I just started using my Twitter account in earnest. Started following celebrities I like. Tell me about your experiences with Twitter, and the more nuanced aspects of it.
Personally, I find following celebrities boring (though some can be funny)
I never expected it, but have found great friendships there by just finding people with like interests and engaging them directly, be it via @ or DM. I also find some really hilarious people are normal folks, though YMMV on style of humor.
Truth be told, while I still love the Dope, I spend a lot more time there, though for those who don’t tweet much, it seems impossible to convey. Have fun!
A couple people I wanted to followed haven’t tweeted recently, making my not want to follow them.
Some tweet daily, multiple times a day, most tweet about once a week or even less. The comedy celebs are the best for entertainment value, but it’s great if you find someone who’s a slightly obscure celeb that you’re a fan of, as you’re more likely to get a personal response from them. It’s like a real-time fan club.
I also use it for keeping up with friends I’ve lost touch with, in a less intrusive and less obnoxious way than Facebook.
It’s also good, if you follow enough worldwide people, for getting a general idea of what’s going on in the world. They’ll be first to talk about big events as they happen. Having said that they’ll also spend an entire day talking about some sports game as it plays out on their TV.
It may take a few weeks to get used to it and find your groove, but I encourage you to tweet things yourself. Simple thoughts and observations, funny or serious, or updates on your daily life that may be relevant (as opposed to the mundane) are a good way to generate followers.
I’m probably more interesting than I think. (at least my counselor says so)
I don’t use it much, just follow a couple sports celebs, etc. But I did comment on one of Emmitt Smith’s tweets and actually got a reply from him. Just one word, but hey, I didn’t expect anything at all, so I was happy with it! 
Moving from Cafe Society it IMHO.
Some funny people to follow:
Jenny Johnson
John Daly
Michael Ian Black
Rob Delaney
Kumail Nanjiani
I follow a really wide assortment of people. Music and sports especially. News companies can be a pain to follow because they will flood your feed.
And flood it with information that is, by twitter standards, old news. The CNN breaking news feed and the NYT feed *never *get me the story before 2 or 3 other people do. It’s better to follow individual reporters, this is particularly true if you are a sports fan. Sports in general, and baseball in particular, seem to be pretty close to the bleeding edge in terms of using twitter for media coverage.
There are lots of people I follow at this point. A couple of years ago I signed up and was following three people, now I have over a hundrend in my feed. You just start colloecting people as time goes on.
Do you recommend any reporters? I follow the This Week crew Stephanopolous, Braille, and Dowd (more analyzers than reporters.) They are fairly lame and not worth following. I’ve also gone through CNN, NYT, Huff Post, etc. and it is ridiculous how they flood twitter. I am still not sure actual news leads work on twitter. Like you said, they are also fairly late.
Here’s who I follow: (Just started yesterday FWIW)
Jarah Mariano
Mariah Carey
Jessica Gomes
Barack Obama
Joe Biden
Chrissy Teigen
Jay Leno
Jimmy Fallon
Tim Kurkjian
John Clayton
Jayson Stark
Katy Perry
Taylor Swift
John Mellencamp
Billy Joel
Sarah McClachlan
I also follow ESPN radio shows, and big TV shows
I follow (for politics)
David Frum
John Avlon
Jake Tapper
Mark Halperin
Larry Sabato
Joe Klein
Nate Silver
Roger Simon (who can be amusingly snarky provided you’re a Democrat/liberal)
I don’t know if they make me more cutting-edge for political news but they do usually have something interesting to say about it.
I also follow Rach Maddow, and the Late Nite shows I watch.
Two noob ?'s: How will I know a tweet is answered? (will it appear in my feed?) Why 140 characters? random # IMO.
Yes, if it’s someone you’re following – but you should also check your “connect” tab regularly – anything tweeted by anyone with your @username will appear there.
And it’s considered good manners to thank people who RT you.
It was originally designed to work with SMS texting, which has a limit of 160 characters. Presumably twitter needs the other twenty for routing/attribution or something. There are various services like TwitLonger that allow longer tweets, but I think the 140 character limit actually works quite well - it forces people to be concise.
Try local, national, and international news Twitter accounts. Set up a list for “News” so you can skim headlines and keep up to date on things you may care about. You can similarly add niche news sources to the list. (Lifehacker has a Twitter account, or Mashable, or The Advocate.)
Looking for industry news for whatever work you do? Look for some industry thought leaders, follow them, and put them in their own list.
You can set up a list for, say, your local arts scene (sports scene, whatever) too. I follow local theatre companies, musicians, and cultural groups (like Steampunk Chicago). I’m sure there are Twitter feeds for sports teams and/or the people who play on them.
Basically, if you have an interest, there’s a bunch of people and groups who share it, and lots of them have Twitter accounts.
BTW, I highly recommend a dashboard application like TweetDeck or HootSuite, as it allows you to create several columns or “streams” for each of your lists, which makes things a ton easier to scan over quickly. Twitter moves fast, and you will have to come to accept that you’re not going to have time to see everything there. Having things set up by topic of interest, in an easily scannable format, will allow you to get the most out of it when you do check in.
It was to leave room for the username/handle.
Kaio-I definitely need lists; considering the volume, and range, of who I follow!
HootSuite: http://hootsuite.com/
TweetDeck: https://www.tweetdeck.com/
I also follow people I meet at networking events, if they seem like people worth learning from. (But then again I do things like attend Social Media Week and do social media marketing, so 1> it makes sense for me to do this, and 2> everyone is sharing their twitter handles, and often live tweeting the event.)
And speaking of live tweeting and dashboards, you can temporarily add columns that follow a hashtag (like #SMWChicago, which was the tag for Social Media Week Chicago), so you can keep track of what’s going on for as long as the event lasts. You can do this for things like “attending” a celeb’s twitter chat, too.
I follow nearly 400 people, nobody overly famous though. Most I’m friends with or acquainted with. I really like @AdviceToWriters and The Economist’s feed is pretty good too.