Setting up your Twitter account:

A quick and dirty 101

Twitter. What we came here to do. Sign up - http://twitter.com

Username: The shorter, the better. You only get 140 characters per tweet. Bio: You get 160 characters. Use them wisely or people won’t follow back. Include a link: If you don’t have a Web site, perhaps to your LinkedIn profile?? Picture: Have one! People will think you’re a spam Once you get it. Get a customized background. It helps to differentiate.

Twitter. What we came here to do.

The jargon: Reply: When you send a tweet at someone

You use the “@” before their username (no space!)

Mention: Same concept, except you are mentioning that “@someone” on your tweet, not necessarily tweeting at them

Direct message (DM): When you send a tweet that only that person can see

Retweet: Including RT (with a space) before “@someone” means you are Retweeting what they tweeted. You are crediting their tweet and participating in this reciprocal space

Twitter. What we came here to do. The jargon:

Favorite: If you like a tweet, you can favorite it and save it.

Hashtag: Including the “#” before a word (EX: #iranelection) means you are participation in that conversation. Your tweet will join the stack of tweets saved under that hashtag in http://search.twitter.com. People start using these by word-of-mouth. Anyone can start a hashtag but they only become widely used when they start getting passed around successfully

Trending topic: pretty self explanatory. It can be any keyword (EX: iPhone) or a hashtag (EX: #iranelection)

Twitter. What we came here to do.

Start following. Following someone you have things in common with is one way to do this but there are third-party Twitter directories that make this whole thing a lot easier...

http://wefollow.com http://justtweetit.com/ http://www.twellow.com/

I’m set up. Now what?

Now you feed it and let it feed you

Putting out Send status updates. Same as Facebook.

Easy! Share links – you read / view / hear

stuff online right? Share it. Easy! Hint: Google is not just Gmail. Try Google

Reader to read blog without having to go to the blog’s site every single time. It’s like your new morning newspaper. If you read the newspaper.

Homework: Subscribe to at least 10 blogs that interest you. Check your Reader every day to see what new posts there are. SHARE THEM on Twitter. It’s a great way to get things going. And if the blogger has a Twitter account (most likely) give them credit!

Say something useful / insightfull

Putting out Participate in conversations

Send pictures… among other things

Retweet!

Putting out Build relationships, network

Communicate with friends / followers

Get customer service

Taking in Get news updates

Listen to what others say. Especially others who are in your line of business, doing / saying things that interest you or have things in common with you.

Follow artists, bands, companies, brands – if you want to, it’s fun.

Suit me up Alfred.

The “gear” PCs – TweetDeck Macs – Seesmic desktop iPhone – TweetDeck Blackberry – Twitterberry Old phones - Gravity

This is so that you don’t have to use Twitter from the Web every time.

More gems

Use URL shorteners to shorten your URLs and get the most out of those 140 characters http://bit.ly is my favorite

You’ll figure this out but there are a few third-party apps to share pictures, audio and video on Twitter EX: yfrog (pictures and video), TwitPic (pics),

TwitVid (vids)… pick your favorite. It don’t matter as long as you’re sharing

A few tips

Use the same picture and username. I do it for all of my social networks except for Facebook

Be consistent. If you join Twitter, stay on Twitter. Don’t be a social media flake.

Explore. We know how to do that ;)

Now go! Do something crazy!!!