Twitter, and how to use it

08 May 2009

Twitter is not only very powerful way to keep your friends informed, but also very useful for keeping your clients in touch with your company and latest products, promotions or events...

To get started, sign up at http://www.twitter.com

Choose a username that reflects either yourself or your business (I have 2 accounts, once called http://twitter.com/harryadams and the other http://twitter.com/cmswebsites)

Once signed up the next step is to log in and personalise your Twitter page, filling in your own website URL so people who find you on Twitter can also find your main website too. Once you have filled in your details, in the Settings area click on "Devices" and follow the steps to activate your mobile phone so you can "tweet" from it by text (very handy when out and about)

You can now tweet from your mobile when you are out and about anywhere in the world, just by sending a text to the number you are given when you activate your phone. Just send a text and it will magically appear on your Twitter home page - and all your followers get a copy too...

Now you can do that...

You might also want a desktop program for your PC and/or laptop so you can send "tweets" to your account without using a text on your phone...

2 options for the beginner:

or

Twhirl, free from: http://www.twhirl.org/
This program allows multiple twiiter accounts and so is much easier when you have more than one account. This program is available for PC and MAC

But you can try both - both will work well with just one account and then it's just down to personal preference. They are both easy to use - I prefer Twhirl as it allows me to customise it more than tweetdeck does.

NOW THEN

The whole thing about Twitter is "followers" - meaning you need lots of people to follow your tweets if you are to get more traffic for your site, and to get more followers you need to follow more people yourself. If you login to your Twitter homepage (http://twitter.com/yourname) you can click on:-

"Find People"

Type in some names, places, company names etc. etc. and on each list that comes up you can click a "Follow" button against each likely candidate. You will then be able to track these people AND, in theory, they should follow you back. If you have Tweetdeck or Twhirl open on your desktop then you'll get a notification of every tweet made by those that you are following, and if it's interesting you can reply to them publicly or DM (direct message) them privately.

One thing to note, once people start following you, you will get emails saying "So and So is now following you on Twitter" with a link to their twitter page, cicking the link allows you to visit their page and click on a "follow" button adding them to the list of those you are following. Once the numbers start mounting up, providing you are tweeting something that will amuse people or give them a reason to  come to your website your traffic will start going up too.

But at this point you will also want to start "automating" some of the work. And this can be done too - basically using a service called "Tweet Later" that will "auto-follow" everyone that follows you automatically, and send them a small greeting with a link to your website - automatically. AND the same service allows you to set up "automated" tweets - a list of tweets advertising your site that are then sent out automatically by the service at periods you specify (I have several going out every 8 hours advertising my services, and another that announces "the office is now open" each morning and yet another each evening announcing "the office is now closed, please use the contact form if you need help in the night" etc. etc)

The possibilities are endless

If you embrace it and get into the swing of it there is no reason why you can't have over 1,000 followers within 2-3 weeks and then another 500 per week after that. Do personal tweets as well as business tweets so your followers know you are human and don't think you are an automated system and decide to "un-follow" you.

The thing is not to do a "hard sell" in any tweet

Much better, if you wanted to advertise for new managers to tweet something like: "Paul at Your Company is looking for go-ahead people to become Managers, please read here what it entails: [link here] (i.e. be HUMAN, use your name, don't just put "Buy this now [link here]" or people will un-follow you in droves

Next day send it out again but slightly re-written
Every one of your "followers" gets a copy - which is why it is important to get those numbers up

BTW - Because each tweet can only be 140 characters MAX in length, saving space is vital - so both of the 2 programs I have mentioned have a "link shortening service" built-in. So for example, from one of my own tweets today:

My Page here: http://www.cms-wales.co.uk/services/cms-systems/cms-explain - became in my Tweet: http://bit.ly/jWHDX - much shorter so I can then say more within my 140 character limit.

This should be enough for you to get started - don't forget to follow everyone that follows you, and to keep using the "Find People" link in your account to find more.

Another tip, if you find an interesting person, on their page, under where you see the little icons of the people THEY are following, is a "view all" link, which will bring up a list of all the people they are following with a "follow" button by each - so you can add dozens more with a few clicks in no time at all.

Finally - if you really get into it you can even add a module into your main website so you can add updates from your phone or from your PC tweeting program directly into your website, as we do - see the left hand column here: http://www.cms-wales.co.uk/ which shows our 4 latest tweets from our business twiiter account - automatically!!!

Have fun, Happy Tweeting

Related Article: Tweet Later - A remarkable Twitter tool