Twitter is a free microblogging tool and social networking site. Are you a twitter newbie? If you haven’t joined twitter yet and have no idea where to begin then start by reading Twitter … what does it mean and how do I do it?
If you have created a twitter account and are asking “Now what?” then read on.
Last week I helped two of my clients get started with twitter. I created Twitter backgrounds so their twitter.com profiles match their website; I logged in as them and followed some people who in turn followed them back; I added a couple of first tweets; I setup their facebook fan pages to receive their twitter RSS feed; then I left it for them to figure out the rest… well they both need a little more help. Hopefully, this post will help them (and you) to understand how to tweet.
Following and Being Followed on Twitter: Like other social networking sites you can add “followers” and “follow” other people as well. They’ll receive your updates or “tweets” and you’ll receive theirs. Before you start tweeting you need followers or no one will see your tweet. The best way to be followed is to follow others. Enter a keyword in the search tag to find others that share your interests. When you find someone that shares your interests, click follow under their name. As a courtesy they will often follow you back.
Twitter # Hash Tags: The hash symbol # followed by a word identifies a topic on Twitter. Hash tags make it easy to search for all posts on the same topic. Hash tags allow you to create communities of people interested in the same topic by making it easier for them to find and share updates related to it. Once you find the topic you will also find a number of people you want to follow. A good example is #followfriday. Every Friday twitterers nominate those they think are worth following by including #followfriday somewhere in their tweet. When others search for #followfriday all tweets that have included that hash tag are displayed. If you are an artist you can add the hash tag in your tweets before the word #art so your tweet shows up in the trending topic art. If you just use the word art without the hash tag it will only show in searches without the hash tag.
Twitter retweets “RT”: Retweeting is how Twitter users share interesting tweets from the people they are following with their followers. When you hover over the tweet on twitter.com you will see the retweet icon. Click it and you can confirm that you want to retweet this to your followers.
Twitter @ replies: There seems to be confusion for new tweeters around how “at replies”— i.e. tweets that start with an @ and then a username— work on Twitter. Starting my tweet with “@username” designates that I’m addressing that user specifically. This is not a private direct message but an open group conversation. You can @reply people even if you aren’t following them. You can also click on the reply “swoosh” 
on the twitter.com web interface to create an @reply. When you are reading someone’s @ reply message in your timeline it may not make sense out of context from the original conversation.
Twitter direct messages: If I start my tweet message with “d username”— this will result in a “direct message” to that person and will only be visible to them not to your other twitter followers. A person must be following you in order for you to direct message them.
Twitter Lists: Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following. You can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list. Anyone can curate and publish lists, so if you have an idea for one, just click “New list” in the sidebar of your Twitter account to get started. Make sure you add yourself to the list you’ve created so others will follow you when they follow the list! From your profile page click lists beside the “That’s You”. You can add profiles to a list using the “Lists” drop drown from the user’s profile page or when you open your followers or following panel you can manage the list. Here is an example http://twitter.com/encausticwax/encaustic-artists a list of encaustic artists that are active on twitter. If you like a list you can click to Follow the list. If you find yourself on any lists you don’t particularly want to be on, you can remove yourself from that list by blocking its creator.
Shorter URLS: There are a number of free services available that can shorten your web links to fit within the allowable 140 characters of a tweet on twitter. http://bit.ly/ is one url shortener service that also tracks the number of clicks your link receives and it is the default service used by Twitter. The bit.ly url for this post is http://bit.ly/dCUwJB – within a few moments of tweeting this post bit.ly stats showed that the url had been clicked 16 times and the country location of the viewer. Cool eh?
Twitter Tools: You can tweet from a variety of twitter tools without first going to twitter.com. Many websites and blogs have share buttons and the Google toolbar has just added a social networking share icons that allow you to tweet . There are many free popular desktop client applications such as tweetdeck that are free to download to your computer. Tweetdeck will help you to easily manage all of your communications on Twitter and can automatically shorten your urls. There are other desktop applications available so check out a few and see what works for you.
Tweet from your Phone: Twitter was originally meant to be used from cell phones. If your cell phone allows you to send text messges you can receive tweets from Twitter on your mobile device by simply entering your cell phone number under the Devices tab in your Twitter account settings online. It gives you the chance to update what you are doing, respond to followers and keep in touch on the go. Twitter provides mobile client applications including Twitterific and Twitterberry. There are also some cell phone services that allow you to speak your tweet: TwitWoop, CallTweet and TwitterFone.
Okay now you know How to Tweet the next question is What to tweet? The typing box at twitter.com is labeled: “What are you doing?” The reality is that rarely does someone care! So don’t tweet about what you’re doing right now if you aren’t doing something worth sharing! Pose interesting questions, send links to interesting blog posts, talk up local events and news but please don’t tell me about your lunch!
Have I answer all your questions about how to use twitter? Please leave a comment and let me know if this post was helpful.
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Interesting! Gives me lots to think about! I learn something (usually more than one) new every day