Twitter Guide

1. Get an Accounthttp://twitter.com/ - One Twitter Account per email address - Ensure your username is consistent with your other social media sites

For example: http://www.linkedin.com/in/LCBarneshttp://twitter.com/LCBarnes

2. Setup your profileGo to the Settings Tab: Account Tab

1. More Info URL: Add your LinkedIn page, blog, webpage, etc. 2. Bio - 160 Characters – try to be a bit transparent keeping it professional, but letting some

personality show through. 3. Location – By providing your location others can find you and you can be ranked by your

location. 4. Protect Your Updates – Not recommended. Basically if you do this no one can follow you

without your approval and people can’t read your tweets unless they are following you.

Picture Tab Upload a professional looking head shot (aka Avatar) Design Tab You can choose a theme or upload your picture. It is recommended you create a custom background using one of the free sites listed later.

*****If you need help with step 1 or 2. Myself, Paddy or Dave are available to give you a helping hand****

3. Work Out Why You Want to Use It

One of the key things to do early on is to work out what your goal is. It could take a little while to work this out but the sooner you nail down what you’re going to use twitter for the better. There’s no right or wrong with how to use Twitter – your focus might be:

to use it on a personal level to share what you’re doing with real life friends and family to build up you and your blog’s profile in your niche to unwind and have fun with new friends to build up your network in a niche

The list could go on (and it could include multiple goals) – however knowing them up front will help you as you explore how to use it.

4. Start Tweeting

The best way to build your Twitter network is to be active. Your Tweets are your best advertisement for people to follow you – if you don’t have any (or many) what reason do people have to follow you?

So start updating your Twitter account. Don’t just write about anything – remember that every Tweet you make can either take you closer to or further away from your Twitter goals.

5. Start Following Others

This process is a bit of an experiment and involves following people and then seeing if their tweets ‘resonate’ with you. Sometimes it means you’ll follow someone for a while and then unfollow them – but you’ll eventually find a group of people that you enjoy conversing with. Which leads me to my next point….

6. Get Interactive

The beauty of being as interactive as possible with other Twitter users is that you’re talking to them in public and you’ll find your other followers and their other followers will chime in and make the conversation a little more multi-dimensional – it’s a great way of finding new friends to follow also.

7. Don’t Spam

Don’t just promote your own links, promote others. Keep them on topic and interesting and your followers will thank you for the links that you suggest.

8. EtiquetteSend out links & retweet Add Value Say Please & Thank You Give Credit to the source Be personal & somewhat transparent Don’t auto-follow Use Direct Message (DM) with CARE!

9. Upload Photoshttp://www.twitpic.com/ http://yfrog.com/

10. Shorten Linkshttp://bit.ly/ http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url

11. Twitter Cheat Sheethttp://www.slideshare.net/matthewtommasi/twitter-cheat-sheet

Further Readinghttp://mashable.com/2009/07/20/twitter-new-users/

http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/07/26/twitter-for-beginners-5-things-to-do-as-a-new-twitter-user/

http://www.twitip.com/category/twitter-for-beginners/

http://www.twitip.com/10-easy-steps-for-twitter-beginners/