Do you follow?

One thing I have noticed about new people on Twitter is usually, their first post is something like: “I am on twitter! Now how do I use it?”.

So, to help out here are a few basic things you might want to know about Twitter:

1) Fill out your bio properly! Your bio is one of the first things people will look at before deciding to follow you or not. Tell them who you are, what you do and what you are interested in – this will give them a reason to follow you. Also, there are programs that look at your bio and suggest other people similar to you to follow – No bio, no new followers. 

2) Twitter talk – Something you might notice is that people on Twitter have their own language. Here are a few words to add to your vocab when using twitter:

Tweet – A single message posted by a Twitter user.

Tweeple/Tweeps/Twitter-folk etc. – People on twitter.

Tweet-ups  – Where people arrange a real life meeting with their followers on Twitter

3) The re-tweet (RT) – If you see a tweet that you find interesting and think that your followers will be interested in it too then re-tweet it. This basically re-posts the message and gives the original sender the credit. Example – “RT Jeremy_Clarkson: I drove the new Golf GTI today. Great car!”

4) Direct message (D) – Send a message directly to someone privately. Do this by either going into their profile and clicking “message” (found on the right of their page) or type something similar to this: “D walterpike please send me the times for today’s lecture” – This will appear in Walter’s direct messages and only he can see it.

5) Reply (@) – The reply is similar to the direct message except it can be seen by all of your followers. If I send a message like this “@keilahsmith thanks for all the help”, every one knows that that message is specifically addressed to her. Most conversations on twitter are done in this way. 

6) Hash Tags (#) – Use these to put your tweets into categories, all you do is add a “#” before the category. For example “I just saw a really bad party advert on TV #SAelections” – This lets people know I am talking about a political party in the South African elections and not another kind of party.

7) Write stuff – You will find it very hard to get followers if you do not share. So get tweeting! Tell people what you are thinking, what you are doing, post links of cool/interesting things you have found and add to your on-line community. If people like what you say, they might re-tweet it and this can encourage their followers to follow you.

8) More followers – Grow your followers. Remember – Twitter is not like Facebook in that you do not need to know someone to follow them so don’t get freaked out if strangers start following you, this is a good thing. Twitter is all about networking with new people that are relevant to you. You might find it helpful to follow MrTweet (http://twitter.com/MrTweet). After following this application it will suggest good people you’ve been missing out on, regularly update your stats and recommend you to others. 

I really hope that this gives you a better start and helps answer some questions. If you have any questions or if you can think of a way to add to this and improve it please let me now. Happy tweeting!

 

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