Today’s title is less impressive than it appears, given that The Oracle of Ohama spells his name with a second t. In reality, I am being followed by someone whose surname brings to mind visions of sneeze guards and all-you-can-eat dinner specials.

I have also recently learned that George Soros and Boone Pickens (again with the missing T) are following me.

This all has my somewhat fragile ego in a bit of a state. The Lovely Lisa, who thinks Twitter is about as useful as its name, is giving me that look she gets when I laugh too hard at Larry David.

But I love Twitter. Despite its spam, B-list celebrities and arbitrary 140-character limit, I find Twitter to be a genuinely worthwhile source of information. Most of the time. The key is to figure out the subject(s) you want join the conversation on and, like any good member of a community, do your part.

Twitter has proven especially popular among those of us interested in personal finance. My list of favourite tweeters includes Jon Chevreau, Thicken My Wallet, Canadian Capitalist, Wise Bread, Million Dollar Journey, Four Pillars, The Canadian Finance Blog, Squawkfox and of course Globe Investor. You can find me under the name Todayseconomy.

If you haven’t already created an account, here are 10 lessons Twitter has taught me:

1. Stay on topic. Tweeting is a lot like blogging. It’s okay to go off-topic every now and then, but if your first post of the day is “Good morning tweeters!” then I’m giving you the axe. Seriously, I’d love to follow you if your plan is to link to valuable personal finance content. If you’re not consistent about it, you’ll lose followers.
2. Tweet often. Between my day job and this blog, I don’t have much time for Twitter. What I do have, like others, are little five-minute pockets of downtime scattered throughout the day. That’s when I tweet. On a typical day I get half a dozen or so good content links up. I wish I could do more.
3. Tweet during the day. A lot of users only log on between 9 and 5. You will enjoy their content, and gain followers with yours.
4. Tweet in the evening. Tweet on the weekend. Similarly, some users don’t sign on until after work. I use bit.ly to shorten the URLs I post and track the traffic I generate. The evening and weekend numbers are comparable to the daytime results.
5. Retweet. Nothing says I love you like a retweet. Repost content by other personal finance tweeters (begin your post with RT, and then put an @ symbol before the original tweeter’s name). They’ll get a notification, and you’ll make a new friend.
6. Don’t follow everyone. Some users feel obligated to follow everyone who follows them. Don’t waste your time. Focus on the users that provide good content (click on the user’s name and you can see his or her history), and you’ll build yourself a better quality feed. If you do decide to follow someone you’re unsure about, don’t click on the shortened URLs he or she posts. You can get a virus from Twitter.
7. Don’t obsess over your follow list. This is easier said than done; watching your list of followers climb is a bit hypnotic. It’s a distraction though. Focus on good personal finance content. Use hash tags (# symbols before key words like economy, recession, etc.) in your tweets and your list of followers will grow organically.
8. Follow Fridays. This is one of the nicer forms of Twitter etiquette. On Fridays, post the names of your favourite tweeters (don’t forget the @ symbol). They’ll probably return the favour.
9. Don’t repeat your tweets. Twitter has gotten aggressive about removing spammers from the site. If you repost tweets regularly, Twitter will think you’re one of the bad guys. Your account will remain in place, but you won’t show up in Find People searches and hash tags won’t work for you.
10. Stick with it. Neilsen Wire has reported that about 60% of Twitter users quit posting after a month. That’s a shame because the service gets better with time. The longer (and more actively) you participate, the more you get out of it. There is a lot of good personal finance content on Twitter. Give it at least three months.