twitter: baby steps

I've found a lot of articles on how to get the best from twitter, but at an advanced level. There wasn't a whole lot on how to get started (or if there was, it was in bite-sized tweet language with lots of mysterious abbreviations - irritating until you get used to it, and how was I to get used to it if I couldn't figure out the darn thing in the first place???)

Okay, rant over. Here is a very basic guide on how to get started on Twitter, and not embarass yourself too much in the process.

1. Go to www.twitter.com , and register a relevant username that's not too long or too difficult to spell. Write a brief and catchy profile about yourself and link to your website.

2. Log out.

3. Go to your favourite blogs, news sites, industry sites - wherever you usually read about your business or industry online. If they're bloggers, look at the list of blogs that THEY read, and read them. Make a long list of the names of people whom you find interesting and informative.

4. Return to Twitter, and look these people up. Read their recent tweets and if you still think they're interesting then click on the Follow button. This means that anything they write (or tweet) will appear on your home page.


Now, and only now, are you ready to participate.


5. Read the tweets that appear on your home page. Follow the conversations and if you have anything of value to add then type it into the box at the top of your screen. Everyone knows you only have 140 characters so I don't need to tell you that!

6. Keep it simple at the start, just read and converse about the topics they introduce. Be polite and professional. Tweeting is actually very conversational as you get going, so try to converse politely. Don't push your company. If people find your tweets interesting then they'll look you up.


A short piece about the logic of twitter which I hope you can follow:

Say I am following Enda, George and Brian on twitter, so I see all their tweets. But of course, all of their connections see their tweets too, not just me.

So, if for example George posted an important resignation notice on twitter, Enda won't see if it he's not connected to George. If I think it's relevant to my conections then I can Re-Tweet George's notice. This is a little like forwarding an email on. By typing the letters RT at the start of the message and copying in George's notice to the tweet, all my connections will now see the tweet containing George's news. [This is a nice way to spread the word about a good tweet someone has made. It might be a link to a good blog post they've made, or just an interesting piece of wisdom.]

So, now my other connections, Enda and Brian, have also seen George's tweet.

They've probably got lots of connections of their own, so if they like they can ReTweet (RT) George's message too. This means that in a short space of time, a tweet can spread across twitter like wildfire.

Okay, that's enough for one blog post. There are more complex features of twitter which I'll post on soon. Watch this space.