’t try to sell on twitter, 140 characters is too few, and the environment is wrong. Engage first, build a relationship, and make it easy to find your website from which they can buy.

# Be aggressive about filtering out non productive connections, it is not a contest to have the most followers, or to follow the most people.

# Know what you want to know, and use Tweetdeck to do the filtering for you, delivering prioritised links and interesting connections to you without the rubbish.

# Lastly, you, and what you have to say has to be of interest to others,  so be relevant to the audience you want to connect with.