Everyone is talking about Twitter. Watch CNN, FoxNews, or any other news program and they'll tell you to follow them on Twitter or Tweet your comments about some topic. Celebrities, business tycoons, organizations, and the "average Joe and Jane" are on Twitter discussing a variety of topics. This article will tell you how to get started using Twitter.
1
What is Twitter?
~ Understand what Twitter is before taking the plunge ~
Think of Twitter as instantaneous email. You can also think of it as text messaging on a massive scale. If you have a Twitter account you can follow other Twitter users and they can follow you. Oprah, as of November 25, 2009, has 2,685,880 followers on Twitter. So, if Oprah sends a message using Twitter (called a Tweet), that message is blasted to all of her 2 million plus followers. She in turn follows Jimmy Fallon. So, when Jimmy Fallon tweets, Oprah, as well his 2 million plus followers, get that message. The message is delivered to your account on the Twitter website.
You can sign up for Twitter and simply follow your favorite celebrities, athletes, news shows, and other Twitter users or you can Tweet your own content and build your own Twitter following. Many non-celebrities have huge followings because they Tweet about some topic in which they are an expert.
2
Get your Twitter account
~ Sign up for a Twitter account ~
Signing up for an account on Twitter is easy. Simply go to http://twitter.com and click 'Sign Up Now'. It will ask you for your full name and to create a user name. Though most say you should use your real name on Twitter, if you feel that you want to preserve your privacy, just make-up a name. Your user name is what you'll be known as on Twitter. I chose to use my real name in both instances. My real name is Ron Desi. My Twitter user name is rondesi.
3
Search for Twitter users
~ Search for users you want to follow ~
After you sign up for a Twitter account and login, click 'Find People' and search away. For example, type 'USA today' in the search box and click 'Search'. Listed will be the Twitter feeds for the USA Today newspaper. To add one of those feeds, click the add icon (looks like a person with a '+' sign next to it). After you click that icon, Twitter will indicate that you are now following that person (or feed).
Notice that I sometimes use the term feed. When a news agency or organization uses Twitter I say that it is their feed since the agency is not a person.
4
Tweet!
~ Send your first Tweet on Twitter ~
You may have no followers but you can still send a tweet. The tweet will not go to anyone but it will be stored on Twitter so when someone does start following you they can see your first tweet on the Twitter website.
To send your first tweet on Twitter sign in and type something in the box under the phrase "What's Happening". Click the 'Update' button. Congratulations, you've just tweeted. Notice that you only have 140 characters to type. You'll need to be brief and concise while at the same time saying what you want to say.
5
Retweet!
~ Retweet messages you think are interesting ~
A retweet is a cute name for tweet forwarding. Let's say you have been on Twitter for a month and you are following 50 people/organizations and 20 are following you. If you login to Twitter and see an interesting link to a news article from the USA Today feed you can forward that link to your followers by clicking retweet. Please note that the retweet link will appear under the tweet as you hover your mouse over it.
6
@reply
~ Send a message to a specific Twitter user ~
You might want to send a tweet to a specific user for whatever reason. There are two ways to do this. To send a message to a user that can be seen by all of your followers put the user's username in the front of the tweet beginning with an @ sign. For example:
@rondesi Very nice article on eHow.com!
This message will come to me directly whether or not I am following you. However, all of your followers will see this message. To send a private message that only I can see, do the following:
D rondesi Very nice article on eHow.com!
7
Hootsuite
~ Use a Third-Party Tool to make Twitter Easier ~
I won't go into the details about how to use such tools, but visit http://www.hootsuite.com or http://www.tweetdeck.com and use one of these tools to become a avid Twitter user. These tools make Twitter much easier and fun to use.
