What are cool twitter pages that you just have to follow?

What do I do with a Twitter account?

• I just created Facebook and Twitter accounts. It was suggested to me and I figured it couldn't hurt... I created them to link to my Quora account (which I've  successfully done). Now I'm looking at these "pages" and don't know what I'm supposed to do with them! Can someone please explain what I do now? I "get" the basic premise of an existing account but I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with it RIGHT NOW.  Yes, I'm that lame. Explain it to me like I was an 8 year old. :D thank you!!!! (PS: I'm not looking to 'follow' celebrities. I have no value for the ramblings of the famous and vapid. How do I connect with REAL PEOPLE?)

• Answer:

  Here's a step-by-step guide for both platforms: Twitter: Starting out Sign up. You did that. Good job! :) Fill in your bio, change your avatar... just make sure your profile isn't empty. Change your e-mail settings. By default, Twitter will send you a lot of notifications. You really don't need them, especially not if you follow step 4. Get a Twitter client. It's great to use Twitter on your desktop, so you can instantly see new tweets and be notified of new events. Just search for "Twitter client" on Google to see some good clients. Write two or three tweets. Anything is fine. This is just to make sure people actually see some stuff when they access your profile. Start following people. Claire Stahl has already given some excellent advice on that matter. You could also try to find people that you know already. Also, if you follow some people, check out the people THEY are following. This will also give you some interesting follow suggestions. Following about 20 to 30 people is a good start. Be sure to not only follow big accounts, but also people who don't have that many followers yet. Enjoy interesting tweets coming into your timeline. Developing your account Find out how you want to use Twitter. If you just enjoy interesting tweets by others, that's fine. Then you can just do that and not worry about getting more followers. However, if you want to be part of the conversation and want people to read what you have to say, you can use the following steps. Post new tweets regularly. At the start, there will be very few people who read it and you probably won't get any reply. Just keep posting at least a couple of times a week, though. If people see you're an active Twitterer, they'll be more likely to follow you. If you see a tweet that you like a lot, you can retweet it, so your followers get to see it too. This works both ways: if you write exceptional tweets, other people might retweet them, too. This can get you more followers. Reply to other tweets often, especially to tweets from users who don't get many replies often. Replies are always appreciated and people will notice you if you reply to them. Just make sure you don't reply to the same person too often - this may be seen as stalking :). Always be on the lookout for other interesting accounts. If people mention other Twitter-users in their tweets, it can't hurt to check their profiles to see if they are worth following. Just keep in mind: Twitter is about interaction. If you follow people and interact with them, they'll notice it and appreciate it. Also: the less followers someone has, the more he/she will appreciate your follow and interaction. Facebook Starting out Sign up. You did that, too. Good job! :) Create your profile. Get a cool profile picture and a nice photo for your timeline, and fill out your information and interests. Be sure to double check what information you want to be public and what you want to keep private. Find your relatives and friends on Facebook and add them to your friends. A lot of people use it, so you'll probably be able to find people you know. Facebook has some handy options for that (importing your e-mail contacts, for example). If you want, join some groups that match your interest. This is a good way to connect to other people with similar interests. You can search for groups in the Facebook search bar (just like you would search for people). Write a couple of posts about stuff that's going on in your life. Photos are always great, because people have an undying interest in what goes on in the lives of others. Developing your profile Facebook isn't really about having a huge audience (unless that's really important to you). It's just about being connected to people you care about. Having a lot of Facebook-friends is quite meaningless. It just creates a messy timeline, it doesn't improve your social status or anything. Some people post a LOT on Facebook. If you're annoyed by that but you don't want to unfollow them, change their status from Friend to Acquaintance. Then you'll get a lot less updates from them. Or just remove updates from them from your timeline. Most of the time, you'll just scroll through your timeline, but sometimes an update catches your eye. If you're interested enough to read/watch it, be sure to like the post as well. Or better: comment on it. Your friends will appreciate it. If people comment on your updates, be sure to like their comments as a token of appreciation. Share interesting content from the web on Facebook. If you've seen a funny YouTube-video, share it. If you see an inspiring picture, share it. If you see a mind-blowing Quora-question, share it. If you see interesting people that aren't your friend yet, just send them a friend request. They are usually friends of people you already know, so you can just refer to that and tell them you like what they post on Facebook. Well, I hope you can use these tips. Don't feel too stressed about Twitter and Facebook. If you start to like them, feel free to use them as much as you want. If they don't add anything to your life, ignore them as much as you want :).