Useful information and trivial information, Twitter has it all.
How you use it is up to you, but most of all it is fun!
Lets get straight to the basics:
- Goto www.twitter.com and set up an account. Yes really! :-)
- Use the search option to find people or subjects of interest to 'follow' (Facebook Friend).
- To send a message start it with @UserName, where UserName is whoever you wish to contact .
- Your comments will be shown on your page and the Twitter page (Similar to Facebook 'walls') of anyone who is following you.
- Regard all tweeted information as viewable by anyone. (You can create private groups where the information will not be publicly viewable if required. Much clearer to understand than Facebook).
- Don't repeat the same information too often.
- Generally don't try and sell. Incentivise. If you must sell.. then soft sell. The above still applies.
- Tweet too often and you will be treated like junk mail and ignored/unfollowed.
- Keep a balance with business tweets and social/personal tweets. It's about showing you are human, and not just a business in it for the money.
- You can have more than one Twitter account. Possibly have another just for close family and friends for stuff that you'd not want to put on your business tweets. Make sure you tweet to the right one!
- Give, give, give
- Don't pass off other peoples tweets/content as your own. Re-Tweet.
- RT Retweeting is good. It shows you value what the tweeter has to say enough to share it with others, and they are more likely to re-tweet you to others.
- If you RT at the start of a message it is shared with your followers, if you only do an @UserName, only you and @UserName will see it.
- Anything that may be considered private, either DM (Direct Message), use the 'old fashioned' email, or dare I say telephone! :-)
- You can only DM those who you are following - that are following you.
- Share, share, share & have fun!
There is a lot more you can do with Twitter, but this is just the basics!
For those who cannot be without Facebook, applications like TweetDeck and HootSuite allow you to Tweet and Post to your wall at the same time.
Alan Edwards
If you have found this useful 'like' our Facebook page.
Any questions or comments Tweet or follow us www.twitter.com/computercalm
A link to both can be found on www.computercalm.co.uk if the above are not working for you.
