Please note that this guide refers to using Twitter via twitter.com. The majority of Twitter users use third party cliets such as TweetDeck, HootSuite and EchoFon. The basics covered in this guide are still relevant to third party Twitter clients but the key strokes will probably be different.
Learn the basics of Twitter
There has been a lot of buzz about Twitter for almost three years now. You may have heard stories both positive and negative about Twitter. As a general rule people either get Twitter or they don’t. There tends to be no middle ground. So today I am going to try to help all you sceptics understand Twitter a little bit more by explaining some of its key features.
Let’s start at the beginning, Twitter is sometimes referred to as a micro blogging website. Users answer a very simple question, “What’s happening?”. Their answers are 140 characters or less and yes I did say 140 characters not words, so brevity is the watchword of Twitter. Why did they choose 140 characters? So that it fitted in with the notion that Twitter was SMS for The Web. Messages on Twitter are called Tweets.
Who’s going to see your Tweets? Potentially all other Twitter users. By default a Tweet can be viewed by any other Twitter user. There are ways to keep your Tweets private if you want to, but generally you probably won’t want to. After all this is Social Media, right?
Having decided to try Twitter you will need to sign up for an account. This is very easy to do at www.twitter.com. You now have your own Twitter account and you are ready to post your first Tweet. Now this isn’t a Neil Armstrong moment, but equally try to be a little more creative than telling people what you had for breakfast.
First Tweet out of the way now you need to make some new friends. On Twitter friends can be a one way or two way street. Friends on Twitter are called Followers. If you choose to follow me (@michaelwalmsley) then you are a follower of mine. I am notified that you are following me but it is my choice if I wish to follow you back. If I do then I am now a follower of you. You probably won’t be to bothered about becoming my follower, not when there are a whole gamut of celebrities out there that you can follow. Twitter provides a useful “Find People” function that enables you to search for specific people by name. Be aware that there are a lot of fake celebrities out there. Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) the Manchester United and England footballer has taken a very simple approach to proving that his account is genuine. His profile picture shows him holding up a piece of paper that says his username.
When you start to follow people then their Tweets will appear when you sign into Twitter. These Tweets are in what is termed your Twitter Stream. You may want to send a message to somebody that does not follow you, maybe to congratulate them on something they have recently accomplished. To do this you simply put an “@” sign in front of their username in your message. For example if you want to congratulate me on gaining a new client you might Tweet something like:
Congratulations @michaelwalmsley on having a successful pitch and gaining a new client.
Putting the “@” sign in front of my username means that even if I do not follow you your message will appear in my Twitter Stream.
You may want to send a personal message that you want me and nobody else to read. This is achievable in Twitter and is called a Direct Message or “DM”. To do this you need to go to the Users profile page and choose “Direct Message” from the settings drop down underneath and to the right of their username.
You may read something that has been posted by somebody that you follow that you think would be of interest to your followers. You can republish the message, this is called a Retweet. Put your mouse over the message and in the bottom right you will see an option to Retweet appears.
As you follow more people you will find that your Twitter Stream becomes more and more chaotic and busy. You might want to find a way to separate the different people you follow in to different categories. This is achieved by creating lists. I will use my own account as an example I separate lists for topics such as Search Engine Optimisation, Web Designers, Movers and Shakers in the world of the web and about 8 other lists. I assess the quality of the Tweets from all the people that I follow and those that I think are particularly useful or interesting are put into the most relevant list. This helps me to have a useful resource on that particular subject and enables me to track down the stuff that I might be most interested in at that particular moment without having to wade through a load of Tweets that may or may not be useful to me.
You can search for information on particular subjects such as your favourite sport or politics. Twitter users have developed the use of the hashtag (#) to denote that this is a searchable subject. Every day I post three technology related stories that I think other people might be interested in and may have missed. I always start these Tweets with “#3fromme”. You might want to tell the whole world how much you admire Kim Kardashian, if you include #kimkardashian other Twitter followers are more likely to see your Tweet as they would use Twitters built in search facility and include the whole name made into one word with a “#” in front of it.
Well those are the basics of Twitter in the coming weeks I will write about how you can use Twitter to promote your brand and the tools that are available to help you monitor what people are saying about you and your brand.
You can follow my Tweets on Twitter by going to www.twitter.com/michaelwalmsley
