Twitter Tuesday
November 10, 2009So you’ve signed up for a Twitter account. Now what?
Twitter is an online, interactive tool that was originally created to ask the question “What are you doing?” Now it really goes beyond that. Yes, you can still use it to tell the world what you’re doing:
“I’m hungry. I want cheese.”
“I’m walking to my fridge now.”
“I’m taking the cheese out and will now eat it.”
…but you can also use it to make announcements…
“New blog post on using Twitter: http://wp.me/pGXEH-f “
“Tickets still left for tonight’s performance! Call: 705-555-1212″
…ask questions…
“Has anyone used product XYZ? How did you like it?”
…and in some cases, get direct customer service from a major corporation when all other levels of person-to-person communication have failed. (yes Stephannie, I’m talking about you)
Here’s what my Twitter page looks like:
It’s simple to use. Just type something into the big blank box just under where it says “What are you doing?” and you’re done. You have 140 characters. Which forces you to be brief and to the point. And there’s a certain satisfaction in being able to get to 140 characters, dead-on, without trying. Do it 3 times in a row, and you’ve got a Twitter hattrick! (Thanks Denny!)
The people who want to read your Tweets (those 140 character messages you’ve written), are called Followers. And the people you want to read? Those are people you’re Following. If you look at the purple column at the right of the photo, you can see that I am following 112 people and have 136 followers.
How do you get Followers and/or find people to Follow?
Click on the “Find People” link at the top of the page. A page that looks like this, should come up:
Type in some names of people you hope to find on Twitter, click on their names and click the “Follow” button beside it. If you use Gmail, Yahoo Mail or AOL, you can click on the “Find on Other Networks” to have Twitter search through your address book and add people you already know. And you can also use the “Invite by email” tab to invite people to Twitter.
Go. Add people (don’t forget me!) Tweet.
