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What
is Twitter and How do I use it?
The
FIVE most important BASICS to understanding and utilizing TWITTER
1. Similar to
a BLOG, twitter is very simply a PLATFORM that allows users to communicate
whatever is on their mind in 140 characters or less (including letters
and spaces); hence the term: Micro-Blog.
Each entry is referred to as a TWEET & within
each tweet, one can include a url linking to a picture, another website
or a longer article.
...
*helpful tools: TinyURL.com
(use to shorten urls), TwitPIC.com
(use for sharing pix) & TwitVID.com
(use for sharing videos)
2.
Twitter differs from Facebook in that people can follow you without
your “permission” – making it a place to communicate/promote
things to the masses as opposed to simply your close network of friends.
Like any successful newsletter, a strong following is crucial; therefore,
we recommend choosing the topic/topics you know best and
tweeting anything you find relevant on the web relating to that topic
(using your 140 characters to grab other user's attention)
...*recommended:
create tweets that read like catchy newspaper headlines and then include
a link to a corresponding blog or website with a more in-depth analysis
on the topic of your headline)
3. HASHTAGS
are essentially KEYWORDS – to create a hashtag, simply put #
in front of your keyword (ie: #iran), making that keyword more searchable
through the following url: http://search.twitter.com
...*one of the goals to success on twitter
is creating a hashtag that becomes a “trending topic”
– meaning a hashtag that gets reused enough times by others
to become one of the top 10 keywords on twitter for the day or longer
(ie: #followfriday)
4. One of the
most exciting elements of twitter is social interaction with strangers
with similar interests. In order to reference another person in a
tweet or respond to someone else’s posting, simply put @
before their username in your tweet, and a link will automatically
be created to their account (ie: @RootsJamSession
is good times)
5. Another great
way to build your network and show respect for other TWITTERS/TWEOPLE
is to repost or RETWEET (RT) tweets that you enjoyed
or found informative. To do this, simply begin your tweet with the
following - RT @theirusername: message being retweeted (ie: RT @oprah:
i have a LOT of $$)
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