For Twitter Newbies—Twitbies
Although Twitter has been with us for a while now and has become a major social platform in a short time, many of us are still new to it. I’ve been on it since fall of last year, and I still consider myself a Twitter Newbie or Twitbie. This is not a bad thing to be—in fact, it’s kind of a favored status. Unless you behave badly on Twitter—dissing and/or spamming folks—the community respects your newness and will even help with your education from time to time. I’ve been lucky enough to have received great advice and guidance—here are few things I’ve learned over the past months, thanks to a very generous community:
- The sign-up for Twitter is remarkably easy. Don’t forget to add a photo to your profile—it will help people remember you. If you’re creating an institutional profile, pick a photo that is both memorable and brand worthy.
- The best way to learn to use Twitter is to follow for a while and watch what happens between and among users. You’ll see how and what people tweet, find people of interest, and see how things like retweeting work. However, if you follow for too long you’re not really participating and people will eventually notice and take you less seriously—the best way to get any benefit from this is to participate. Give yourself a couple of weeks, then start by sending a tweet or two each day to see how it feels. If you’re stuck for content, write down some ideas for tweets before sending them out—this will build your confidence. Also, you can visit Web pages and blogs that are particularly interesting and share them by retweeting (defined below). Look for a “share” or “retweet” button—this is probably the easiest way to get involved and will also earn you followers.
- You don’t have to—and shouldn’t—send out hundreds of tweets a day to gain followers. I send out 4–6 tweets on average per day and there are some days when Twitter is impossible to get to. Others send many more—what you’re putting out content-wise and why can help you decide on quantity.
- Decide whether you’re using Twitter for personal or professional reasons. Keep in mind that Twitter is not like Facebook and that many people are having great success using it professionally. Either way, be careful of the boundaries.
- Focus on developing a quality following as opposed to a large following. It’s easy to build up a large following, but essentially meaningless. You should follow people who are of specific interest to what you do and who you are.
- Think of yourself as someone offering a service to your followers. How would that help you decide what to tweet? Another way to think about it is what is your personal brand? If you were a character, what would that character say? Deciding on this will help you focus and decide on the content you should be tweeting.
- Trending—you can follow the hot trends about what people are tweeting. You can find the list on the lower right column of your home page. Click on a link and you will go to the tweetstream (conversation) on that topic. You can also change the list—hit the change link just below “Trending” to update. If you want to, you can participate in these conversations, but you must stay on topic. To learn how to participate, go to the Trending Topics help page. Unfortunately, the higher ed community is not all that large compared to other communities, and doesn’t often spark trending topics.
- Do not direct message people you don’t know. It’s seen as a form of spam and considered an overly aggressive action. People will stop following you if you do it to people you don’t know. You can direct message people you know or people who have sent you a direct message. I would not direct message anyone too often—again, this is not like Facebook.
- @replies are public replies to individual tweets—they should show up in your tweets to your followers. This reply/update starts with a user name: @+username and then your message. It’s one way people talk to each other on Twitter without spamming them, and a good thing to do but not overdo. You should do it when you want to begin or be part of a conversation. You can also get mentioned in other people’s tweets—you’ll see your @username. Usually, this is a positive thing.
- Download and use TweetDeck—a very useful tool for tracking and being alerted to tweets, friends, and communities. It’s still free as far as I know.
- Tweetie is the iPhone app you can use to connect to Twitter when you’re on the road. Twitterberry is an RIM app that does similar things. Check the apps your phone offers—if you can’t get Tweetie, you should be able to get something like it. This will save you from getting text message charges.
- Like all good Web sites, Twitter has a great help/resources page. The link is up in the top right corner of your home page.
- Be aware of the 140 character limit—it sneaks up on you. However, if you use TweetDeck it will automatically shorten most tweets that are over the limit. If you are 200 characters over the limit, it won’t shorten them, but you can link to services like bit.ly or tinyurl to shorten them. TweetDeck will do this automatically, but every now and then it won’t work on something way too long. It’s better to master the art of short messages. Get to the point and remember you only have room to make one point.
- Retweeting is a great way to make new friends on Twitter. You have to be following whoever you retweet to do so, but when you do it you attract interest from other people who are not currently following you. On your Twitter profile page, you can do it manually—you’ll see the ‘reweet’ button on the right side of the tweet. TweetDeck gives you the tools to do it automatically and easily. Don’t retweet everything and don’t retweet all day long, but get into the habit of retweeting things you think are valuable and worth repeating. It’s a great way to build community.
- You can and should block unsavory characters who are trying to follow you. Twitter is so-so on monitoring spam and sleaze; you have to be on the alert.
- Hashtags are a way to group tweets around a particular subject—they are commonly used at conferences and events. A hashtag looks like this: #simtech09…the # symbol always precedes the title or name. When you use them, you participate in the discussion at the event or on that topic alone. You can also follow the tweetstream on that topic or event.
- Remember that Twitter is still new—it’s the youngest major platform—and we’re all still trying to figure it out.
- If you really like Twitter, then check out The Twitter Book—the best guide I’ve seen on the subject.
Okay, now it’s your turn. There are a lot of higher ed folks on Twitter—what are some of your tips and tricks for Twitbies?
Photo by ~Ilse
