Dear @twitter friends,

Welcome to a page just for you. If you’re considering following me on Twitter, I ask you to do one thing. Please learn a little about me first:

MarciaORead some of my previous posts. Go back a bit. Perhaps look around my blog, website or take a peek at my background. Don’t follow me because my name is on some list or @verypopular just said I wrote something brilliant. While neither of these happens regularly, they happen periodically, and I’d like to think you’ve made an educated decision before jumping aboard.

Once you follow, I’d be delighted if you’d @reply message me (@marciamarcia) to tell me how you found me and what you hope to gain. Nothing fancy. This increases the chances I’ll follow you back and helps ensure I provide information useful to you.

Some days I tweet a dozen (or more) times. Other days I may only post once. The average is 8 times a day. I rarely answer the question, “What are you doing?” or “What’s happen’?” and it’s even more rare for me to tell you what I’m eating, when I’m going to bed, or what my family is up to unless my 13-yr old son, “boywonder,” did something too astounding to keep to myself. Most of my posts are related to learning, social media, people-centric business practices, leadership, communications, women in business, innovation, design and improving the world.

Periodically I point to new things I’ve written for Fast Company, my personal blog, and other assorted sites were I contribute. The rest of the time I ask questions, point to information from other people and reflect on my journey to help individuals and enterprises excel.

If you’d like for us to learn together, in other words you hope I’ll follow you back, there are a few more things to consider.

A) I almost exclusively follow people who post items at least half of the time that don’t just inform us of your status — they educate us about something we can do for ourselves. It’s not that I couldn’t benefit from knowing the location where you parked your car or that it’s raining today, or that you’re the mayor of the Hampton Inn. It’s just that I mostly use these tools to enhance my productivity so I prefer updates that teach me something I can use or share with others who would benefit, too.

B) I almost never follow someone who hasn’t uploaded a picture, included a web address where I can learn more about them, or adds a tag line that quickly gives a sense of who they are. These are the sorts of tools I believe require a little time to make your own so that we can begin to build a rapport right away. If you aren’t happy with any recent picture of yourself, find a suitable image that represents who you are. Perhaps a sunrise or an open field.

C) People who send me @marciamarcia messages (in other words, include the exact phrase “@marciamarcia” without anything touching that text in the body of their tweet) catch my attention quicker than someone who follows and doesn’t begin to engage. Those who retweet something I’ve posted also catch my eye. Consider sending a note why you’ve chosen to follow me or what you hope we learn together and it’s more likely I’ll visit your profile page within a few days. If you’ve done this and I still haven’t clicked through, see A & B above, or consider pinging me again.

While I didn’t expect you to read this far, now that you have, here are a few sources of information about my perspectives on social media in general and Twitter (microsharing) in specific you might find helpful.

I could go on, but I won’t. This is why a 140-character limit serves me (and you) well.

Looking forward to growing with you,