A beginner’s guide to Twitter
July 22nd, 2009You’ve surely heard of Twitter by now. It’s the microblogging service that has hooked everyone from actors to sports stars to Iranians. The concept of Twitter is simple, but its multitude of uses may make it seem confusing. Here we present an introduction to Twitter to help you get started.
What is Twitter?
Twitter describes itself like so:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
That definition has become a little simplistic as Twitter has evolved and its audience expanded. I would liken Twitter to text messaging (SMS), except each message is broadcast to the world (a very important distinction, as noted by David Zemmels). Other users can “follow” you to make sure they receive those messages.
You can post and read messages on Twitter via your computer or cell phone. Even non-smart phones can receive SMS updates.
What is Twitter good for?
Lots of things. I’ll list just a few:
News
Twitter has emerged as the fastest and most effective way to break news. Big stories spread like wildfire thanks to “retweeting,” which is a means of forwarding another user’s message along to all of your own followers. Think exponential. Also think grassroots, since anyone with a cell phone can instantly broadcast their news to the Twitter universe.
Marketing
Businesses have found that they can connect directly with potential customers via Twitter. Naked Pizza is a good example. They communicate their core mission and offer special deals to their followers on Twitter. In fact, Twitter is the primary weapon in their marketing arsenal, so much so that they’re making headlines while pizza sales soar.
Feedback
If you’ve got enough followers, you can can utilize Twitter to do a quick survey. Not sure what movie to see at the theater? Hop on to Twitter and ask for recommendations.
Direct contact
As mentioned, many corporations and celebrities are on Twitter and you can aim your messages at them. Got a problem with Southwest Airlines? Send a message to them on Twitter. They will usually address the issue. If enough people send them the same complaint, you can bet it will be resolved sooner rather than later; Southwest would prefer to look good in front of their 300,000+ followers.
Networking
It’s not just about working the room anymore. You can connect with all kinds of people that interest you on Twitter, and they might just become interested in you. An unknown music maven can recommend fresh tracks to an industry bigwig, making a name for himself in the process.
What is Twitter not so good for?
From the last section, you can see that Twitter is really all about sharing. Sharing information, sharing recommendations, sharing opinions, sharing solutions, sharing connections, sharing value.
What Twitter is not so good for then, is anything that doesn’t involve sharing. A good rule of thumb is to only post something to Twitter if you think it will provide value to your followers. If it doesn’t, you’re wasting their time and yours.
Best not use Twitter for private messaging either. You can, but e-mail is more suitable and secure.
Twitter Essentials
You should know at least this much about Twitter before getting started:
Tweets and tweeple
Tweets are messages posted to Twitter. Tweeple are people on Twitter. There are lots more Twitter-related words and phrases you can look up, but you’ll never need to know the vast majority.
140 characters
That’s the maximum length of each tweet (find out why). Choose your words and letters carefully.
@someone
This is how you address your message to a particular Twitter user. An example:
@RebirthBB When can I catch you guys again in New Orleans?
Worth noting that all your followers will be able to see such a message, but Rebirth Brass Band will see it whether they are following you or not. You can also address multiple users in one message.
RT
RT is short for retweet. You retweet a message if you want your followers to see it. An example:
RT @The_Gambit: CBS news reporting the death of Walter Cronkite at age 92.
Hashtags
Hashtags are used to tag your tweets, making them easier to categorize and find in a search. People make them up as they go along, and the useful ones stick. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.
Want to work for the Hornets? They’re looking for Game Night Entertainment staff #jobs
The #jobs hashtag perseveres, but hashtags can also be used temporarily (e.g. for an event or conference). Hashtags.org is a good place to see which tags are popular right now (click trends in the menu).
Search
Twitter Search is powerful, and perhaps the best way of keeping up with all the tweets about a certain topic. For example, here you can see everything posted to Twitter about Loyola University New Orleans.
URL shortening
If you post links to Twitter, you should be using a URL shortening service, which will minimize your link so it doesn’t eat up too many of your 140 characters. Bit.ly does the job well; register there and you can even track how many people click on your links.
How do I begin?
Simple: Just go to the Twitter sign up page to create an account. Once that’s done, fill out your profile with some information about yourself. Twitter will help you find friends or acquaintances who are already using the service, and you can begin to follow them. Hopefully they’ll follow you back and before you know it, you’ve got tweeple!
A good service for finding more people to follow is Twellow. If it’s celebrities, politicians or sports stars you want to follow, a simple google search should turn up some useful lists.
Leaving you with some Loyola-related accounts on Twitter:
- limino (Loyola Institute for Ministry)
- loyoladining (Dining Services)
- loyno_official (Latest Loyola news and information)
- loyno_blogs (Select Loyola blogs)
- loynofinaid (Scholarships and Financial Aid)
- loyolawolfpack (Athletics)
July 24th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Great Job! Thanks so much for this feedback because it was helpful!
July 27th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I notice that the official loyno twitter blog above has funny urls; see below for a sample. I assume that this is because of the 140-character requirement. Do you have any tips for including urls in a way that doesn’t eat too much into the 140-character limit?
Thanks, Tom
Loyola celebrates White Linen Night with Alumni reception and faculty art at CAC- http://bit.ly/ZDtT2
July 28th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Thanks, Caitlin!
Tom, you’re right about the funny URL’s; we use those so we don’t eat up too many of the 140 characters with a link.
There are lots of free services out there that will shorten a URL for you, and many will allow you to post to Twitter from their sites to save you time. I like http://bit.ly because besides shortening your URL it also keeps track of how many times people click on the link, so you can tell what tweets generate the most interest and conversion. Simple and effective.
Another good one is http://su.pr from Stumble Upon. That will shorten your link and allow you to post to Twitter and/or Facebook, as well as exposing the linked page to Stumble Upon’s 8 million users. You can schedule a time for your tweet to go out, and Su.pr also keeps track of the clicks, even suggesting posting times based on the click-through rates of your previous tweets.
Worth noting though that we don’t spend time shortening the URLs of our blog posts and submitting them to Twitter manually. We have it all automated through http://www.twitterfeed.com. Very handy service, and completely free.