Twitter is going to be one of the tools you either hate or love, you will see it as either a time waster or one of your top new tools. As you start to tweet away you will notice that people will begin to follow you possibly even flock to you. Whether or not you follow them back is up to you. Here are seven tips to get you started on twitter.

1. Start Tweeting First - Once you get those first few tweets out of the way, it will become much easier for you to make posts on Twitter. Another way this will help you is that people are looking for other people that are into the same things. When people come to your Twitter page and there’s no tweets, they won’t know whether or not to follow you.

2. Reveal Yourself - People want to have conversations with other real people. You will see that most people have pictures of themselves in avatars. I personally tend to sway to real pictures instead of the lame cartoons that many use. Also, fill out your bio and link to your blog if you have one. The more people feel like you are another member of the circle, you have a better chance at fitting in on Twitter.

3. Read Those You Want To Follow First - Start to read up on conversations before you get involved. You will find that simply following everyone you see can make the service a bit harder to use when you really want to use it for communicating and reading up on recent tweets. If what they are tweeting is not interesting to you, keep on movin’

4. Don’t Be A Spammer - Are you following 197 people and only have 6 following you? You might be a spammer. If your not, this would make you appear as one and most people don’t like this bread of Twitter users. Reveal yourself and let people know you are there to add to the Twitter community. Build up your account and you will find that people will start following you regardless.

5. Stray From Twitter Celebrities – Even if you do become followed by someone like Scoble, they are just doing it to build up their visibility. Many Twitter celebrities are there simply for the popularity contest and depending on how you want to use Twitter, following these types most likely won’t help you. Being in their list of followed people really provides no value as they follow everyone and anything.

6. Play Favorites - Use those little stars next to each tweet to your benefit. By favoring certain tweets you let people know what interests you, and what you are passionate about. If you are debating whether or not to follow someone, checking out their favorites is a great way to see what they are all about.

7. Pump The Brakes - Most of the time you will notice that many conversations on Twitter do not really lead anywhere. Sometimes however, conversations can evolve into business ideas, new clients, and new friendships. Take time to tweet and build a reputation before you start to really get yourself out there. Taking your time in the beginning to learn the dynamics will be much more beneficial in the end.

Alright you Twitter n00bs, it’s time to get out there and give it a go. It won’t take long before you decide whether or not it’s a tool you want to stick with.