- 1. What is Twitter? A Comprehensive Guide to a New Social Networking Medium “ Instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what’s happening around the world.” - Twitter.com Homepage
- 2. ...What IS it? Twitter is a way to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Users make posts in 140 characters or less, which can either be private or public. Send pictures, links, or videos. Interact with consumers on a much more personal level
- 3. What Can I Do With It? Twitter has become an excellent (and free) tool for networking, advertising, and marketing. Retailers may offer exclusive deals to their “followers.” It serves as a way to quickly and effectively help customers with questions or problem with a simple “@ reply.” Promotes customer interaction.
- 4. Create Your Account Go to www.twitter.com and create your account right on the main page. Your username should be something relevant to your business or job title. Once you have created your profile, go to the search bar and look for people you may know by company name or email address. Send out a tweet under the “what’s happening” tab.
- 5. Your Home Page (Feed) Once you have created your account and have started following people, your feed will look like this. Tweets from people you follow How many followers you have, how many people you are following, how many direct message you have, and how many tweets you have saved as favorites Your profile picture and most recent tweet Where tweets are born
- 6. @replies To message any user, whether you follow them or not, simply type an “@” symbol and then their name directly after. This is a public “@reply.” Anyone can see this message. This messages can also be “retweeted,” meaning a replica of the original tweet is sent out by a separate user than the originator. A retweet is symbolized by an “RT” in the message. If you want to spread news, you could send out a message and ask others to retweet it. For example: Hey @everyone, sale this Friday! Please RT!
- 7. Direct Messages Also called “DMs” This is a private message between two users. To send a DM, simply go to your feed and click “Direct Messages.” From that window you can send a DM to any user with that function enabled.
- 8. Trending Topics Popular words, phrases, or questions circulating Twitter.Trending topics become popular either through a concerted effort by users or because of an event that prompts people to talk about one specific topic. Trending topics (or TTs) are denoted by the “#” number sign. For instance, if you were to try to get a sale trending, you would send out a message like this: Hey everyone! @Businessname is having a sale today! RT! #sale
- 9. Your profile picture Should be tasteful and relate to your business. It can be a personal photo or the company logo. You can access this screen through the “Settings” page.
- 10. In closing... Don’t be afraid of Twitter! It’s fun, useful, and best of all, FREE!