initial spike in traffic but if I just wanted to be notified of new posts, I'd subscribe to your blog. Again, you don't want to be an exhibitor, mainly at the online conference to sell. I hate automatic replies and direct messages. If I follow a new person and I get an automatic 'thank you for following', I'm not impressed. If there is a thanks with something specific about my profile or common interests, I'm honoured. And the automatic direct message is horrible -- just don't do it. All that information! Remember to scan your timeline. You don't have to go back and read every tweet since you last visited twitter. I might go back 50 messages or so. If it is important, you will probably see it again. If you are following lots of people and you don't want to miss things from certain people, you can create a list and now you can get a subset of tweets. You could have a list of scientists, list of people you've met, list of people with curly hair...whatever you want! These lists can be private or set to public for everyone. Miscellaneous Short username: You are going to be fantastic and people are going to want to quote and re-tweet you. Remember, there are only 140 characters -- so use a short username so that you aren't taking those valuable characters. If you are trying to decide to follow someone, read their last 15 to 20 tweets. It should give