twitter trainin

i twitter. a lot. and, occasionally, i get asked to train a group of people on how to use twitter. the best advice i can offer is to JUST DO IT. just get started. start talking. but for those who are still unsure, i offer the guide below.

i also say to those who think they don't have time for twitter that you have to be OK with knowing you are not going to get to everyone's tweets. you're just not. but you can set aside maybe 10 minutes a day and respond to @ messages and dm's. post something you've seen, and make yourself useful.

now i present, the pleased productions guide to twitterin.

Come up with a Twitter username

A lot of people use their real names, but you can always make up one to describe yourself or just use a nickname. Your address will be twitter.com/username.

Upload a photo, fill in your bio, add a website

You can upload a photo of yourself, or of something you love, just upload something! Remember people will be deciding on whether or not they want to follow you based on this stuff. So keep it fresh, but most importantly keep it interesting. Think of it as the interesting piece of clothing you’re wearing to a party that people will comment on.

Protected updates

You can select “protect my updates,” and no one but those that you approve will be able to read your updates. The upside to this is that … you can say whatever you want to and pretty much control who sees it. The downside is that those who might want to follow you out there most likely won’t, because they can’t see what you’re writing about!

Following v. Followers

You can “follow” people, and all of their tweets will show up in your twitter stream. Those people can, in turn, follow you, but they don’t have to. Those that follow you are referred to as “followers.” There will be people that you follow that won’t follow you and vice versa. It’s not bad twitiquette if you decide to unfollow someone, and there are websites that let you track who unfollows you.

What is Twitter for?

Twitter can be for all kinds of things. I use it to connect to other people—people in the same business as me, my friends, the one thing they all have in common is that their tweets offer me something. I learn more by following them. You can gain windows into worlds that you don’t know much about, build a personal or corporate brand.

You can gain a huge number of followers—be or do something remarkable, something different from the rest of numbers, and then watch the number of followers you have take off. A good example of this is the coffee shop that used Twitter to take orders. Then they had a Tweetup for all of those that frequent the coffee shop—you didn’t have to leave your seat to order!

I’ve used Twitter to find out what my friends are up to, to follow blogs or news feeds, to learn more about people I want to know, and to join in on their conversations. All of those things are great! I also use it to promote my blog, to get involved with things going on in my community, and to “microblog.” Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, so a lot of people refer to it as microblogging. I use it to share what I’m reading and what I find interesting, what I’m working on, and to ask questions. It’s a great place to get a question answered.

Think of Twitter as a cocktail party with millions in attendance. You can’t really do any wrong—just start talking! I’ve even used Twitter to look for jobs. The power of Twitter is incredible.

Build your brand.

Some companies encourage employees to Twitter and to respond to customers and their complaints. Some places use Twitter to run contests, solicit feedback, and thank customers for supportive messages. You can use the search function to search for your @username or for your company’s name. Or for anything, really!

@username

You’ll see a lot of people saying things like @username yeah I totally agree! Those are people responding to other tweets.

@juliaroy hey I’ll see you tonight at 150 varick @nettap cool—still at 5:30?

If your friend’s name is Alex, but his username is Alexxooorr, if you tweet @alex then your friend won’t get your message, but whoever has the username Alex will.

Also, keep in mind that EVERYONE can see your @username messages. If you want to send a private message, you can “DM” someone—or direct message them.

D username

Direct messaging is like @username, except that only you and the person you DM sees the msg. Whoever you direct message, they have to be following you in order for them to receive the msg.

You can also set up Twitter to send all tweets to your mobile phone or IM, but it becomes really annoying if you follow a great number of people. A good alternative is to have just DM’s sent to your phone or IM. Or you can choose to have nothing sent to either!

#charitywater

What the heck is #charitywater? That’s a Twitter hash tag. People add a hash tag (#) and then the topic they’re talking about. It’s tracked really easily, it’s easily searchable, and it’s like adding a tag to a post that you make on the web.

Where can I send a tweet from?

The Twitter webpage, from your mobile phone, from IM, or from a Twitter client like: TweetDeck, Twitterfon, Twhirl, Spaz, Blogo, Digsby, Twitterfox. There are tons of them, you just have to find the one that works for you. Easytweets is another program that will schedule tweets to go off at select times.

What does RT stand for?

RT=retweeting. You retweet someone else’s post by putting RT @username. You usually retweet something when you think it would be useful to those who are following you. Be careful with this feature. Many a Twitter user has been unfollowed for RT’ing too often. If you’re not adding anything to the conversation other than RT’ing, then some people will stop following you!