Twitter: Who Cares What You're Doing Right Now, Anyway?

TwitterWho Cares What You’re Doing Right Now, Anyway?

SOURCE: IMPLEMENTINGSCRUM.COM

BY SCOTT ABEL, SOCIAL MEDIA CHOREOGRAPHER * THE CONTENT WRANGLER, INC. * 760.969.3249 * [email protected] * WWW.TWITTER.COM/SCOTTABEL * THECONTENTWRANGLER.NING.COM

Thursday, June 11, 2009

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http://www.thecontentwrangler.com


http://www.twitter.com/scottabel



What is Twitter?It’s a microblogging website; one of the fastest growing networks on the planet


"Twitter is a device-agnostic real-time message-routing platform—which is a fancy way of saying that it can send messages to and receive them from a variety of devices simultaneously, at the moment a message is sent."

Sarah Millstein, author of “Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution” (O’Reilly)


What is a Tweet?A post to Twitter is called a Tweet, a 140 (or fewer) character text message


What are Tweets about?They can be status updates, tips/tricks, announcements, ads, responses, etc.


What is a reTweet?A post to Twitter that was posted previously by another user; provides attribution


Twitter: A simple ideaThe original sketch of the Twitter interface; designed as a status updating tool


Twitter: The first iterationStatus updates from you to your friends who want to know what you are doing


What are you doing now?It’s not always easy to see the value in answering this simple question


"I started using Twitter and then decided it was just too much trouble and I really don't want that much information coming at me all day long. So, I deleted my account."

Lisa Seaburg, President, Aeon (XML consulting firm)


"I use it to inform, get news and plug links I find. In my opinion, I think that there are a few too many people expressing ‘the right way’ to use Twitter. The whole point is that it is random. It also integrates with your Facebook status, which is very helpful."

Monica Valentinelli, copywriter, web analyst


"Many people use Twitter for communicating with friends and family. I use Twitter for networking and personal branding. Most of my tweets are business-oriented. I also find that Twitter is a great tool for companies to use in their marketing and PR efforts."

Pamela Abbazia, SEO Strategist


"I use Twitter for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, I use it as persistent messaging between myself and my distributed development team when I need to interact with them between live/virtual meetings. I prefer it over email and IM for short discussions and quick thoughts.”

Robert Bectel, Managing Partner, Quorum Sense Consulting


"Additionally, I use Twitter to follow the findings of a select few innovative people/groups that provide links to interesting solutions as well as articles and traditional blogs. By following smart folks, I have access to an intelligent filter for marketing and interactive content.”



"Finally, I use it to communicate with my wife. Our “Tweets” move quickly to email and mobile devices which we both have, and guarantee that we aren’t missing important messages such as ‘Honey, get the kids from school. My meeting is running long’.”



"I use Twitter to promote the store --specifically to post upcoming tasting events (and a reminder on the day of the event), just-arrived beers, to promote new content on our store blog, and notify folks of any special hours or weather closures.”

Tiffany (Hereth) Adamowski, Technical Writer and part time beer store manager


Twitter today: How it worksStep one: Set up an account


Select a Twitter namePersonal brand (or handle) or real name


How it worksStep two: Find folks to follow


Finding folks to followSkim the Twitter public timeline: http://twitter.com/public_timeline


Finding folks to followClicking on a photo or user name takes you to that member’s profile page


Sometimes, they find youPosting to Twitter also exposes your profile, your Tweets, and makes you findable


FollowingWhen you follow someone, you can see their Tweets - they don’t necessarily see yours


FollowingTwitter allows you to see a threaded view of your conversations with others


Finding folks to followThe “build it and they will come” mentality isn’t enough to gain large audience


Finding folks to followTwitter can tap into other services you already use to invite your “contacts”


Finding folks to followTwitter can email your friends, prospects, co-workers with a personal note from you


Finding folks to followTwitter can “match” you with others that you may be interested in following


Finding folks to followThird-party services are also a good way to locate followers of interest; search by topic


Finding folks to followKeyword search tools can help you spot and automatically follow interesting folks


Deciding who to followYou can also use third-party services like Mr. Tweet - there are many others


Finding folks to followYou can also search the “Twitterverse” using http://search.twitter.com


http://search.twitter.com

http://search.twitter.com

Finding folks to followReal-time results show who is using your search term; Follow those that interest you


Revealing conversationsTwitter search also shows you the conversation thread, which can be useful


How it worksStep three: Create some interesting posts (Tweets) designed to attract followers


@ replying to a TweetUse @ before a username to respond to a Tweet so everyone else can see


RT (reTweeting)Use RT before @username to give attribution to the person who made the original post


TweetsText and special characters - 140 characters or fewer, including URL, RT, @


Following othersClicking the “Follow” button is all that’s required to follow another user


Following othersOnce you are a “follower” you will see this user’s posts when you view Twitter feed


Following othersOnce you follow someone, and they follow you back, you can contact them (via DM)


TwittiquetteRules and suggestions for best results


Rule #1Block mass followers; Following a lot of people, has few followers, made 1 post


Rule #2If you can’t say it in 140 characters, write a blog post about it and point folks to it


Rule #3Publish fresh, useful, relevant content; Avoid “Me too!” posts


Rule #4Decide whether you are posting professional or personal content; Don’t deviate often


Rule #5Be selective about whom you follow (this depends on your intent, obviously)


Error messagesTwitter error messages are often funny, creative gems that yield a quick smile


Error messagesTwitter error messages are often funny, creative gems that yield a quick smile


TwittervisionThere are many cool and innovative services built on top of Twitter data via the API


Twittervision in 3DServices are being created from Twitter data every day; There’s always something new


TwistoryServices are being created from Twitter data every day; There’s always something new


Tweets and GoogleWith a snippet of code you can make your web browser display Twitter results, too!


Tweets and RSS feedsYou can search Twitter and make the results an RSS feed that you can reuse elsewhere


Tweets and RSS feedsYou can search Twitter and make the results an RSS feed that you can reuse elsewhere


TwictionaryA dictionary of Twitter terms and jargon


TwitTransOne one free translation service; Send tweet and wait for translated response


Measuring successThere are a wide variety of services dedicated to rating, ranking your efforts


Measuring successThere are a wide variety of services dedicated to rating, ranking your efforts


The future and TwitterHigh profile bloggers have replaced writing daily blog posts with frequent Twittering


TWITTER LINKS OF INTERESTTWITTER.COM/SCOTTABEL * SCOTT’S TWITTER FEEDTWITTER.COM/STCSANDIEGO * SAN DIEGO STCMRTWEET.COM * RECOMMENDS FOLKS TO FOLLOWTWINFLUENCE.COM * MEASURES REACH, RANKS USERSSEARCH.TWITTER.COM * REAL-TIME TWITTER SEARCHBITLY.COM * SHORTENS URLS, TRACKS LINK CLICKSTWITPIC.COM * SEND PHOTOS VIA TWITTERPING.FM * AUTO-ROUTES TWEETS TO OTHER SERVICESTWITTERVISION.COM * ENTERTAINING TWITTER USETWEETDECK.COM * STREAMLINES NOTIFICATIONSTWITTERHOLIC.COM * RANKS TWITTER USERS


SCOTT ABEL, SOCIAL MEDIA CHOREOGRAPHER THE CONTENT WRANGLER, INC. * 760.969.3249SCOTTABEL@MAC.COMWWW.THECONTENTWRANGLER.COMWWW.TWITTER.COM/SCOTTABEL THECONTENTWRANGLER.NING.COM










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Twitter: Who Cares What You're Doing Right Now, Anyway?