I never quite got Twitter. It just seemed like a giant celebrity circle jerk. Especially for celebrity tech people. And I just don't give enough of a shit about famous or prominent people for it to matter much.
Twitter allows me to follow writers and influencers like Malcolm Gladwell, William Gibson, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, to niche industry influencers ranging from Rails engineers to industrial designers to photographers in a way that is digestable and at times personal. To me, it's been edifying to read thoughts from them, discover work they've created as it happens, or find out about a book they recommend.
Twitter is literally what you make of it. Follow interesting people, you get interesting content.
I know that the next day, or the day after that, worst case scenario, anything immediately relevant to me, or my community, will appear in my local newspaper, or RSS feed...
I live locally, in the short run, globally in the long run...
That's what devalues Twitter to investors...it's just "entertainment...it can easily be given up, without any real consequences...there are other more refined sources for what it offers...
It's surprisingly hard to find people who consistently say interesting things in such a restricted space.
Overall, I've decided it was so hard that it just wasn't worth my time, so I no longer read Twitter at all.
Obviously, your mileage may vary.
* Never follow accounts with blue checkmarks.
* Take the words of very popular accounts (even if they have no checkmark) with a grain of salt.
* Use your account to converse or pontificate, not to advertise your personal brand.
* Avoid jokey one-upmanship. It is tedious.
* Avoid detailed explanation until prompted. Brevity makes for misunderstandings.
* Follow people you do not know personally.
* Follow artists.
* Follow journalists.
* Follow minorities.
The reason to use Twitter is to get perspectives that have no other outlet - no advertising, no backing, no organization behind them. These are voices that are so faint that they could be tuned out any other way, and they don't get covered in the paper the next day, because they're going outside of the narrative lines. That is why you do better avoiding the blue checkmarks and people who would strive for them.