Tweets Part III - Public Writing Guide

“Tweeting” On Twitter How To Guide
Alex Gold

Introduction:

Celebrities, companies, media, and just your average Joe these are just a few of the different groups that use twitter. Twitter allows you to send Tweets which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user's profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default; however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other users' tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers. You can choose to use twitter anyway you see fit, whether it’s just to stay in contact with friends or to follow breaking news by following your local news station.

Detailed Step-By Step Guide To “Tweeting”

1.        Set up your account. Go to Twitter.com and click on the Get Started—Join! button. Enter your username, password, and email address. Click on the “I accept. Create my account” button.

2.        Set up Twitter for your phone. Twitter is much more fun if you connect it to your cell phone. By doing so, you can receive updates from those you are following, as well as sending your own updates. It’s all done through text messaging or from smartphone apps..

Again, under the Settings link, click on the Devices tab. Enter your mobile phone number and click on the Save button. Now take your cell phone and text message the code Twitter gives you to 40404 .Eventually, Twitter will confirm to you that your device is registered.

Now, while still on your cell phone, set up a contact named “Twitter.” For the mobile phone number, use 40404. Now every time you want to send a Twitter update, you will send it to this contact name.

If you have a Smartphone you can install the official “twitter app” to your iphone or android phone. (Be careful it is addicting!)

3.        Follow some family or friends. If you haven’t done so already, add your family and friends by clicking in the “Search” field at the top of your home page. You can type in a username or first and last name. When you do, you will get a list of the Twitterers who match your search criteria. You can also do a more advance search (e.g., searching by location) on the Twitter search page.You can begin “following” them by simply clicking on the Follow button. If you want to also follow them on your cell phone, then you can turn the “Device Updates” to “on.” Personally, I only follow my family and a few close friends on my cell phone. Regardless, you will be able to see everyone you follow on your Twitter home page.

4.        Learn the basic commands. When you update your status, you are speaking to everyone. Everyone can hear what you have to say. Replies. If you want to direct your comments to one specific person, but so everyone else can hear, you use the “Reply” function. You address the person by using their Twitter user name preceded by the “@” symbol. For example:

@johnsmith I am excited for dinner next weekend

Everyone who is following John Smith and me will see the message, but I am specifically directing it to Johnsmith. You can also use the Reply function to refer to someone by name. For example:

I’m headed to dinner at 23rd Street Brewery with @zackfisch and @darendunn. I am looking forward to getting some good grub.

The thing about replies is that they are “clickable links.” If someone who is following me, clicks on one of the names, they will automatically go to that person’s Twitter page. This will give them the opportunity to follow that person, too.

5.        Start twittering( “Tweeting”). So now you are all setup. It’s time to start Twittering. You can do this from your Twitter home page or from your cell phone. The main thing you need to know is that the message can be no longer than 140 characters long. If you use the Web page, the entry field will automatically count your characters.

So how much should you tweet? That’s up to you but, no one probably wants to hear everything you are doing day in and day out. However there are no hard rules!

6.        Consider third-party apps. An entire eco-system has sprung up around Twitter. Here are some of my favorite applications:Twitter for Facebook application. This application automatically syncs all your Twitter updates with Facebook. Once you set this up, you won’t ever have to make another Facebook update.

TweetDeck. This is the application I use to manage Twitter on my desktop. It is great because it allows you to segment people by groups.

7.        Twitter Safety. You definitely need to be cautious. It’s probably not a good idea to say something like, “I’m headed out of town for awhile, my kids are gonna be home all alone.” Bad idea. For obvious reasons. You need to think about the fact that crazy people and criminals have Twitter accounts, too. You especially need to be cautious about sharing too much private information that could compromise your safety or others.

@AlexGold