Getting Started on Twitter

Posted by TeamCharlie on February 27, 2009 under Gabe's Twitter Gems, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners | 4 Comments to Read

Update: 6/17/09: I received an email this morning from dad of a family of heroes.  The McKay family is recognized on our site for collecting food for local food banks.  He wrote: “Hey Gabe! I just joined Twitter. How does it work? How do you use it?”  Great, I thought, I’d send him the link to the post I had written back in February on the subject.  Then I read it and thought it wasn’t that good so I am now rewriting it. Thanks, Mark! ;)

Ok, you are convinced that you would at least like to try Twitter.  Let me say this: If you do not give it enough time or if you go about things in the wrong way, you will probably leave feeling you have wasted your time.  Twitter is an incredible platform that allows you to connect with an unlimited (0k – it is limited to millions – sorry!) number of people around the world and it doesn’t cost a dime.  It can be used for personal enrichment and/or as a conduit for you to do some professional networking.

 How Do I Start?

1) Go to http://twitter.com and register yourself by clicking “Join the Conversation”. 

Once you have registered and you are at your “home page” you will see that zero people are following you and you are following zero people.  It doesn’t make sense to jump in just yet because no one is listening.  You may want to leave one “tweet” such as “Just getting started!” so that if people discover you they will know you are active. 

2) Choose your Twitter ID (Username) wisely.

This is critical that you do this.  First off, you don’t want it to be too long because people don’t like to type and it will also “crowd” tweets.  Remember tweets can only be 140 characters and you’ll find that real estate can be precious sometimes. When you get retweeted your tweet plus your user name must fit in the 140 characters or people will have to edit your tweet to rebroadcast it.  People don’t like doing that and will only do it if they really like the tweet.  So keep it as short as possible.  Also I do not recommend underscores or dashes. It just lengthens the user name unnecessarily.  Eventually you will be able to search your twitter user name on Google and if you are trying to establish your brand you never want to change your user name.  I have written blog posts about people on Twitter, gave their user name so that others could follow them. Later they changed their user name and now these links are dead. I trust you get the picture.

3) Fill out your profile.

This sounds trivial but this is an extremely important step.  How you present yourself is what will help feed the decision of whether people follow you.  I have a lot of personal opinions as to what should (and should not) be written in your profile. But let me at least suggest to make sure you write your city, state and country, spelling out at least the city and state.  I say that because I was once discussing with a Twitter friend from Australia where each of us is from and he didn’t know what Frederick, MD meant. So I changed it to Frederick, Maryland, USA. Remember, you have a global audience now.  Also I have found that most people want to see your real name and what your passions are.  It is certainly OK and expected of you to put a web link that promotes you in some way. When writing your bio give as much information as you can but if it’s too spammyor self-promoting it might turn people off.

4) Add your picture.

I know my profile doesn’t follow my own advice but 9 times out of 10 it is best to put a picture of smiling self as your avatar.  When I look for people to follow I instinctively look for people, not companies or groups with an agenda. In my experience many others are the same way.  Don’t doctor it to make it cute or stand out, and please don’t put it sideways or upside down.  Some people do that to attract attention and it works – I avoid following them.  Click the Picture tab and upload your picture. Hint: Make sure the pic is as square as possible when you upload it. Also it is ok (and even recommended) to upload a picture that is bigger than the box it appears in.  Twitter will reduce it automatically but people can see the original size of your photo by clicking on your profile then your picture.

5) You can protect your updates (or not).

In the Account tab there is a check box at the bottom that, if checked, will protect your updates.  This means that anyone who looks at your profile cannot read anything you say unless they request to follow you and you approve them.  I protect the updates of my daughter (who is 10) so that spammers and porn bots can’t just follow her automatically.  Those types of accounts don’t bother to send requests or are unable to.  But unless you have a really good reason I do not recommend protecting your updates. It’s hard to read a person whose updates are protected so I am less inclined to follow them.

6) Change your background

On the Design tab you can add a theme or add a background image.  Depending on what your goal is and what you want out of this experience, you can simply choose a theme or you can pay someone for a professional Twitter background.  There are also things in between that you can do. I recommend that for now you choose a theme and when you discover that you really want to invest your time in Twitter then decide what is best.  Also note that free background images can be acquired from several places, including http://www.twitbacks.com/.

7) Add your Devices

Click on the Devices tab to add your iPhone, Blackberry or whatever device.  I am not an expert on this since I don’t use my phone to tweet, so I am going to defer to Twitter’s own help on the subject.

8) Get People to Follow You

Ok, now you are ready to start tweeting. But wait! No one is following you.  That means that no one will read what you are saying.  You need to get followers.  This is a bit strange because it is sort of a chicken and the egg situation.  People who see you have few tweets are less likely to follow you but why would you tweet if no one is listening?  The answer? To get people to follow you.  This to me is the most difficult time, because you haven’t figured out yet what Twitter is all about, you have no followers and you are not sure what to do. My answer here is to go real slow. This can be a bit tricky if you do not know anyone on Twitter, but I will give you a bit of a boost if you like.  If you follow “KidsAreHeroes” (Go to http://twitter.com/KidsAreHeroes and click the ‘Follow’ button) and send me a message that you read this blog I will follow you back.  (I may follow you back anyway.)    If you would like my assistance always feel free to ask I will gladly answer your questions if I have time and opportunity.  But Twitter isn’t about just making one connection – it’s about connecting with a lot of people.  The easiest way to get followers is to follow people.  They see they have a new follower, read your profile and decide if they want to follow you back.  There are many web sites that offer suggestions as to who to follow.  One of my recommendations is @AlexKaris. He is always offering interesting tips to newbies. Once you are at his home page you can see who is following him.  You can see their profiles, see if you like the things that they say, and follow them if interested.  More often than not they will follow you back and that’s really how to get started. You may also want to check out Twitterholic.com to connect to the big players on Twitter.  http://wefollow.com and http://twellow.com are great resources that classify Twitter users by category so you can follow people with similar interests.  Here are some other quick recommended follows: @TheRyansWell, @Isipho, @ChloeMaxmin  @LexxiSaal @AlanasAchievers and @HeroHugsOrg (all “heroes”) from our web site.  And of course let’s not forget the cofounder of Kids Are Heroes, @MM4Animals.

Remember, if you have very few tweets people will be less likely to follow you until they can see some substance.  So be patient. Follow just a few people at first and test the waters – get used to how things work.  As you tweet more then you can try following more, and so on.

We have now set up your Twitter account and you are ready to start tweeting.  Before you actually get started you will want to know some things that are germane to Twitter.

1) What’s with the ‘@’ Sign?

When you tweet about another person on Twitter you always should preface their Twitter ID with the ‘@’ sign.  This tells Twitter that people can click on that user name within the tweet so they can check that person out if they wish to.  Here’s a great example, if you wrote: “Hey all, you should check out @KidsAreHeroes because they are doing great things!”  When someone reads this tweet and is interested in checking out KidsAreHeroes they can simply click on the link you provided because you supplied it properly inside your tweet.  Also, when you want to address one person in particular, you begin your tweet with the ‘@’ sign followed by their identity. Something like “@moelib Tell me more about your editing service!” is appropriate.  (Shameless plug for my sister in Canada.)  When you do this it ends up in their “Replies/Mentions” folder which makes it much easier for them to track things directed at them.  Although be careful – even though it is addressed to them it is plainly visible by others to see it.  To send a message only viewable by you and another person you need to send them a “direct” message.

 2) The Tiny URL

One common method of communication and exposure on Twitter is to send links to websites whether it is for marketing purposes or just to point to a funny YouTube video.  You would be right in guessing that a typical link could take up a lot of precious real estate when you are restricted to just 140 characters.  Services like http://snurl.com, http://budurl.com. http://bit.ly and http://tinyurl.com will “shrink” these long addresses for you down to a manageable size.  When users click on these short links, they will be redirected to the original sites automatically. Note: The most compact one of these I have found is http://tr.im. 

3) The Retweet

A common method of flatteryand respect is the retweet.  This is repeating a tweet that impressed you in some way so all of your followers can read it.  You also give credit to the author.  Be careful, if you do it too much it will be seens as disingenuous. Here is how to do it.  Say you read a tweet from me that said: “Wow! I just ate a Twix bar with a fork!”  Now I know I would never tweet like that and I especially hope you don’t retweet it if I did but it’s just used as an example. Here is the retweet: “RT @KidsAreHeroes:  Wow! I just ate a Twix bar with a fork!” Please pay close attention to the spaces and lack thereof. If done correctly the person who you retweeted will see that you did so and hopefully will thank you.  A newer method of retweeting is by doing it the following way: “Wow! I just ate a Twix bar with a fork! via @KidsAreHeroes”.  Although preferred by some I am a bit old school and like the former method because it takes up less space. UPDATE 12/11/09: Twitter now has its own version of the retweet. You will see the option underneath the tweet to the right. All this does is repeat the tweet verbatim to your followers – you cannot edit it.  Alos as of now when you do this the person you are retweeting will not be notified that you have done so.  The old way will end up in your mentions folder.  That’s why I prefer the older method.

4) Feed your Blog to Twitter

When I discovered you could feed your blog posts to Twitter I was really excited.  I knew this would help me increase my readership dramatically. Before Twitter I would write and write with very few people noticing it.  Now I get regular comments and retweets.  You can feed your blog to Twitter by doing it manually – shorten the URL as described above – or automatically through a service such as http://twitterfeed.com.

 Ok I Think I’m Ready – So How Do I Do It?

There is a plethora of tools out there that interact with Twitter.  In the very beginning when you are just starting out I recommend you just use your regular browser.  What’s nice about this is that no additional software needs to be installed.  Go to Twitter.com and start “tweeting”.  Don’t forget to refresh your page every minute or so to see the new messages – they don’t pop up automatically.  Engage people in conversation.  Send out open-ended questions and see what comes back to you.  You will see the replies directed at you on your home page but you can also see them at any time in your @Replies/Mentions folder.  The reason why it appears on both is because if you are not monitoring Twitter at the time they are sent, the messages directed at you will not get lost in the mix of other messages you are subscribed to read.  When you log back on you can simply check your Replies folder to see if anyone sent a reply to you.  Direct messages can be sent to you by people you follow, and in this case they can be viewed by no one else.  These only show up in your Direct Messages folder.  A reminder: From what I’ve experienced, newer people tend to forget to look in their “@Replies” folder for messages directed at them when they sign on.  Please check it often and respond in kind.  And be warned, Twitter can be addictive!!

I have written many posts on Twitter that I hope are helpful to people just getting started and people who have been doing it for a while.  After you have digested this one and get your feet wet a bit I hope you come back to read some other posts.  My favorites are my “Top 10 Do’s and Dont’s” as well as “To Follow or Not to Follow“. To see all of my Twitter related posts, simply click here.

Feel free to ask questions and/or leave your new Twitter user name in the comments section here.  Are there any experienced Twitterers out there that wouldn’t mind helping out a “newbie”?  Please also tell us about yourself and leave your Twitter ID in the comments.  Happy tweeting and good luck!