Everything you need to know about Twitter in as short of a post as possible.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook. – From Wikipedia
Commoncraft also has a pretty good explanation of what twitter is on youtube.
Here are some Twinterviews about what people love about twitter.
Who do I follow?
First thing you can do is invite all of your friends through Twitters Find & Follow page. Once that is done you can move on to websites like Who Should I Follow, Twittersearch and Twubble. (More Twitter Search Engines)
There are also lists you can scan through at TwitterPack and Twitterholic as well as some Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter.
It is probably a good idea to view a users Twitter page before you follow them to be sure they aren’t spam.
How do i update?
There are A LOT of ways to update your twitter status. The most obvious (and sometimes most reliable) is the Twitter site itself.
There is also an array of third-party apps to help feed your twitter hunger:
Or you can automate the process with TwitterFeed.
Where else can i put my twitter feed?
You can view your feed in any feed aggregator (Google Reader, FriendFeed, Outlook, etc). Your feed can be accessed at
- http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/username.rss – Your Feed
- http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/username.rss – Your Friends Feed
as well as by clicking the RSS button at the bottom of your Twitter page.
Another popular thing to do is add your Twitter feed to facebook. Twitter has its own Facebok App or you can just sync your facebook satus with Twitter. I personally chose to use FriendFeed because it was the least intrusive.
What are some cool apps I can use?
Check out the Twitter Fan Wiki Apps Page.
I hope someone found this informative. Please feel free to follow me: @spazcer
6 replies on “Twitter 101”
Thank you! I learned something new (and useful) today! I’ve now subscribed to my Twitter feed and can stop being a slave to the website! I can’t download Twhirl and such at work.
Plus…I’m sending this to my husband. He’s always knockin’ my Twittering because he doesn’t get it. Let’s see if this helps.
Jon,
Very good post for Twitter starters!
I’m giving my very own baby steps on twitter. Although I’ve had my account for well over a year I felt the urge to stay out of it.
Then I realized that working in Social Media I couldn’t afford not to use it.
Hi,
Thanks for mentioning TwitKit in your post! It was a great read.
Thanks,
Hans Engel
ok Jon – I’m a professional speaker and exhibit builder for trade shows. WIIFM please.
How can I use this to my best advantage? or is it just another social site
B
[…] you haven’t checked out my Twitter Starters Page, you might want to go ahead and do that before reading this post. You have to have a pretty basic […]
[…] you haven’t checked out my Twitter Starter Page, you might want to go ahead and do that before reading this post. You have to have a pretty basic […]