Tech Tips: Twitter | From: The Little Pink House

Why Twitter?

May 042012

It’s been Tweeted and Retweeted so often that no one knows where it originally came from: “Facebook is for for friends who are now strangers, Twitter is for strangers who should be friends.” And in a way, it’s true. After all, half of the people I’m “friends” with on Facebook are people who are no longer much of a part of my life — but we’re Facebook friends so we can sort of keep in touch. I have only a handful of family members on Twitter, but my Twitter lists are filled with professional contacts and references.

Facebook is personal and you begin your influence by first gaining personal friends to follow/like your blog, etc. Twitter is more for outside your personal sphere.
-Mandy, @DailyCupOfGrace

According to writer Jeff Goins, Twitter is a unique resource, a “conversation that connects you to the world.” It can be very fast-paced. It’s very real-time. And it’s also very overwhelming until you get a handle on the fact that you don’t have to read each Tweet by everyone you follow.

Twitter is much more than a social media network; rather, it’s a global real-time information network
-Claire Diaz-Ortiz (@claired) in Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time

So why would you want to join another network—especially one that’s often more professional than personal? Because it cuts out the spam and the junk: on Twitter, it’s all about quality content. You follow people on Twitter not only because of who they are, but because of what they share.

I was attracted to Twitter because it seemed to be the more professional and serious sharing network. The simple fact that the content is reduced to text and links keeps so much foolishness (like Farmville requests and photos of people I don’t know) out of my feed.
-Trina Holden, @TrinaHolden

Twitter 101: A Few Do’s & Don’ts

May 022012

When you go to compose a new Tweet, Twitter asks you, “What’s happening?” But the truth is, not everyone really wants to know what’s happening in your life every single second of every day. Twitter is about what’s happening—but not just what’s happening to you. <—click to Tweet this

And when it comes to answering that question in 140 characters or less, there are a few easy do’s and don’ts to keep in mind—especially if you want more people to actually be interested in what you have to say about what’s happening.

1. Be Helpful

Twitter is a real-time information network. It’s a great place to go for information and help, especially within relevant hashtags. But if you want help from people when you need it, be helpful when they need it. It’s the Golden Rule again. If you can answer someone’s question, if you can help them out by a Retweet, do. You don’t have to answer everyone’s questions all the time (unless they @mention you, of course!), but you’ll never regret being known as a helpful Tweeter.

The real beauty of Twitter lies in the fact that it is not a one-to-one service, but rather a one-to-many service—allowing you to both follow and learn from all the many individuals who do not personally follow you. When people ask me “What’s the first thing I should do when I sign up for Twitter?” I say “Help someone.”

-Claire Diaz-Ortiz (@claired) in Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time

Twitter as a Tool for Bloggers

Apr 192012

Let me reassure you, my blogging friend: Twitter is not necessary for success in blogging.

I could name countless bloggers who were read by thousands before they ever got a Twitter account.

But the names aren’t important. It’s the fact that they had something to say worth reading. And that carried over into their Twitter accounts when they got them, making them someone worth following.

Twitter can be a great tool for bloggers. I have blogging friends who get the majority of their traffic from Twitter. However, less than 2% of my traffic comes from Twitter (at least according to Google Analytics, which may not always calculate Twitter referrals correctly).

Twitter is not for generating traffic; Twitter is for creating relationships. <—click to Tweet this

Twitter has increased page clicks, but frankly, Twitter has allowed me to connect with individuals that I would have never been able to before, from women in my community, to friends, to colleagues.
-Kristina, @kjpetrella

Should you as a blogger be on Twitter? Maybe. Especially if your readers are. But if your average reader has never even heard of Twitter, then please, spend your online time blogging, and put Twitter very low on your priority list. (Check out Amy Lynn Andrews’ post on choosing social media platforms for more on this.)

That being said, if you as a blogger decide to try out Twitter, here are some tips for not only utilizing the tool, but keeping it in the box.

Twitter 101: Buffer

Apr 182012

a guest post by
Chantel Brankshire, @springjoys

Why I Buffer

I’m not the techiest of techie people, but technology fascinates me. Watching the rise of social media like Facebook and Twitter, I’ve seen the great potential that they have as tools for growing circles and nurturing ties with people who are seeking information or encouragement. I’ve watched as some people successfully harnessed that potential and others struggled to get their footing.

Naturally, from my seat at the sidelines, I could only learn so much about the hows and the whys of it all. But plunging in gave me a taste of why it is so easy to start strong and burn out quickly when you are trying to create a little niche for yourself in the massively overwhelming world of social media. It doesn’t matter how great the tools are, if you don’t know how to use them effectively to reach your target audience, they aren’t worth a whole lot.

Facebook wasn’t so bad. By the time pages started popping up, and it occurred to me to create one for my own little corner of the web, I’d been using it long enough to have a feel for the basics. With Twitter, on the other hand, I just didn’t think I could ever really fit in. The setup and ideas were simple enough, but I wasn’t prepared for the high paced environment or the level of commitment it seemed to require. My initial reaction was to immediately have an information overload and retreat into the shadows for a few months while I tried to recover. Twitter seemed to require at least twice as much commitment as my Facebook page. Combine that with the high speed style of Tweets and Retweets and mentions, and it was a perfect setup for being instantly overwhelmed. Quite honestly it was about all I could do to master good blogging techniques and keep up with the necessities for my personal blogging efforts, as well as my team writing responsibilities.

My time for Tweeting and social media comes in little spurts. I couldn’t figure out how to maintain an active online presence on Twitter without being on my computer all day or flooding everyone with a dozen Tweets at once a few times a week or month. Thus began the (very casual) quest to find what I knew must be out there—a way to streamline social media so that I could control it, instead of fighting with it or letting it control me. If one could schedule blog posts, why not Tweets?

My first introduction to scheduling Tweets and attempting to master Twitter came through Hootsuite. It helped a little, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for. And then, early this year, I met Buffer. Continue reading »

Twitter 101: How I Keep Track of Twitter & Tweets

Apr 162012

You’ve seen them. The Twitter users who follow fifteen cajillion people. Or almost that many. And you wonder how on earth they ever actually read all those Tweets.

They don’t. I promise. No one who follows more than 100 people reads every Tweet of every person they follow.

So how, amongst those hundreds of Tweets, do they find the Tweets by their friends, the Tweets that they actually want to read and re-Tweet? They use lists!

You can set up public lists that other people can see and follow. We have a public one for the YLCF Team, so people can easily find and follow all the YLCF writers. I have a public list for technical Tweeters. It’s not only the Twitter list I go to when I want to catch up in the tech world or find out if someone’s had an issue with the same thing I have on Facebook lately, but it’s a way for me to promote those technical Twitter users. By publicly “listing” them, it shows up on their Twitter profile that they’ve been “listed” so many times. It gives them some “klout”, you could say. (And no, I won’t try to explain klout.com to you because I don’t understand it myself!)

Not only that, but people can subscribe to your lists and you can subscribe to other lists. You can even make lists of people you want to follow on occasion but that you don’t want to actually follow. (In other words, you can add someone to a list without following them or having their Tweets appear in your Timeline.)

Lists aren’t static directories of Twitter handles, but rather living Twitter streams from individuals you choose. Not only can you use lists to organize the people you follow into relevant groups, but you can also follow the relevant Tweets of people on lists—even if you aren’t following those individuals.

-Claire Diaz-Ortiz (@claired) in Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time

But the private lists? That’s where you make your Twitter actually usable, if you end up following way more people than you can really follow all the time. I have a “must-read” list that is the one stream of Tweets I really want to read. You know, my best friends and closest mentors on Twitter. It’s the list I do go back and read if I happen to have been off Twitter while traveling, etc. And I’m in the process of creating a “my circle” list, that contains the people I do want to try to keep up with and reply to.

Twitter 101: Tweets, @’s, RT’s, #FF, and more

Dec 132011

Tweets are composed of 140 characters. Counting the spaces. It makes for fairly limited communication. Thus, Twitter shorthand is used frequently. As are a lot of other abbreviations—some standard, some created on the spot! And punctuation might not always be very proper. (I have an idea my writing professor would go into shock if he saw a Twitter stream.)

If you write a simple Tweet like, “Hi, I’m new to Twitter. Thanks for following me! Any tips to share for a Twitter newbie?” it will show to everyone who follows you or visits your Twitter profile.

@Mention

Or, you could “mention” your best friend by putting @ in front of her Twitter username: “Hey @bestfriend, I finally joined Twitter—aren’t you proud of me?” This is a mention, and again, it shows to everyone.

Twitter 101: Who To Follow

Dec 082011

The first thing to do after you’ve set up your Twitter account is to find some friends to follow. Twitter makes it easy for you, including the friend-finding in the sign-up process.

They suggest you start out by adding at least fifteen people—five people you know, five people who Tweet about topics you’re interested in, and five more people who are in your email or other social media contacts.

You can use their prompts or skip those steps and find people to follow later. But the important thing is that you do follow people, because that’s what Twitter is all about!

Does your best friend tweet? She’ll be glad to be your first follow! (Yes, you can tell the order in which you’ve followed people.) Family on Twitter? Follow them if you want to. (Random fact: I think five of my family members have Twitter now. And half of them don’t Tweet. So family makes up a very small portion of my followers!)

Think of the blogs you read; type in the blog name to find their authors on Twitter. (If you can’t find them readily, you can always go to the blog and look for the Twitter icon in their social icon area, if they have one). Think of the celebrities and best-selling authors you look up to and want to keep up with; search for and follow them, too.

How to Set Up Your Twitter Account and Profile

Dec 082011

Whether you just signed up for Twitter or you’ve been Tweeting for years, it never hurts to give your account settings a review once in a while. Here’s a run-down on a variety of the settings, for those of you who are just getting your feet wet in Twitter…

Account

Choose your username carefully. You can change it, but your friends will come to know you by it, so don’t make them have to learn something new unless you really need to switch. Use your blog domain name/address or your first name. Add your last name or an initial if you like, but keep in mind that you want people to be able to remember it easily. (My username is @merrittsgret, but of course, people often misspell my husband’s name and I miss the fact that they @ mentioned me.)

If I were you I wouldn’t display the location on my Tweets, but that’s a privacy preference.

Of course, you can actually protect the content of your Tweets and make people ask for approval before they can follow you. I understand that many people have reason to do this. But if you choose that option, keep in mind that it may be giving you a false sense of privacy. It’s easy to re-tweet a Tweet forgetting it was a protected Tweet. And even though your Tweets are protected, replies to them aren’t—meaning the replies can often give away the contents of even protected Tweets. Continue reading »

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