After using Twitter for more than a year, I’ve come up with a list for the beginner. This assumes you have filled out your profile and added a picture. Without those people probably won’t follow.

1) Be genuine and be real. Be authentic and people will want to follow you and develop a relationship with you. Post about yourself, your day, your business and your family. Add some humor, some inspiration, some wisdom, some tips and hints. Then plug away with your business, your blog or your links. It will be natural and we’ll be interested. Reverse this and you’ll be in for a long haul.

2) Use the @ symbol before someone’s user name or handle to reference them in your tweet. This is what I love about Twitter and it’s viral nature. It’s make the world a lot smaller when we connect the dots to who knows who.

3) Linking is a good way to showcase your content, your blog, your website and articles you read which others would be interested in. Shorten the URL if you’re using Twitter.com.

4) Retweeting others is also a great way to reward the good content of others and to share meaningful tweets with your followers. Remember just because you’re following someone doesn’t mean your followers are too.

5) Remember if you want to get retweeted then you must give people a chance. Keep your tweet to 120 characters instead of 140 and then others can easily retweet without having to edit parts of your message.

6) If you’re looking for followers then tweet like Goldielocks. Not too little, not too much but just right. If I see someone’s face for 10 tweets of my past 15 then that person gets unfollowed. If someone just lurks and never says anything, there is a chance they may get unfollowed too.

7) If you, as a new user are still wondering what’s the big deal with Twitter; then check out Search.twitter.com

8 ) If you’re looking for followers right out of the gate, then go back to the person who introduced you to Twitter and scan their following list. Follow those who interest you. They will probably reciprocate.

9) If you’re looking for followers right out of the gate, then follow an entire list created by another user. For instance you keep up with golf and you see someone with a great list of all things golf. You can follow the whole list blindly or you can revert back to step 8.

10) Have fun. Make connections. Build relationships. Then meet the people in person for coffee and you’ll feel like you already know them.

Twitter.com has it’s own resource for new users. Here it is.