10 Easy Steps to Get Started with Twitter
Twitter is everywhere. More and more people around the world are joining Twitter and finding it useful for connecting with friends, growing their business network and for learning. I joined Twitter just over a week ago and I have already found it to be a useful tool. I have connected with old friends that I hadn’t talked to in a long time, built some great new relationships, expanded my business reach, and discovered great articles and websites that my friends have shared with me. You too can benefit from Twitter.
What is Twitter?
In its basic form Twitter is a unique social network that allows people to connect with very brief messages called “tweets”. Each tweet can be no longer than 140 characters. You can send a tweet to all of your “followers”, who are people who have selected to get your tweets. Early on you’ll start with just a few followers, but that will grow to hundreds and even thousands of people as you build your network. You can also send tweets directly to individuals within your network (kind of like a private email), or as replies to other people, both in public and in private.
Setting up with twitter is easy. In fact you can do it in these 10 easy steps.
1. Register
Obviously the first step is to register with Twitter. Simply visit http://www.twitter.com and click the “Get Started – Join” button. Think for a minute before you register about what name you want to go by. Do you want to use your real name? Do you have a blog name that you want to go by? For example, I go by successprof. I could have gone by my real name, but I chose my blog name because that is the brand I want to build. One of my goals for being on twitter is building relationships around my brand.
2. Create a Bio
Take some time to fill out all the information in your settings area. This will be your bio info. As part of this section you will be given the option to protect your updates. If you are looking to build your network, DO NOT check this box. Selecting this will limit who will see your updates.
3. Upload a Photo
Make sure you upload your photo right away. This will make you seem more real and add personality to your tweets. Most of the time only a small image will be shown so make sure that your photo is primarily a head shot. Also be sure your photo looks professional so as to attract the type of people you would like to meet.
4. Find an Add-on for Firefox
If you are using Firefox as your web browser (and I recommend you do!) then getting a Firefox add-on for Twitter will be useful. There are many Twitter add-ons. Generally they allow you to get Twitter updates to show up directly within your browser and allow you to update your Twitter feed easily and smoothly. You can browse through the add-ons here.
5. Get Tweet Deck
The best way to use Twitter is to have Tweet Deck. Tweet Deck is a software program that allows you to follow Twitter updates easily and quickly. It categorizes them in to replies, direct messages, and all tweets. It notifies you when new tweets come in and makes them all simple to follow. You will likely want to turn off the notifications so you can focus more on your work, but when you have time to review the twitter updates this program will save you lots of time.
6. Add a personalized background.
While those with programming experience or lots of time can develop very amazing backgrounds for their Twitter profile, it is also very easy to add a simple personalized background in just a few minutes. Visit http://www.twitbacks.com/ and you can personalize your background in just a couple of minutes.
7. Start meeting people in areas of interest
Now it’s time to start meeting people. You do this by “following” people of interest. Initially look for people who have similar interests to you and to your business. A good place to start is with Twitter’s Search function. There are a number of Twitter directories you can use to help find people of interest. Another good place to start is by following bloggers whose blogs you read. You can follow me here: @successprof. A good place to start is with Twittip’s 10 Must-Follow People. Once your base of followers grows you can a service called Mr. Tweet to recommend other like-minded people for you to follow.
8. Expand your network
Once you are following a number of people of interest you can find more people of interest by going through the followers lists of some of the people you follow. For example if you are interested in fitness and are following a top fitness blogger, you will find that the other people following her are also interested in fitness. Now you can go through her followers list looking for interesting people to follow. A further benefit of following a lot of people is that many of them will also follow you, increasing the number of people who will read you tweets.
9. Contribute something of value.
If you want to grow your network and build relationships through twitter you need to know why people would want to follow you. Ask yourself, what value can I add through my tweets? This will be different for everyone. I look to add value by sharing the personal development activities that I do, sharing interesting web sites that I come across, and giving updates about my blog posts. The more valuable your tweets, the more followers you will have.
10. Reply to interesting tweets of others.
Finally, get involved in the conversation by replying to interesting tweets of others. Look for ways to ask questions or answer questions that others have. This will help you get to know other people and build relationships within your network.
Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Tags: Friends, Networking, Social Networking, success, tweets, twitter
I just don’t the conversation bit about twitter, Danny. My tweets seem to roam around in Cyberspace. I feel as if I’m talking into thin air and not to human beings. Could you maybe do a followup post on the difference between private and public replies and how to actually have a conversation with someone?
My Twitter is: Mary_Jaksch
cheers
Mary
I’ll go ahead and give you my 2 cents on this Mary@GoodlifeZen.com
I think the most important thing to keep in mind is #9. Contribute something of value. Be sure not to go on Twitter and over promote yourself or only Tweet links about yourself or over promote yourself. This comes across as spammy and people will view it as such. Instead you should Tweet information that they are likely to find informative and/or entertaining. Focus on becoming a resource so people will want to hear what you have to say. that being said also keep in mind that people can’t hear your Tweets unless they are also following you back. It’s not enough to follow someone but they must follow you back.You can check on the main Twitter page who you are following and who is following you back.
I hope that helps.
Couldn’t we have just followed the steps the site gives us instead of reading this? This seems like a very redundant post. You didn’t even recommend rather important things, like realizing that most blogs have twitters now, using tinypic.com and tinyurl.com (although it does that automatically), and most importantly, getting yourself a twitter proxy like twitterific.
@Mary@GoodlifeZen.com
Thanks Mary, I’ll certainly consider a follow up article like that. The interesting thing for me with you asking this question is that YOU are the expert at making connections and building relationships via email. I’ve learned a lot from you. As a starting point I would encourage you to take the same ideas you use with email and use them in Twitter. A couple of thoughts to help get you going:
1. When someone you are following gives a valuable tweet then retweet their message. This is really easy to do in Tweet Deck. It spreads their message and usually the person is thankful for you doing so. You are contributing to both your followers, and to the person you retweeted.
2. When people ask questions, you can often answer by replying. This is a public reply that adds your contribution to the public stream. When I look at top Twitter users I notice that 50% or more of their tweet stream shows replies to people.
I hope that helps!
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