Twitter has now come into its own as a social, news-sharing, andpromotional network. While there are benefits to merely consumingTwitter's content, they pale in comparison to those of activetweeting, which range from new networking opportunities to freshinsights from those who view a topic from outside your industry orprofession.

Attorneys, corporate officers and other individuals withfiduciary responsibilities often shy away from tweeting for fear ofviolating disclosure rules, legal obligations, and/or professionalconduct rules, or for fear that their tweets may inadvertently puttheir company or industry in a bad light. Here are ten tips to helpnavigate these potential landmines and increase the value oftweeting.

1. Twitter is a very simple beast – all senttweets are public. It does not matter if the tweetlived but a second before it was deleted: it could have beenretweeted, copied, and/or photographed. Moreover, all publishedtweets are archived at the Library of Congress. So treat Twitter as youwould a reporter's question, a blog post, or a cocktail party – ifa disclosure is improper under any of these circumstances, do nottweet it. As the IBM Social Computing Guidelines recommend, payattention to copyright, trademark and fair use disclosure laws ofothers, and do not disclose confidential, proprietary or sensitiveinformation of your company or its customers and suppliers, orinformation affecting the privacy of others, including your fellowemployees.

2. Placing a disclaimer on your Twitter bio that “all opinionsare my own and do not represent my employer” is a useful and, formost companies, necessary clarification, but it does not absolveyou of remembering that your comments still reflect on your companyand its brand. If you work for a weight loss company, for example,you may not want to tweet about having deep-fried Oreos forbreakfast every day. It is also important to identify yourself byyour actual name, and if relevant to the subject matter of yourtweets, your position at your company.

3. Do not trust Direct Messages (DMs) to keep your secrets (DMsare Twitter's private back-channel). First, it is very easy tomistakenly tweet what you thought you were DMing (ask AnthonyWeiner). Second, just because these messages are private now is nota guarantee that Twitter will not change its privacy policy in thefuture, or that DMs will not be published through a technicalmishap. See, e.g., private messagespublished on users' “walls” on Facebook.

4. Learn by example. Watch the tweet feed of some well-regardedtweeters, such as Sir Richard Branson (@richardbranson); ReidHoffman (@quixotic); and Heidi Moore (@moorehn). There are alsomany “must-follow” lists for particular industries. (For example,here is a good list for lawyers and this,for life sciences.)

5. Unless you have the newsworthiness of the Pope (@Pontifex) orHillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton), just joining Twitter, or evenissuing a press release about it, may not garner you thousands offollowers overnight. Announce your presence to those who areinterested in what you have to say by following them, and a largepercentage will reciprocate and follow you back. You may also wantto send a tweet to a couple of popular journalists who follow yourindustry and know who you are. A tweet like “@____, I took theplunge and joined Twitter. Looking forward to conversing here” mayresult in that journalist tweeting to his followers: “Pleasewelcome @[you] to Twitter! Follow him/her!”

Read more: Tailor your tweets to your audience…

6. Decide who you would like your audience to be and tailor yourtweets accordingly. If you want to appeal to a broad, generalpublic, consider specializing in a particular topic. To bringvalue, identify public sources that others are not likely to readwith regularity, and share information from those sources. WardPlunet's (@wardplunet) tweet stream is good example – he tweetsabout advances in science, finding the information in publicationsthat the general public is not likely to read.

7. The greatest advantage of Twitter is its egalitarianism. Youcan tweet to anyone. If there are particular individuals with whomyou would like to connect, try to engage them in conversation. Copythem on a tweet in which you share a link to an article that may beof interest and ask for an opinion, or comment on their tweets. Ifa person has a large following, it may take a few attempts to gethis or her attention, but if your tweets are worthwhile, thatconnection will likely be forged.

8. Express an opinion. Chances are, many others have readthe Inc. or Forbes article you aresharing. But those others do not have your take on it, so saysomething about why it is worth reading, or why it is wrong. At thesame time, don't let your zeal get the best of you and respect theopinion of others. You are just as liable for slander, libel anddefamation as you would be in any other publication.

9. Let your personal life shine through. To an extent. A greatexample is Adam Feurstein (@adamfeuerstein), a senior columnist atTheStreet.com, specializing in biotech/drug stocks. He leavens hisreporting tweets with tweets about his dog, Max and running. Hisfollowers know enough about him to feel a personal connection, butnot enough to interfere with his personal and family life.

10. Be generous in sharing the tweets of others. Identify a fewpeople who consistently post great content and retweet it to yourfollowers. Your generosity will be noted and reciprocated.