How To Twitter Primer

Getting Started

Tweeties by Chris Wallace

1. Sign-up for a Twitter account by clicking the ?Sign Up Now? button on the www.twitter.com home page.
2. You?ll need to give them your full name, a username (that will become your Twitter name), your password and an email address.
3. In your account settings, at the very least, add a ?One Line Bio? (160 characters), your location, and a unique picture so that others can learn a little bit about you when viewing your profile.

What to Tweet

1. You can tweet something that you?re thinking about, have read about, are doing, have discovered, developed, blogged etc. Anything that you think is pertinent, topical, entertaining etc., and that you think your followers will find interesting too.
2. You can retweet something someone else has said.
3. You can reply to someone about something they?ve tweeted or that they?ve tweeted to you, i.e. have a conversation with someone.

How to Tweet

1. You have 140 characters & spaces within which to write your tweet (like a text message). Typically Twitter users don?t use text message abbreviations to fit their tweet into the 140 character limit.
2. You can retweet someone if you see a tweet of interest and want to share it with your followers, use rt: then put their Twitter name with the @ sign preceeding it, e.g. rt: @username ?.? You can also use variations on this e.g. rt, RT, RT:, some people put (via @username) after the tweet they?ve retweeted.
3. If you want to put a link into your tweet, you can use a service like bit.ly http://bit.ly/ that will shorten the URL (web address) of the link you want to share. That way you don?t use up too much of your 140 message limit.

Connecting with Others

1. To reply to someone, whether or not they are following you, you can put the @ sign in front of their username at the beginning of your tweet. This is public, all of your followers can see your reply. You can read more about @ replies and mentions here: http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/14023
2. If you are following someone and they are following you back, you can Direct Message them. You can either use the ?Direct Message? link in the right hand column of your Twitter page, click on the ?Reply? link which you?ll see if you hover over their tweet, or you can put d + username in the message box before your message. You can read more about Direct Messages here: http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/14606
3. You can find people to follow by using the Twitter search box and searching on something you are interested in and checking the profiles of people who have tweeted on that topic. Also, you can check out who the people you are following follow, and who your followers follow.? Here are ?9 Useful Sites for Finding People to Follow on Twitter? – http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/9-useful-sites-for-finding-people-to-follow-on-twitter/

Some Ways to Twitter

1. You can tweet via your account at www.twitter.com
2. You can tweet from your cell phone, just send a txt message to Twitter at 40404. Go to account Settings > Mobile > Device Updates > On.
3. You can download a Twitter application like TwitterFox or Tweetdeck to your computer.