Blogger`s User Manual For Twitter
Contents
1. The TWM z Manual by David Risley www DavidRisley com Introduction Social media has become a drastic shift in the way things work on the Internet Many dismiss it as a waste of time Many see it as something young children do and not worth the time of the serious adult But those who dismiss social media are believe destined to fall into the waste bin of Internet history Social media represents a re engineering of the top down approach to the flow of information online Now anybody can become an opinion leader in any market using social media alone Individual people can now command more attention that major brands all from the confines of their mobile phone while sitting in a coffee shop What follows includes information repurposed from David Risley dot com www davidrisley com plus some new material The goal of this ebook is to simply be helpful and to act as kind of user manual to those who don t know where to start when it comes to using social media For those who are already in the know you might learn something as well All materials contained within this ebook are written by David Risley Spread The Word If you like this ebook all ask is that you spread the word Do these two things for me 1 Be sure to follow me on Twitter davidrisley www twitter com davidrisley 2 Be sure to retweet this manual to your twitter followers using the URL www freetwittermanual com The Twitter Manual c2. David Risley http www freetwittermanual com You can send direct messages over Twitter as well This is just like instant messaging in that nobody else can see a direct message To send a direct message over Twitter you use the format d username message So for example to send me a direct message saying Hi you would enter a tweet like d davidrisley Hi Notice that you do not need to use an sign when sending a direct message By using a combination of public messages public replies and direct messages you can turn Twitter into a powerful conversation medium What Do Tweet This is acommon question from Twitter newbies You feel as if you have nothing important to say so you sit there staring at Twitter at a loss for words Or you end up tweeting things like what you had for lunch a route which usually ends with the mistaken conclusion that Twitter is a huge waste of time In reality the famous question of Twitter What Are You Doing is actually misleading You can type anything you want not just what you re doing Perhaps you want to share a link to a cool webpage you found You can ask questions which gets more fun as you get more followers You can retweet other people s stuff You can tweet your observations or thoughts on anything Most importantly you can begin interacting with others by way of replies Once you begin true two way interaction with others on Twitter you ll get the fe
3. going to bed at night Or perhaps on your laptop IN bed First thing you do when you get home from date night with the wife is check Twitter 10 You put your Twitter handle on your business card The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com
4. word describing the content or nature of the tweet Hashtags are an invention of the Twitter community not really something enabled by Twitter itself TwitterPoster www twitterposter com A look at TwitterPoster might remind you of the old days of those million pixel homepages What it is is a graphical representation of the most influential Twitter ers The larger the image the more influential the person right now Might be a bit useless but it is cool TwitterFeed www twitterfeed com If you run a blog or anything else which has an RSS feed you can use TwitterFeed to automatically fetch the latest entries from that feed and send them as tweets using your Twitter account A lot of bloggers for example use this to automatically send out links to new posts over Twitter Rules of the Road There are a few things that are worth keeping in mind The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com 1 Twitter is now breaking the barriers of early adopters and is beginning to go mainstream As they do so the service is being overwhelmed Twitter downtime happens so often that is is an ongoing joke So do not be surprised when you see Twitter seem to die off every now and then It usually comes back in a few seconds 2 most certainly do NOT recommend using any Twitter bots to auto follow anybody or mass follow groups of people All this does is open you wide up to Twitter spam Suggest you exercise just a li
5. worse than a dead Twitter profile So be consistent and try to tweet a few times per day Bea Person It s fine to use Twitterfeed www twitterfeed com to pipe your new blog posts into Twitter but you need to be a regular person too A Twitter stream is supposed to be more than another RSS feed Tweet value Put stuff out there that is actually worth reading This doesn t mean you can t post random things you re doing throughout the day you want to be human but people will value you more if what you say is actually interesting Follow others If you follow other people chances are they ll follow you back Don t be random about Find people who are actually worth following for your particular interests Strike a conversation Just following a person and sitting back accomplishes little if your goal is for them to follow you back Strike a conversation with them Talk back Send a reply That s a sure fire way to stand out to people who follow a lot of people Retweet If somebody you follow sends out a really useful or interesting tweet retweet it to your own followers Not only do you provide value to your own followers but it shows up as a reply to the person who originally sent the message Good on both fronts Be Interesting It helps not only to be a real person but to actually be interesting Funny tweets are one example Careful though don t be fake Be Interested Take an interest in your followers Thi
6. c David Risley http www freetwittermanual com Twitter Why The Internet is broken up into let s say two groups of people 1 Early adopters who try everything that comes out and are on the cutting edge and 2 everybody else And there is a whole lot more of everybody else than there are people like myself early adopters The everybody else crowd hears buzzwords like Twitter but chalks it up to one of those things that s just too advanced to understand And there is also the issue of people just getting comfortable with certain things and not being intellectually curious enough to try something new These are the kinds of people who are still using Internet Explorer despite everybody saying how much better the alternatives are Twitter is one that definitely breaks down cross this digital divide You have those who get it and use it often You have those who tried it and decide it is stupid And you have those who just don t get it Not long ago sent out an email to the PCMech www pcmech com mailing list In that email laid out the benefits of Twitter and of course asked people to follow me on Twitter Why Because can then have a back channel for communication with my readers It is good for me to have my finger on the pulse of my readers and not have everything go through PCMech Said simply this site isn t the proper place for everything So had a lot of people follow me But as observed some of t
7. e Blip FM links don t CARE what music you listen to and for me to click it and listen to a song is the biggest waste of time EVER 10 Tweets with a lot of weird characters Some people like to tweet endless amounts of people full of heart symbols and and other wing dings No So what do you think Do you have other reasons for not following people What do you look for when you decide whether or not to follow or not Getting the Most Out of Twitter So Twitter is what it is However there are a lot of really cool third party sites out there that take advantage of Twitter to provide add on capabilities Twitter Search search twitter com This is the search engine for Twitter Technically it isn t a separate site But find that so many people don t use it and they should For example if you are interested in blogging you can search for the word blogging and you ll find people talking about it in real time The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com If you are in charge of the reputation of a company or brand the value to this should be obvious You can find out what your customers are talking about RIGHT NOW Are they talking about you Just continually monitor Twitter Search for the name of your company or brand The moment somebody says something relevant you can chime in to help It makes brands personal and it is awesome customer support TweetBeep www tweetbeep co
8. el for the value of the medium quickly So instead of staring at The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com Twitter com wondering what to type instead take some time to find and follow others Then begin by replying to other people Think of Twitter like a big party People are sitting around having conversations You walk up and begin participating in the conversation that are already taking place Makes sense right What so many people tend to do is just start tweeting little things If we take our party anology that would be like sitting in the middle of a room where the party is happening and just blankly talking out into space Not only are people not listening but they re likely to give you weird looks if they even notice So remember Twitter is a big party It is the conversation at the water cooler Treat it as such and you ll get the feel for it much faster 10 Tips For Getting New Twitter Followers Twitter will prove not very fun unless you get some people following you There is no secret to getting followers It comes down to what stated before You get what you put into it Some ways to get followers 1 Leverage Your Network If you already have a blog or a large network on a site like Facebook leverage that resource to get your existing audience to follow you on Twitter The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com Be Active Nothing sucks
9. hese new people getting their feet wet with Twitter it was very clear they really didn t understand how to use it or what to do with it So wanted to provide a simple how to manual So let s touch on the salient points The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com Why Use Twitter At All Twitter is worth using because it allows you to tap into the power of others instantaneously Want to share a thought with others You can Want a quick answer to a question You can get one on Twitter Want to find out what the latest buzz is before others do Twitter It is easy to throw Twitter into that category of nerdy Myspac y things some nerds do It is easy to see it as a waste of time My response would be to not be so fast at dismissing it As a person who follows technology the worse thing you can do is dismiss things by thinking you already know what it s all about That is an easy sentence to falling behind the curve So given that we have a lot of normal people reading PCMech thought would list some reasons why a normal person might want to consider using Twitter 1 You can use it to create interesting contacts and spark interesting conversations And yes Twitter is used for conversation all the time It is not a one way flow and if you think it is it is because you are not using it correctly 2 You can build your network Why would you want to do that Because in the future and no
10. m Get email alerts whenever somebody tweets about something you re interested in It is actually allot like Google Alerts except for Twitter Want to be notified if anybody mentions your name your city or your website on Twitter Set up a TweetBeep TwitScoop www twitscoop com TwitScoop creates a realtime live changing tag cloud of what is hot on Twitter right now At a glance you can see what the leading subjects of conversation are on Twitter Very interesting to watch whenever there is some big news event taking place You can often find out about it before you ll ever hear about it on television Twittervision www twittervision com A take off the word television Twittervision is definitely a site you can load into your browser sit back and watch It is a mashup of Google Maps and Twitter showing you tweets as they happen and from where they are located on the globe It is interesting to watch the map move around in real time and seeing what people are saying around the world right now Twellow www twellow com The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com Twellow is a directory of Twitter users and it allows you to search for people based on their name and the information they put into their bios Very useful for finding people of similar interests to you to follow on Twitter Hashtags www hashtags org A real time tracker of hashtags on Twitter A hashtag is like a tag for tweets a
11. obs to enlighten others on the opportunities the world of technology presents know that many of my readers are not entirely in tune with what is happening out there And honestly the forward movement in the general world of technology is happening OUTSIDE our computers Yes Twitter is a social media site Yes Twitter can be used as a time waster and can suck attention Bult it is also a resource and a good one would never have started using it if it was a waste of my time If you should sign up for Twitter realize that you will only get out of it what you put into it If you don t regularly submit anything and don t follow anybody Twitter is going to seem incredibly stupid You have to participate in it and then trust me it becomes a LOT more interesting How Do You Make Twitter Worth Using One of the important things to understand about any social medium is that you get what you give You have to be willing to share your thoughts and you have to be willing to participate in the community You can t expect to The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com find much use in Twitter if you just join and then sit back and wait And you re not going to find much value in Twitter if you only use it to promote your own site Twitter is a community You build up your network by getting others to follow you When you follow a user on Twitter this means that anything they enter into Twitter will sh
12. ow up on the timeline on Twitter for you to view You are only going to see the tweets of the people you follow unless you are viewing the public timeline which is everybody The more people you follow on Twitter the more information you will be able to observe The flip side of this is getting others to follow you When others follow you on Twitter this opens up the opportunity to have conversations on Twitter and be able to talk back How To Have a Conversation on Twitter When you simply enter a tweet and submit it that tweet simply goes onto your timeline It can be read on the public timeline of Twitter by a casual visitor but the people most likely to see it are those who follow you So when you submit a tweet anybody who follows you can see it It does not mean they WILL see it Understand that Twitter can also be a noisy platform If somebody following you also follows a bunch of other people your tweet may be missed by that person To send a tweet which addresses a specific person you make what is called a reply You do this by using the sign and then the person s Twitter username For example if anybody entered a tweet with davidrisley in it it would come up as a reply to me Most people put that at the beginning of their tweet but you can also include a person s Twitter username anywhere in your tweet The key though is to prefix the username with the sign The Twitter Manual cc
13. r Do you see the value of that sure do Following the right people puts them into your thought stream You can see what they see if they tweet it of course That s a LOT of information at your fingertips And like any river or stream you just dip your toe in it when you see fit I m not watching every tweet that comes across my screen But monitor it in my peripheral vision So to speak so can keep tabs on what s happening out there The value of your tweet stream is determined by WHO you follow So take whatever you re interested in find the people in your niche and follow them You can use a site like Twellow www twellow com to find people You The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com can even use Twitter search http search twitter com to enter search terms you re interested in observe the people who talk about those things and follow them We all like to be followed on Twitter but let s not get too hung up on it Obviously being followed is a good thing But think there is perhaps more value to be had in simply following the right people Top 10 Signs You re Not Worth Following on Twitter These are the top things look for to tell me you re not worth following 1 You tweet spam This would include the usual stuff such as make money MLM stuff tweeth whitening how to get more followers etc You don t have an avatar That brown default avata
14. r is for me classic sign of a spammer If you re not a spammer and you re still using the default avatar change it now because you re in bad company Your avatar is sexy You know I m a guy and like a beautiful woman as much as any other guy But don t want to subscribe to it on Twitter If your avatar is you simply advertising how much you want to get laid then get lost from my Twitter account Your profile bio is stupid and offers no reason why should follow you A profile like I like fun things tells me nothing Your profile has nothing but links with no personal interaction with your followers If you re just a one way stream you re not using Twitter correctly and won t follow you You just tweet news or quotes Sorry can get my news from anywhere and don t want AP headlines tweeted to me And if all you do is tweet other people s quotes then you re just telling me you let other people think for you too You offer no value Buh bye The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com 7 All you do is talk about stupid stuff like what you had for lunch like personal non business tweets but at least be somewhat interesting and don t make that the only thing your profile broadcasts 8 You tweet in another language Nothing personal here know not everybody speaks English But it wouldn t make much sense for me to follow somebody can t understand 9 Excessiv
15. s goes hand in hand with several of the above tips but at the end of the day when you show interest in your network and the actual people who follow you they ll WANT to follow you Acknowledge your followers publicly when they post something interesting for example 10 Don t Forget Photos People like photos so if you use TwitPic www twitpic com sometimes to tweet photos people will watch and take a gander The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com It Isn t All About Being Followed I ve had people see that follow almost 3000 people and they ask Why They observe and correctly so that couldn t possibly read the tweets of 3000 people And they re right do NOT read every tweet that comes across my plate There are other Twitter users who follow a lot more people than do and trust me they re not reading everything either When you follow a person that means you can tap into their thought stream Random thoughts new links they find or their new blog posts you ll have those things entering your tweet stream So have almost 3000 people who comprise a steady stream of collective thought The beauty of a site like Twitter is the near instantaneous nature of it You can learn of new things quickly News events break VERY fast on Twitter It is like having 3000 pairs of eyeballs out there acting like a little conduit of information which is sent TO YOU via Twitte
16. ttle judgement in who you follow Yes it is more work but it means you ll get more value from it If you get too much input by following just anybody with no judgement Twitter will quickly become nothing but a noise machine that just sucks your attention If you are not on Twitter suggest you give it a go The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com In Closing Some have gone so far as to call Twitter a utility much like the phone company Will it become that ingrained into our daily life Perhaps There is one thing that would bet the bank on microblogging is here to stay and will only become more mainstream as time goes on David Risley Now leave you on a humorous note Top 10 Signs You re Addicted to Twitter ONOaAR WD 9 You re on the Twitter website and find yourself refreshing the page rather than waiting for the auto refresh F5 is worn out You realize you need to turn off Twitter to get any work done Problem is you realized that an hour ago too You get overly excited when you get a new follower You find yourself typing to reply to people even if its in an email You are bored and confused whenever there is another Twitter outage You have a Twitter client set to start automatically on boot up Your blog hasn t been updated in awhile but you ve been Twittering like crazy You feel the strong need to check up on Twitter before
17. w for that matter your network is going to be your security Imagine losing your job right now If you have a large network of contacts don t you think you re going to have a much higher likelinood of crossing paths with somebody who might be hiring 3 You can tap into knowledge You might like the anonymity of just Googling for what you need to know And yes much of the time that is the best way But real people are the best resource The power of many minds often beats out the power of one When you follow the right people on Twitter you can learn information you The Twitter Manual cc David Risley http www freetwittermanual com wouldn t have learned otherwise Not only that by following that person you now have a way to directly contact that person over Twitter 4 Real time information Twitter is perhaps one of the most right now social media sites on the Internet It is commonplace to find out about news on Twitter way before you d see it elsewhere Not only that you can ask your Twitter network a question and many times get answers back within a few minutes 5 Expand your horizons Keep in mind our computers are supposed to be TOOLS to help you improve your life You didn t buy a computer so that you could experience the joy of repairing it did you Likely not If your computer doesn t help you connect to people and do things what good is it In my position as a tech blogger consider it one of my j
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