By Tweet, She’s Twittering!
By now it’s safe to say you’ve heard of Twitter. It’s on the front page of the largest online newspaper today – www.news.com.au so I thought it was time to write a post about it.
Twitter is a micro blogging Web 2.0 service. Sound scary? It’s not.
Essentially, Twitter is a simple tool where you enter short messages of under 140 characters. You can use it to update your status – like you would on Facebook, reply to other users and post links that you find interesting.
At its core – its reason for being is its social networking functionality. Again, like Facebook, Twitter is best used when you have a network of friends – however in this case your friends are called “Followers”. You can follow anyone, and anyone can follow you.
I’ve been using Twitter since October 2008. I was introduced to it while watching a live stream of the vice presidential debate through cnn.com – while I was watching the video I was also watching a stream of world citizens comment on the debate in real time using Twitter.
This insight into people’s thoughts on such an important issue to all of us had me hooked and I signed up and started exploring the Twitterverse.
When I signed up the first person I followed was @tara_g. I had read her blog and she mentioned going to the first Online Divas event so I thought I’d be interested in what she had to say. I slowly built up my “follow” list mainly focusing on local and eventually Australian Twitter users.
Since then I’ve built my network slowly – I use Twitter for a couple of reasons, to connect with likeminded people (or people in my industry), to learn from people I admire, to become part of my local online community, and to let potential clients know more about me, my skills and what I’m about.
I use Twitter daily and the opportunities I’ve experienced – both professionally, businesswise and personally have been incredible. Not to mention the quality of people who are also using it – from online business owner Kate Morris (@adorebeauty) to leading female entrepreneur Suzi Dafnis (@SuziDafnis) I’d love to see more and more Australian business women using Twitter and reaping the rewards. The best bit (well, one of the best bits) – it’s free to use.
Top 4 Tips for Starting Out Based on My Twitter Experience
- Decide how you want to use Twitter and who you are there to connect with. For example, is it to make friends, communicate with potential and existing customers, be the face of your company to increase exposure and transparency, offer another personal level of customer service etc.
- For a couple of weeks use the search facility to find Twitter users who are talking about subjects that interest you.
- Don’t follow a huge amount of people straight away, connect with a few Tweeps, have conversations and observe – learn the Twitter etiquette (etiquette of course, is a necessity in any social situation) learn from people you enjoy reading.
- My number one tip is to be transparent and be yourself – talk as though you’re having a conversation – because you are.
- My second number one tip is to upload a profile pic, fill out your location, bio and add a website so that when you start following people they can find out more about you and are more likely to follow you back.
Top 4 Twitter Etiquette Tips
There are a million and one articles on the Internet about how to behave on Twitter. Here’s my advice when using Twitter and interacting with your followers.
- When someone follows you you’ll be notified via email. Send them a short greeting and thanks via Direct Message.
- Don’t boast or talk about how many followers you’ve got – that’s not the point.
- Think about what your followers want by following you – don’t use Twitter solely to talk about yourself and your products or services – add value to their day by using your 140 characters to post interesting links or insights into your expertise or interests.
- Make sure you reply if someone has replied to you (when you have something to add) but be aware to not flood your Twitter stream with replies to people. If you’re having a long or private conversation start using the Direct Message function.
Twitter Glossary
Microblogging: A form of blogging that allows users to publish brief text updates and/or links to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.
Tweet: Used to describe a post of 140 characters or less on Twitter.
Twitteriffic: A service that allows you to Tweet from iPhones/PC/Mac without visiting the Twitter website.
Tweeps: A group of followers on Twitter.
Twitterverse: Used to describe the online environment of Twitter – like blogosphere.
Followers: Another user of Twitter who has opted to “Follow” your Twitter posts.
Direct Message: A private messaging function used in Twitter also limited to 140 characters or less
@: The @ symbol is used when you want to reply or get the attention of a user. It is known as a reply. To reply to someone place the @ symbol before their username. E.g to reply to me on Twitter you would write @clarelancaster.
#: Used to follow a subject or event and placed at the end of a relevant post. Useful when searching twitter to see all users posts on that topic.
RT: Stands for Re-tweet. The action of copy and pasting another users post (including their @username) so that your followers can benefit. Twitter etiquette says you need to place “RT” at the start of your re-tweet to acknowledge the content is not yours.
TinyURL: A service that shrinks URLS to minimize characters used. TinyURL Link.
Failwhale: The image of a whale held up by small birds that appears when Twitter is overloaded with users.
Are you Twittering?
If you’re already using Twitter, leave a comment about how you heard about it and who was the first person you followed?
If you want to follow me you can! My username is @clarelancaster. I’d love to hear from you.
Update 19th March, 2009.
I’ve just released a Beginners guide to using Twitter for Business as a result of its exploding popularity and to answer the questions of my consulting clients. The advice in the guide will not be republished here.
If you liked this, you might want to check out my business website - Women in Business.
Thanks for reading, please leave a comment below or follow me on Twitter.
I've been working online since 2001, started my 
Thanks for the mention Clare – you never forget your first!
Now, if only I’d read your guide when I first started on Twitter it all would have been sooo much easier! It took me a few months (yes, months!) to work out what it was all about and to define who I was and what I could offer on Twitter. This would have by-passed all that confusion.
Great article, I’ve only just started using Twitter and have been playing around with it a bit, it should be good once I get everything all set up.
Yesterday I watched the opening address by Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and they spoke about their plans with Twitter:
‘Microsoft’s Live service has announced over 50 partnerships with social networks including facebook and Twitter.’
Eventually they want you to be able to access all your social network feeds from the one page. That should make it a bit easier to keep track of things.