How do you Twitter?

Twitter is a funny thing. It's both more and less revealing than Facebook—Facebook has more personal details, but you can make your profile friends-only. On Twitter, anyone can follow you—for the most part...there are ways to lock people out, but it kind of defeats the point of Twitter the way a lot of people want to use it.

Of course, people use it in all sorts of different ways. From what I can tell, a lot of people use it as a way to express what they're a fan of. I wonder how many accounts have a photo of Justin Bieber as the profile pic? (The username is usually something like Belieber4Life.)

Others create accounts and never post a thing—they just follow different celebrities or news sources and check their Twitter feed once in a while for updates.

Others make constant posts of every random thought they've ever had: Why do I always forget how terrible my showered-at-night hair looks the next day? Two hours after lunch and I'm already hungry. What ever happened to Salute Your Shorts? Wow, it's hot today. (The good news is they only have 141 characters to make these comments in.)

I use mine mostly as a news source. I follow as many HME-related people I can find, as well as all the local newspapers and TV stations.

I also use it as a news transmitter—the minute I hear something cool, I tweet it. When Don Clayback told me Sen. Shumer would introduce a Senate companion bill to H.R. 942, I got right on Twitter and let my 400-or-so followers know about it.

No matter who you are or what you use Twitter for, please, if you value my sanity, avoid these two pet peeves of mine.

#1: Unless you are live-tweeting an event or something, please don't post 15 items in rapid succession. It makes me not want to read any of those tweets.

#2: Facebook and Twitter do not mix. Please don't use Facebook to post to Twitter. It seems like a great idea—two social media outlets with one post. But at least half the time, we don't get to see the end of your sentence.

Example:

I am so excited to tell you guys that I fin… fb.me/234gL1EX8 

Then, when you click on the link, it doesn't take you to the end of the post. It takes you to the link the Twitter user posted at the end of his or her Facebook post: some random website you have no context for.

You're not getting the chance to communicate your thoughts, and we're not getting the chance to see them. Not so great.

So what kind of Twitter user are you? Comment below, email me or tweet and let me know!