Hi everyone! I’m back. I had told Hummie longgggg ago that I would find her some friends for Twitter. Then when Molly Newman connected with me I remembered that I hadn’t followed thru.
It’s been awhile since I brought you new social media tools! I’m going to start with Twitter. In the beginning it takes awhile to figure out (until you get some followers – so I’ve given you a list below).
They way Twitter works is that you follow friends & they follow you back. Then when you post you’re limited to 144 characters. You can talk about whatever you want.
If you want to say something to a specific person then you use the @ sign. For example if you wanted to ask me Where have I been? you’d use – @cbensen Where have you been?
Then I can click on my Replies tab & I’ll see it. (I have 1000 people following me & there’s a lot of chatter).
Here is how I use Twitter:
- pop in only on breaks (there are ways to stream it, but I wouldn’t get anything done)
- chat with my network that is online at the moment
- if I see an interesting comment I may
- click on the @username for context
- follow that person
- put their name into quotably.com to see the thread of the conversation (it works pretty well albeit it’s not perfect)
- use quotably.com to check my favorite tweeters & follow their links
- check replies & respond
My Twitter tips:
If you tweet about a broad variety of topics you’ll get followers of varied interests
Ask questions – crowdsource your followers – they love to help! (today I asked if I should get a kayak or canoe; on another day it was what to do in Paris) It’s also a great place to get tech help (my following is very geeky).
Business related tips:
- Tweetscan.com delivers an email every morning to me with a standing search for:
- cbensen – for DM’s that are missed – Twitter is prone to hiccups)
- cbenson (people misspelling my name)
- acdsee – brand monitoring
- community manager – I’m connecting with like minded people
& I like reading the news as people announce their positions or talk about their work
Benefits:
- Networking – I’ve met a large number of people from Minnesota. After getting to know them I’m ready to attend the Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast & met them in person!
- Branding –
- repetitive – Use your photo as your avatar
- memorable – Use a representative photo for your home page & people will see it when they check out your profile or go to DM you. This space offers the opportunity to display your brand logo multiple times. If you have questions on how to do it, let me know – I know of some software that makes it easy!
Follow me @cbensen & I’ll follow you back!
Resources
- for the beginner – Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
- more in-depth – Caroline Middlebrook has a great guide
- And there are tons of Twitter app’s out there – Lee Odden lists 5 newer ones & @jowyang has a good list too.
- Ellen has a good resource
- all things Twitter – a wiki with many, many resources!
Here are some Twitter friends to follow – I’m not sure how actively they use it though.
Have fun & ask if you have questions! Add your twitter name in the comments if I didn’t list you.
rachel_martin
melrio
ScrapperBlog
hejeva my sister
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5 People have left comments on this post
Jun 8, 2008 - 09:06:49I’m JulianaGordon on Twitter.
Wow. Am I impressed. I’m just learning about social marketing. I tried Twitter–did a post–and then found myself wondering, “Now what.” Thanks for the information. I’m still a little lost, but…maybe some of this is sinking in.
Wow, you remembered! Now, if I could only learn more about Twitter. I have the hang of it, but was using it mainly for my status sync on Facebook, but that’s been shut down. I need to find better ways to utilize it. I liked the OutTwit where I could do it right in Outlook, but then I started getting so many in my inbox. I’m trying twirl, but I’m not see advantages yet. I’ve never used quotably.com either.
I’m kin of new in twitter but I loved it… my twitter dberhitoe
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