Home
Part 1: Introduction To Twitter
Twitter is a hot new social networking site. To learn about Twitter, go to Mashable, the "Social Media Guide" (www.mashable.com). This article is aimed at Twitter newbies. It will focus on using Twitter for business and marketing.
You may be familiar with other social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Members interact by posting messages on each other's pages. Twitter works the same way. Twitter members post short text messages (up to 140 characters) to their group of friends. Other friends respond, creating a circle of conversation.
As a Twitter member, you can send direct messages to other users, but only to those who "follow" your "tweets." One of your marketing goals on Twitter is to grow a list of interactive followers. If someone follows you on Twitter, it's considered good etiquette to follow them back (known as "re-following"). You can often establish a large list of followers just by following a lot of people.
Twitter is searchable, so you can find people tweeting on just about every subject. When viewing Twitter search results, keep in mind you're seeing just fragments of a conversation. Twitter Search can be a good way to find people who share your interests.
To get an idea of how Twitter works, do a Twitter search for "Etsy" or "Artfire," two artisan ecommerce websites. This search turns up a large number of artists selling their handcrafted wares online.
Despite its simplicity, Twitter has many applications. Celebrities use Twitter to communicate quickly with their fan base. (Ashton Kucher, from the TV show, "That 70's Show" has over 4 million followers on Twitter.) Politicians use it to get the vote out or poll their constituents. Businesses use Twitter to advertise new products and services. You can even set up a private list to use as your own company bulletin board.
To start using Twitter, go to www.twitter.com and create an account. Type some terms in the Search box. When you find a member whose posts interest you, follow that person. Chances are they'll follow you back. Twitter is a fun way to rub shoulders with the rich and famous.
Part 2: Getting Started On Twitter
The first step of a journey may be the most difficult. So let's get started. Go to Twitter.com, pick your user name, and create your account. On your Twitter home page (www.twitter.com/YourUserID), type a term in the search box and click on the search icon. Don't bother posting any messages (also called updates or tweets) yet. What you'll see are snippets of separate conversations from Twitter users.
At this point you can click on a Twitterer's user name or icon to visit their home page and see their latest updates. When you find a user whose tweets are interesting, go to their home page and click on the Follow button at the top of the page. Following a member allows their posts to appear on your home page. It also lets them send you direct messages via the Twitter messaging system.
You can use the Find People link at the top of Twitter pages to find interesting people to follow. Many businesses are also using Twitter. For example, typing in the words "Palo Alto" (my hometown) in Twitter's Find People search brings up links from Palo Alto Westin Hotel to Palo Alto Daily News. They're all using Twitter!
Although you can read other members' tweets by following them or using Search, at this point you still can't communicate directly with other Twitterers. As mentioned in Part 1, you can only contact members who follow you. In the next part of this series, we'll look at one of the most important Twitter topics: how to grow your follower list.
Note: Twitter Search can find members physically near you. Try using the following format:
near:"your town" within:5mi
Part 3: Growing Your Followers
On Twitter you can only communicate directly with users who "follow" your updates. When you post an update on Twitter (an update is a short message of up to 140 characters), your message appears on your followers' Twitter home page. You can also send direct messages to your followers via Twitter's messaging system.
Without followers, you can still publish updates and hope someone finds your messages via a keyword search. But you will be missing out on the essential conversational nature of Twitter. Therefore, especially for online marketers, growing your followers list is an important task.
At first glance, it seems pretty straightforward: the more followers, the better, right? But things are not that simple. As with a brick and mortar store, you don't just want traffic -- you want the right kind of traffic.
Growing your followers list is easy. Follow a bunch of people, and many of them will follow you back (a common practice, called "re-following" on Twitter). Follow ten thousand people, and three or four thousand of them will probably follow you back. There are a number of applications developed to help Twitter users manage their follower lists. Twitter discourages use of automated follow and unfollow tools as they dilute the personal networking experience.
If you are an online merchant, you'll want to dissociate yourself from opportunists and scammers who follow you just to get free advertising. Some Twitterers post constant spam. Prune those followers from your Twitter marketing account using the Block tool.
Unless you are a celebrity, your best approach to marketing on Twitter is to build a small "word-of-mouth" network of followers who will recommend your product to their friends. Online networking makes this super-easy because everyone can mail all of their friends by "retweeting" your updates! You can cross-post your messages to Facebook and give an RSS feed or podcast. Keep your network updated by posting friendly notes, links to pages of interest, ideas, news stories, personal updates, company news and new business promotions.
Hint: When you post links to websites, the URL can be very long. Since you're limited to 140 characters, use a URL-shortening service like TinyURL (www.tinyurl.com) to create a shortened url. You can customize your Tiny URL and even install their widget on your Bookmarks toolbar. The link http://tinyurl.com/foothillweb points to Foothill Web Design.
Part 4: Retweets and Mentions
One way you can promote your network on Twitter is by "retweeting," or reposting other members' tweets. Retweeting lets you share interesting content and also help out members of your network. To retweet a message, just hover your mouse over the message and click on the Retweet button. Everyone likes to have their tweets retweeted, and if you do this often enough, most tweople (Twitter users) will return the favor.
Twitter is a social networking tool, even when it's social networking used for business. The best way to experience Twitter is to become an active participant in your group. Publish useful content. Take the time to get to know people in your network.
A good way to get noticed on Twitter is by getting "mentioned." Another Twitter user can mention you by putting @YourUserName within their tweet, which creates a link back to your profile. The mention appears on the home pages of that user's followers. As above, mentioning others is a good way to get mentioned.
Related links: