With Halloween fast approaching, I thought I would knock out a theme blog whose title would lend itself to holiday parody. When I couldn’t come up with anything, I thought I would use this piece from
Sean Nelson on Twitterese, expanding on his idea. At the last minute, I also came up with having a little fun with a name parody centering upon the Halloween idea.
Regardless, if you use Twitter, then you are in for a tweet. Sean has assembled a nifty group of common Twitter functions and defined them for us. If you are new to Twitter, this will provide a handy list of things you might twink about twying on Twitter:
Tweet
A tweet is comprised of a string of 140 characters or fewer, posted on the Twitter platform site
www.Twitter.com. Think of it as a micro-blog if you will. The challenge is to create your comment in such a way as to create a reaction or action (as in clicking an embedded link). The more compelling it is, the better opportunity that it will be re-tweeted (go viral to the reader’s twibe).
@username
This is your registered ID on Twitter. Once registered, friends and interested parties can look you up either by your @UserID or by name to find and follow you if desired. Twitter allows someone to view your recent tweets without officially following (or even registering). However, to follow --- track --- your tweets they must be a member in good standing within Twitter.
Tweople
Slang for “people on twitter”. It’s your “twibe” (tribe) of like-minded folks. Go ahead, it’s OK to have some fun with it.
DM (Direct Message)
This is a good idea if your twibe is focused (say, a business group or friends only), and you aren’t twacking too many tweets. But many tweople follow a broad range of folks, so sending or receiving a DM will likely be buried in the sheer volume of your tweets. You can control this factor using one of the many third-party tools such as TweetDeck (explained below). You can easily set up a column to collect your DM’s separately so you can read and respond as appropriate.
Favorite(s)
This is Twitter’s bookmark function. If you want to save a tweet to reference at a later time simply highlight the tweet and click on the star to the right. Now you can reference a past tweet.
RT (Retweet)
Being able to forward tweets to your personal twibe is one of the best functions of twitter. It’s a way of aggregating content to a broader audience. Likewise, if you can get your tweets RT’d, your comments and/or links go out to a broader audience as well. It is one of the best ways of creating a viral distribution of your content. If you blog as well, it’s a great way to explode your distribution and gain readership.
#Hashtag
This is like a Dewey Decimal system for Twitter. It’s not a requirement, but you can add a hashtag identifier to any tweet (i.e. #twitterese), allowing it to be easily looked up by others based on a search of that hashtag.
TweetUp
It’s ironic, but active tweeters want to occasionally get out of their house and meet other like-minded tweeters. A TweetUp is simply a gathering of folks who agree to meet at a designated time and place to share a beer and some camaraderie. Announcements of TweetUps are distributed and RT’d on twitter. Hence the name. Great place to make new friends and network with your twibe.
Tiny URL
Since tweets are contained to 140 characters, if you want to include a link to a blog, article, or story on the web you have to insert the URL. A Tiny URL is a free service that allows you to significantly shorten link so it doesn’t take up too much space in your entry. Google this term and it will link you to several sites with tools to shrink the URL. (BTW, if you use TweetDeck, it automatically shortens any URL inserted. Handy!)
TweetDeck
www.TweetDeck.com is free third-party software that helps you manage your Twitter account more efficiently. You can arrange your tweets by account, by key word, by #hashtag, by RT, by DM, and so on. A companion app for the iPhone and Blackberry will synch with your desktop to make managing twitter even more convenient. Check it out.
Spam
Yes, you can be spammed on Twitter if you don’t manage your account correctly. (1) Follow only those you know or who are recommended; or who’s tweets you have reviewed. This will cut down on spam messages. (2) When you get a “follow” notification, look at that person’s profile and decide if their content provides value to your interests. If not, don’t feel obligated to follow them. (3) Finally, if you get a “follow” and their statistics are out of whack (their “follow” and “following” numbers are similar, or have sent a very small number of tweets, don’t follow them. This is likely a spam account. And finally, (4) if you like celebrity tweeting, approach with care. Some celebrity accounts are fakes and are NOT the person you think they are. In addition, some celeb tweets are done by second party services employed by their agent or manager. You should be able to easily tell when you read it. (i.e. If it promotes just a little too much, then its probably a PR firm running it.)
Twitter has grown tremendously in the past year, and can be a lot of fun. By the same token, its promise as the “next email” may not come to fruition. Regardless, it has some application for both business and personal objectives, so check it out. And best of all, it’s FREE!
"LinkedIn is your business suit, Facebook is business casual, and Twitter is the 24/7 ongoing cocktail party." --- Chris Brogan, web guru