Cool Twitter Conferences makes stop in Chicago, offers up tips galore

The line-up was outstanding, and each speaker offered quality tips worth passing on.

Here's a collection of some of the best tips, which can help you in your own tweeting:

@drbarb, journalism professor

• Anyone starting with Twitter, you need to know how you want to use it, there's at least two or three ways (personal, professional, social)
• Brand yourself and follow the accounts that'll have inside info you're interested in
• Use hashtags when possible (ie. #Chicago) - they're eye-appealing and easy to track on a site like Twitterfall

@InteractiveAmy, social media consultant

• Companies should use Twitter for customer service (like Domino's and @DPZRAMON)
• Use it to monitor conversations, resolve problems, engage customers, build relationships, empower staffs
• Everybody will make mistakes; those in the end don't matter -- the response does
• Twitter allows you to turn a negative into a positive if you jump on top of it in real-time

@windycitysocial, marketing and social media events

• Some observations from major companies using Twitter: "great way to talk to many, but an even better way to listen," "I realize that every tweet could be held against me"
• Should encourage user-generated content
• Use multiple channels and free promotions (follow us on Twitter, go to the blog, back-and-forth)

@garrettpopcorn, social media marketer

• It's not the number of followers you have, but the QUALITY of those followers
• You should respond to every @ reply or direct message
• Follow everyone who mentions you
• Consider cross-promotional tweets (you tweet about them, they tweet about you); good way to build relationships and help each other
• Send random and surprise messages - if people are having a bad day, etc.
• If you put good vibes into the Twitterverse, good vibes will come back to you

@DPZRAMON, operator partner at 6 local Domino's

• For Domino's, social networking is about putting a face to our logo
• Recommends being very personable - interact, host/attend events, take/post pictures
• Either be part of a conversation or start one, use lists to categorize your friends (TweetDeck), be real and transparent
• Don't just talk about yourself, talk about others and reach out to others
• Use Monitter to monitor multiple keywords on Twitter in real-time
• The real ROI is the relationships you build and networking

@pekpongpaet, Twitter API/game developer

• Best advice: Inject yourself into the stream, that's how you get talked about and found; try to find ways to go viral
• Recognize people through @ reply when they're engaged in activities related to what you do
• Tie your Twitter into other services - TwitPic, TwitVid, YouTube, Tweetmeme, bit.ly, Flickr

@TriumphCIO, entrepreneuer/CIO Job Angels

• More than 80% of the Internet is spam, there's a need for real people and good services
• #jobangels is a service to help people find jobs and get back to work
• Twitter is all about the conversation

@jwillie, business development/marketing

• Use Twitter for competitive intelligence - who's in your space? Keep an eye on them, get ideas.
• It's not about who follows you, it's about who YOU follow that makes your Twitter experience interesting.
• Not sure what to tweet about? Start a random conversation, be remarkable, be fun, be helpful, be supportive, and sometimes even be controversial.

@tamcdonald, real estate agent

• Use Advanced Search to find the most relevant and interesting tweets
• Monitor what's being said about you or your company, then dive in and join the conversation

@CMEgroup/@AllanSchoenberg, corporate communications

• StockTwits.com is useful to see who is tweeting about stocks
• Recommended RSS resource to track major news, which you can then search for on Twitter: www.bloglines.com

Full disclaimer: I was one of the speakers and I talked about Breaking Tweets and Breaking Tweets Chicago.

And a few tips from me:

• Use "near:Chicago" on search.twitter.com to see what people are saying around Chicago on Twitter.
• Track popular keywords on Twitter through real-time word clouds (updated by the second) at TwitScoop.