Getting Started With Twitter
Here are some easy to follow tips to get yourself started with Twitter.
1. Open an account! You will be asked to select a Twitter Name. Keep it short if possible. Remember, “tweets” can only be a total of 140 characters including spaces and punctuation. If your Twitter Name is long you are taking up valuable character space.
2. Complete your profile. We want to know about YOU – where you live, what you do, your website if you have one. Upload a picture or create an avatar (do NOT use the one provided by Twitter – we seasoned Twitterers think that’s a cop-out and it also tells us you relly don’t want us to know you). Most people will check out your profile before they choose to follow you. If there’s not much there you reduce the chance of attracting followers.
3. There is a “find people” button at the top of your page. This is a fun part! Enter names in there of people you may want to follow. If they are on Twitter they will appear and you can click “follow”. You can search for people you know, celebrities, sports teams, authors you enjoy, television networks or stations, whatever you want.
4. I would suggest you download a Tweet Deck to help you organize your incoming and outgoing messages. The Tweet Deck makes Twitter much easier. It organizes your messages based on how you want them organized. I have a “General” column, a column for “friends and family”, a column for those who inspire me with great quotes or words of wisdom and a column for those I call “Super Stars”. These people are my “go to” people who are helping me grow my business by delivering great information consistently. If I only have a few minutes to devote to Twitter I check my “Super Star” column only. You can organize your tweets to fit you style and the Tweet Deck allows you to make changes easily as you get more involved.
5. OK, so now you’re following some people. Congratulations – you are officially on Twitter now! You will start to see people following you quickly. Typically if you follow someone they will follow you back but that’s not always the case so don’t be hurt. Watch the conversations for a day maybe but then dive in. Don’t be afraid!
6. How do you behave? Think of it as a cocktail party and you are meeting a bunch of new people. You would ask questions, politely give comments but you would not immediately try to sell them something or ask for a favor or pound your chest with how great you are! It’s not about what YOU want – you are social, polite and caring about others. Give information they may find useful or fun. On Twitter we like information about Twitter, Social Media, what’s going on in the community, your opinion about a performance on American Idol, you name it!
7. If someone sends you something you think others would like retweet (RT) it which means pass it on to your followers. It is the highest form of flattery on Twitter. To think you thought so highly of something sent to you that you want others to see it! WooHoo!! Tweet Deck has a button that allows you to do it easily. If you send out a tweet that gets RT’d - first, watch your follower list grow and, second, be sure to say thank you to the person who RT’d your message. Twitter etiquette! We are a grateful bunch!
8. Lastly, a little about #followfriday. When I first saw this I was confused and, I admit, thought it was kind of silly. I have grown to love #followfriday. This is the day we recommend our favorite tweeps to others and suggest they be followed. For instance I may send out a tweet that says “#followfriday @AlexKaris. He is always there with the info I need when I need it – great resource”. That message tells my follows why I think they may want to follow Alex.
This should get you started. Have fun with it, don’t hesitate to “unfollow” someone who is not contributing positively to your experience and you may become addicted as many of us are. If there’s anything more I can do for you let me know. Oh, and please follow me at http://twitter.com/maalbert! I will follow you back if your profile is complete!!
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Margie,
I love this. I believe there’s a huge emotional conflict (always an opportunity to innovate)
on how to use social media to market without coming off like a scumbag or hype artist.
To me as lot of this stuff is just like spamming. So I liked that you went with what you didn’t like first.
Maybe twitter is the best thing ever to happen to the net, but a lot of people don’t see it. Rather, in some interpretations
it seems to be more like “Oh, you were addicted to texting, but that wasn’t enough. Now let’s talk about all the
trivial stuff that make even less sense.”
I’m somewhat in this camp because even you in your email hasn’t hit on the big aha for me. Is it the speed and brevity that allows the sender more advantages. And how bout the follower. Do you have to plow through mounds of crap to get that nugget?
Or do you just unfollow the spewers of valueless drivel?
Also, many of the compliments on Facebook and Twitter seem to have a KoolAid drinker quality about them. “Oh your seminar
on infopreneuring was so powerful it changed my life forever.” (Not talking about your Digital Media Trraining for Agencies which I think is very smart and timely)
I’m sounding like a total Refiner here, and that’s not like me. I just wonder how many people will flock to social media, only to realize the people who made all the money we’re the ones who got there first and sold them info on it. (Amazon got to the net early and won, thousands of me-tooers porting bricks and mortar business to the web were net losers.)
The solution? I don’t know. I suspect these are new forms of media and nothing more. Which means the usual bell curve of cyclical change (wild west, shakeout, consolidation, riches for pioneers, domination by a few and great losses by many) then a samll amount of more winners from disruptive innovation on important aspects of the medium. (Google came in late and disrupted search engines)
So, Margie. I love what your do and how you’re doing it. Keep it up. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above.
First, WOW! Thanks for your comments, thoughts and accolades! I really appreciate them all especially coming from you who I respect so deeply.
Yes, Twitter, along with other social media sites can turn into global social-spam. And, yes, sometimes I do find myself sifting through fertilizer before finding a bud. Personally, I find twitter to be the most easy to sort through. I can follow different people for different reasons and blow off (unfollow) people who are only “fertilizer” but never help me grow anything. The key to using any of the social media sites is “authenticity”. The bellowers of success – OUT!
My hopes are that more people will join social media sites who refuse the abusers, weed those folks out naturally and allow authenticity to reign supreme. Of course, I was hoping the “Do Not Call” list for phone solicitors would work too! Until then, the fertilizer pushers will muddy the waters. And, you are right, there will be another level of “new” and the disrupters will, again, push us to another form of communication that will be abused by some. I hope those abusers are more creative than the current “I am wonderful and you could be too if you were as smart as me” types! They are so boring!!
Thanks again for your support and love. Keep your refiner comments coming. As a Creator Advancer I can handle them as long as you are gentle!!
Hi Margie, great tips. I love #6! Thanks for helping better the Twitterverse!
Margie – Thank you so much for this information. I’m about to take the plunge into Tweet world! Hope all is well. Shelly