Quick Guide to Twitter
One of the fastest-growing social media platforms of late has been Twitter. Despite the buzz, many would-be newcomers have had trouble grasping what it is, why they should use it, how it differs from other technologies like Instant Messaging applications and how to best leverage it.
This article touches on these issues and more and is meant to provide the new Twitter user or someone considering its use with the information they need to get started and fully benefit from it. Please feel free to bookmark this or forward the link to friends and co-workers that you’d like to see on Twitter. I will update this article as additional input is received from readers.
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What is Twitter?
Twitter is a service that friends, family, and co–workers can use to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you doing?”
While blogs post fairly lengthy articles on all types of topics, Twitter posts are conveniently limited in size to just 140 characters, which happens to be the maximum number of characters allowed in an SMS text message sent to a cell phone. This cap on posting size forces users to be brief and concise in what they’re posting and makes it far easier for those reading the posts to quickly scan posts for relevance and interest.
Some Twitterers post the status of what they’re doing throughout the day, but many post to share “finds” - URLs to useful articles they’ve found, sites they think friends or colleagues would benefit from, queries and more. If the internet allows for a global exchange of information, think of Twitter as an exchange of information in easily digestible, bite-sized chunks, and only from those whom you choose to receive it.
On Twitter there are “Followers” - those people who have an interest in what you personally are doing and what you have to say. On Twitter, each user also has a “Following” list - those people who you personally are interested in following or receiving personal updates from.
In layman’s terms, think of your “Followers” similar to what “Friends” are on Facebook. When someone clicks a button to follow you, they are opting-in to receive your 140-character posts to Twitter. In turn, when you yourself click the follow button, you’re opting in to the other person’s updates (their “Twitter Feed”).
Silly Grown-Up, Twitter’s for Kids!
Surprisingly…no, it’s not. I introduced it to my 17-year-old daughter who text messages over 2,000 messages per month and uses MySpace daily and she did not really “get it” at all. My sense is that the user-base on Twitter tends to skew to the 30+ crowd and be far more academic than the average teen who spews mind-numbing pablum via a MySpace account or text messages with friends. So if you’re worried that you’re too old for Twitter, think again.
Mobile Options
When you follow another individual on Twitter, that person’s posts appear on your Twitter web page. In fact, all the posts of all the folks you are following comprise the Twitter feed that appears on your Twitter page. You can “read” your Twitter feed a number of different ways, via the Web login of your own page, via a third party software application like TWhirl or Twitterific, via Instant Messenger or via SMS text messages sent to your mobile phone.
When you click the button to follow someone, you’ll see the option to turn on or off Device Updates. When Device Updates are on, that person’s “Tweets” (140-character posts) will be sent to your cell phone as text messages. (In the Settings area of your Twitter account, you can also change the notification vehicle - either text messages to your phone or sent to an instant messenger account as you prefer)
The mobile option is particularly worth mentioning here because it is an easy way for new users of Twitter to get overwhelmed. I follow hundreds of people, but I only have Device Updates turned on for a handful of them. Unless you have an unlimited text message plan with your cell phone provider, and unless you want your phone going off every minute, it’s generally a good idea to divide your “Following” list into two circles: an inner circle and a larger outer circle. The inner circle might be a handful of people - family and close friends - whom you want to receive real-time Tweets from and be able to interact with. (You can reply to SMS tweets via SMS and you can also post to your own Twitter feed via SMS). Your outer circle might be “everyone else”, and you would monitor it as you have time via your Twitter web access, while setting Device Updates to occur only for those in your inner circle.
More mobile options
If you’re an avid mobile user, Twitter has a mobile version of the service that can be accessed via any WAP browser at m.twitter.com. Other options include apps specifically designed for the iPhone, such as the ThinCloud client, and a whole host of other applications to explore other than the default, which is SMS messages to your cell phone.
What should my Twitter user name be?
In general, it can be anything that is not already taken by another user. When you create an account, Twitter kindly lets you know that a name is or is not available for use. Here are some suggestions:
- If you own a brand, grab the name to that brand as a Twitter user account so that competitors cannot, even if you don’t intend on using it currently. You may at some point want to use it and you certainly don’t want a competitor to get on Twitter pretending to be a representative of your company. Once a username is gone it is gone, just like a domain name.
- Each Twitter account can only be linked to a single and unique email address, so if you want more than one Twitter account, you must find a way of using a different email address, such as by creating a secondary Gmail account for it or using a unique email alias from your existing domain.
- Perhaps the best username is going to be as simple as your First Name and Last Name, largely for branding purposes. For example, while I initially started using “Boettiger” (my last name) as my username, I quickly created a new account at “AdamBoettiger” for name recognition and personal branding purposes. People tend to give much more credence to what you have to say if you use your real name than some “handle” like “BeefEater364″ or a company name.
After you create a free account on Twitter, you’ll be able to provide the web address to your Twitter page to friends, family and co-workers, who in turn will be able to click a button on your page that will allow them to “Follow” your update stream. If you wish, you can start including it in your email signature when you participate in discussions on discussion lists or participate in bulletin board discussions - both great ways to generate a wider following.
So…Why should I use Twitter? Isn’t it just like AIM and all the other things that interrupt my life?
Actually…no.
You choose how to read Twitter. With something like AIM there is no choice. You’re live and interruptable, unless you move your setting to Away or Sleep.
You don’t have to turn on SMS or IM notifications on Twitter. By default, when you follow someone, these notifications are turned off and must be manually turned on by you. At the very basic level of usage, you’d follow a handful of people and maybe log into your Twitter page once a day or once a week to read their “Tweets” (posts).
But there are more efficient and effective ways of reading/monitoring your Twitter-Feed than the web page Twitter provides. One of the most effective is via RSS. At the bottom of your Twitter page is a link you can add to your favorite RSS feed reader that will allow you to read the feed of all those you follow conveniently via RSS.
As a side-note, one of the most effective strategies I’ve used has been to add an RSS feed for the Twitter stream from my page, then select the 10 most critical people I follow and add their streams as RSS feeds to my reader. This way I never miss anything, but I can still read at my own leisure without being interrupted.
Why would a person want to use Twitter?
I can’t speak for the million plus users they have, but personally I find it quite interesting to see who other people are turning to for information and who they are influenced by. For example, say I follow the Global Brand Manager for NIKE. Because I work in the advertising industry myself, I think it would be pretty interesting to see who they follow. Who do they turn to for news, ideas and influence? Whose opinion do they find invaluable? Who do they pay attention to?
With Twitter, you can view that individual’s page, click on their “Following” link and see the entire list of who they are following. If you’re not already following them, you’ll see a Follow button you can click on, so in theory I could follow the exact same individuals who that Global Brand Manager finds so critical and interesting. And I do. With many people. Movers and shakers. People who add value to my life.
Really that’s just one reason and one method of using Twitter - to see who is influencing the influencers. Who does Jeff Bezos follow? Who do the major players in your own industry follow and what are they reading that is so interesting that they continue to follow these folks?
Another reason I find Twitter particularly useful is that it is short bursts of content that I can easily and quickly scan. It forces people to be brief. As opposed to long blog articles which are often time-consuming for me to read. No, I won’t get the same level of information from a 140-character Tweet as I would a full article, but really it’s not about that. With a 140-character post, it’s about whether I want to read further via the link or not.
If I want it to be, it can also be instantaneous. There are a handful of folks I have notifications turned on for and I’ve gotten notice of some great and timely headlines that way, specific to my industry. I also find it particularly convenient to be able to send a text message from my cell phone and have it be posted to my own Twitter feed.
Another way folks find value in Twitter is as an instant source of feedback or resource identification. I have over 500 followers - those who monitor my posts. If I need a suggestion for a vendor to use or have a problem I need help with, the odds are that one or more of those 500 will be online and be able to offer ideas or referrals.
Yet another way folks find value in Twitter is in meeting new people who share similar interests or who work in the same industry. I’ve found that in general, people are quite approachable on Twitter and I’ve escalated several discussions to email and telephone and even in-person meetings, all from meeting them initially on Twitter!
Where and how do I find people to follow?
As I mentioned above, perhaps the best way is to start with one or two people, visit their Twitter pages and see who they are following. Much like with RSS or email newsletters, most new Twitter users start following way too many users and then later on pare down to only those who interest them or provide value to their lives.
Another great place to find folks to follow is Twitter Packs, an open-source wiki directory of Twitter user broken down by category and interest. There’s a section on New Media, Marketing, Social Media and more.
You’ll also see more and more folks adding the URL to their Twitter page to their email signature. All you need to do is click on that link and click the Follow button after logging into your account to add them / follow them.
How can I get the most out of Twitter?
I’ve found I get more out of Twitter if I have more followers. But the age-old question is: “How do I get more people to follow me?”
Be interesting about what you post. Be colorful. Be yourself. Whatever you do, don’t post ads for your business and don’t just post links to your blog articles. That’s boring. Share your thoughts. Be spontaneous. But don’t post “too” often or folks who have notifications turned on will be overwhelmed and “Un-Follow” you. A handful per day is just about right. One per week is too few.
Twitter advertises itself as answering the question, “What are you doing?”. Really for some folks that can be quite boring. I’ve found a good mix is for me to post some of the interesting things I’m doing, but not the mundane ones, and add a sprinkle of article suggestions I think others may benefit from and resources I find. If you’re perceived as adding value to someone else’s life, they will not only follow you, they will tell others to follow you too.
How should I promote my business on Twitter?
- I’ve found that individuals on Twitter tend to be more attracted to people/individuals, rather than business entities or companies. So while if you are H&R Block, it’s okay that you have “HRBlock” as your username, but in general Twitter is thus far more about individual one-on-one relationships and not one-to-business relationships.
- People are interested in what you are doing as a person, not necessarily what your business is doing. One of the biggest mistakes many businesses make in trying to do social media marketing (SMM) is that they assume that people find interest in what their business is doing. That’s incredibly boring and presumptuous.
- The way to reach people is to connect with people on a peer-to-peer basis. If they so happen to work for a company, hey great. They can talk about your company. Far more people will be interested in learning about your thoughts as an individual than they will be to hear that your company just got an award for being best of class in what you do. It’s about adding value to the lives of others, not about promoting your business. Businesses realize benefit from these peer-to-peer connections as a side benefit, icing on the cake, not as the cake itself.
- If you work for a company, your CEO should be the one posting to Twitter. But, they must be colorful and interesting. If your CEO is just not, then they must be trained or you should consider someone in your company who is more wired, more colorful, more interesting and who “gets it”.
- Serial entrepreneur and CEO of search engine Mahalo.com, Jason Calacanis has said that company CEOs should spend as much as 20-30% of their time blogging and/or establishing a following on Twitter. He claims that next to Google, Twitter posts are the number TWO source of organic traffic (visitors) to his search engine Mahalo. That’s huge. He also claims that any CEO who doesn’t blog should be fired. A bit strong, but it speaks volumes about the importance of blogging and Tweeting to a company’s brand awareness.
Using Twitter to monitor your brand/business/company
There is an excellent article with links to a few solutions that you can use if you’d like to dig a bit deeper into Twitter - stats, hot topics, trends, etc.
Here’s another article with more links that will be of use to PR and marketing professionals, with even more tools.
Finally, here’s a list of Twitter syntax commands that, if sent as direct messages to your cell phone via SMS, will be quite useful. Perhaps most useful of all syntax commands is the “track” command, which allows you to be alerted the moment your name or your company’s name is mentioned by anyone using Twitter. Here’s how it’s used:
Say we wanted to monitor for any discussions taking place on Twitter that mentioned the company “Comcast”. Perhaps we are Comcast’s VP Customer Service and we want to know when folks are discussing us and what’s being said - quite useful!
From your mobile phone, send a text message to 40404 and in the body of the message put the following text string:
track comcast
That’s it. You’ll get a confirmation message back from Twitter and then anytime any Twitter user mentions that name in discussion, you’ll be alerted via SMS text message to your phone.
To undo a track command, simply resend the same track command to that number and it will turn the alert off. It might be a wise idea, for example, to use this feature to monitor both your name and your company’s name or clients’ names on Twitter.
CEO of Twitter explains his vision for Twitter
Jack Dorsey Presents Twitter from biz stone on Vimeo.
Where do I sign up?
Click here to set up your own Twitter account. If you already have one, click here to Follow me on Twitter. It’s a free service.
The great thing about Twitter is that if someone doesn’t interest you after a while, just Un-Follow them. It’s that simple and that easy.
Help make this article better!
Send feedback, additions, corrections to: adam [AT] adamboettiger [DOT] com
Frequently Asked Questions
Coming soon. Ask by email: adam [AT] adamboettiger [DOT] com
Additional Resources
PC software: TWhirl
Mac software: Twitterific
About the Author
Adam Boettiger is a digital marketing expert with a passion for helping people connect, learn and excel in the digital space. For over 12 years he’s helped Fortune 500 companies, ad agencies, small businesses and startups reach customers online, grow their online presence and more. His consulting site is located at http://www.adamboettiger.com/ and he can be reached by email at adam AT adamboettiger DOT com.