Twitter tips

Twitter had taken the world by storm! Early adopters have known for a while how much fun twitter can be. It has connected us to each other in real-time. For those who are asking "What's Twitter?" It's kind of like a Facebook status update or texting. It's called microblogging. Meaning you have 140 characters to express your thoughts or insights. You can read an earlier post about Twitter here: Why moms should tweet on Twitter. Now more people are joining and needing to learn a few things about Twitter etiquette. Here are a few things to keep in mind when tweeting to your tweeps:

1) Your tweets are broadcast to all of your followers. Don't type something about you or one of your tweeps that you wouldn't say loudly in a crowded room. This means that asking someone about her rash is not really tweetable. You can be personal, just not TOO personal. Think also about not putting too many details so that your private information stays private.

2) You can direct message someone. If you just have to ask Joy about that disgusting rash then you might want to direct message her. It goes only to the person you select. Remember also that when you get a direct message, you should direct message the response. I've seen random tweets from people who are obviously responding to a direct message but they forgot and responded in the public tweet.

3) You can respond to someone by clicking on the reply icon next to the message. This starts your tweet with @personsname but can be seen by all your followers.

4) You can make your Twitter account private or public. If it is private, then you will not be searchable. If it is public you can get random people following you and you should keep an eye on your followers to make sure you don't get people following you that you don't want. You can block them. My account is public because I wanted to be able to post it to this site. I have some followers that have their own parenting and/or mom blogs and have found my through some sort of search. I follow them if they seem interesting to me.

5) You can follow some of your favorite news organizations or companies. One of my favorites is Starbucks. Beware though that some people out there have set up fake accounts claiming to be something they are not so you have to weed through the fakes sometimes to make sure you are following the real deal. When Sarah Palin became the VP nominee there were several twitter accounts claiming to be her but they were not.

6) Do look around on the Internet for fun applications that support Twitter. Tweetdeck, Twitterfox (firefox add on), twhirl, twitpic, etc are fun things that can add to your twitter experience. There are also applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

7) Have fun updating the silly and sometimes mundane events of your day. Your followers will enjoy being connected to you and having a little insight into your day. I recently tweeted a series of tweets about my first experience in the carpool line. I got more comments on how funny it was, I thought I was just keeping myself busy!

8) you can also follow current topics of interest by going to the search page: search.twitter.com (no www). The top trends are listed on the page and you can search key words. For example: John McCain, will come up with tweets people are posting about the presidential candidate.

I'm sure there is more, I'm still learning. Enjoy Twitter, keep these things in mind, it might help!

Other resources:
Twitter Fan Etiquette On Wiki
Blog entry on Global Geek News
Google Search