all a-twitter tweeting for beginners © august 2013 by samra bufkins, mj, apr

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All a-Twitter Tweeting for Beginners © August 2013 by Samra Bufkins, MJ, APR

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All a-Twitter

Tweeting for Beginners

© August 2013 by Samra Bufkins, MJ, APR

Twitter grammar and vocabulary Twitter handle: Your identity on Twitter. (Mine is

@samjb.) Keep it as short as possible.

When your tweet is retweeted or somebody replies to you, your Twitter handle is part of the 140 character limit.

Use your full name in your profile, especially if this is the one you’ll use professionally.

Upload a photo and a link to your about.me or LinkedIn profile.

Unprotect your tweets in the account you use for class, especially when you are participating in Tweetchats.

Keep it classy. Alternate lifestyle? Get an alternate Twitter account.

Twitter is always capitalized. AP Style capitalizes it because that’s the Trademarked name

of the company, even though the logo uses a lower case “t.”

Twitter grammar and vocabulary

Tweet: n. The message you send via Twitter. It must be 140 characters or fewer, and can include links and photos. v. The act of sending a tweet. Unprotected Tweets are public and can be read on the “public”

Twitter feed. Tweets are being archived by the Library of Congress---forever.

Following: These are the people whose tweets you've selected to read. Followers’ tweets appear in your "feed" or "stream.”

Follower: This is someone who has selected to read your tweets. Do not feel obligated to follow everyone who follows you. IMHO the value in Twitter (for individuals) is in whom you

follow..

Twitter grammar and vocabulary The @ symbol. Put this before any other

Twitterer's username to refer to or reply to them. It creates an automatic link to their profile, which is

handy for your followers to track conversations or look at whom you're referring to.

If the person’s tweets are “protected” only people who follow them will see their tweets.

They will be notified you’re talking about them, and perhaps respond.

Twitter grammar and vocabulary RT. This stands for "retweet." This is similar

to forwarding an email to your followers. Unprotect your tweets. Protected tweets can

only be seen by your followers, which defeats the purpose of a RT or a tweet chat.

You can make a comment when you Retweet

MT. Modified tweet—when you paraphrase a RT, usually to shorten it. You can also use "via @username" to attribute

something that you saw with another user, but aren't directly quoting word for word.

Twitter grammar and vocabulary Hashtags. Words that follow # in Twitter are called

"hash tags."

Hashtags assign a keyword to a tweet so that so that others can follow the topic without following everything you tweet. Your tweets must be public (unprotected) for hashtags to be seen by

non- followers You can search a hashtag to see who’s talking about that subject. You can follow a topic without following new people. Communities build around hashtags. Classes, sports teams, etc.

Breaking news, special issues, holidays and sentiments often have hashtags There’s no “hashtag directory.” You can make up your own hashtag.

When in a tweetchat, always include the hashtag in every tweet so everyone in the chat can see what you said. If you use the Tweetchat platform the hashtag is added for you. Hashtags count against the 140 character limit.

Twitter grammar and vocab Direct messaging (DM). This is a way of

sending a private message to someone so that only they can see it–like sending a text message or email. The person must be following you in order to

receive messages from you, though! DMs cannot be retweeted or forwarded in any

way. You may only DM one person at a time Scammers and spammers use DM to hack

accounts or spread viruses (more on that later) Don’t click on any random links in DMs

Twitter grammar and vocab Tweeting a link. I found this great article or

blog I want to share. How do I do it? First, look for a “Share” or “Tweet this” icon on the

side, bottom or even top of the article. You can usually click on that, log in to Twitter, and send it from there.

Copy the URL for the article and put it into the tweet with a message and a hashtag.

If the link is too long, open up https://Bitly.com, paste the URL into the box and it will be shortened automatically. You can then copy and paste the shortened URL into your tweet. Bitly can provide you with analytics on your link.

Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and other dashboard programs will automatically shorten URLs.

Twitter need-to-knows Personalize your account.

Find “Settings” to personalize it. Add a photo rather than leave the default Twitter icon.

Nothing says “clueless newbie” like the egg.

You can use apps to make your profile attractive. Search

Bookmark search.twitter.com. This page lets you search all tweets on Twitter, Google-style. There’s an Advanced Search page you’ll eventually find useful for

constructing pickier searches.

Shorten it You have 140 characters to say it. SO, use URL

shorteners: http://bit.ly/

Twitter need-to-knows Twitter itself isn’t a very useful platform, especially if you

are managing brand accounts or engaging in conversations. You’ll need to use one or more Dashboard applications to get the most out of Twitter. These are desktop applications, and some have mobile versions. These allow you to monitor several feeds at once, usually your “Home”

feed (also called your timeline), “mentions” feed (All tweets with your @Twitterhandle in them), DM (private messages) and any accounts, lists or hashtags you are watching. Hootsuite: http://hootsuite.com/

Used by most professionals, has free and paid versions and excellent analytics.

Tweetchat—used for “chats” http://tweetchat.com/ Inserts the hashtag if you forget.

Tweetdeck: http://www.tweetdeck.com/ Used to be my favorite, but has some limitations

SocialBro: http://www.socialbro.com/ Buffer: https://bufferapp.com (excellent app for scheduling messages on multiple

platforms) Mobile apps vary depending on your device. Start here:

https://support.twitter.com/groups/54-mobile-apps

More Stuff Follow Friday (#FF)

People tweet the names of people they think are worth following using this hashtag on Fridays. It’s a good way to get to know new people on Twitter. It’s also a good way to pick up new followers Some people say it’s passe’ or over-used, but I still

enjoy it and find new people to follow.

Still More Stuff Twitter Lists (OR—What I wish I’d started

doing five years ago) You can organize Twitter accounts by category by

setting up lists Lists can be public (anybody can see them and

follow them) or private Lists are a useful way of “following” many accounts

without increasing your following count If an account is unprotected, you’ll see it when you follow

that list, even if you aren’t following that account Set up a column for each list in your dashboard program.

Twitter Help One of the few help sites that’s actually helpful—use it

often!

Security/anti-hacking Use a different password for each social media

account. Change them every now and then. Use random combinations of letters, numbers and symbols. Never use the same password for your email and any social

media accounts. Avoid third party apps whenever possible. Follow https://twitter.com/TweetSmarter for reliable tips.

If you follow somebody and they send you an automatic DM with a “thank you” and a link, don’t click on it. I usually unfollow those people after telling them why

Periodically review who’s following you and delete any that appear to be spammers.

Security/anti-hacking How do you tell if someone’s a spammer?

Read this Wiki and this article. Look at their Twitter profile

They won’t have much information and often no photo. Spammers frequently follow many people, don’t have many

followers, and don’t have many tweets. Spammers’ Tweets are often the same, repeated over and

over. Tweets might be things like “Wow, check this out” with a

link or “This is unusual” followed by a link. Spammers will also @reply you based on a key word or

hashtag their bots are searching on. Tweets about “free” iPads every time you mention an iPad

If you’re new to Twitter, expect to be followed by many spammers initially. It will taper off after a while.

Security/anti-hacking Or, they could just be a creeper

Security/anti-hacking If you get an odd or seemingly random DM

from a friend with a link in it, don’t click on it. If it looks legit, DM them or publicly ask if they

sent you something. If you click on a link and it asks you to log in to

Twitter, DON’T DO IT. It will hijack your account and DM all your followers (or worse). If you’re using the same password for other accounts, it

will hack them, too.

Familiarize yourself with the Official Twitter Rules

Report all spam and suspicious activity.

Twitter Tools ( a very short list) Find people to follow on Twitter via Twellow, the

Yellow Pages of Twitter. Fill out a profile if you’d like people to find you. Search for people by their interests.

Social Oomph is a combination dashboard and account management platform with analytics. You can use this to set up the dreaded automatic DM

when someone follows you. (Please don’t.) Nutshell Mail will send you an email summary of

your activity on a variety of social media accounts.

Twitter Feed links your blog and other content to all your social media automatically.

Twitter Tools (I haven’t use all of them yet.)

Qwitter will help you manage who you follow/unfollow.

Who Unfollowed Me is handy and easy to use. Tweetreach provides reach and exposure data for

an account or a Twitter topic. Twitonomy looks like an excellent tool, although I

haven’t used it (yet). Twitter Analytics is really, really new. Social Bro is one of the more affordable paid tools. Sum All (formerly known as Twenty Feet) is a

simple, but useful tool for tracking your activity on multiple platforms.

Networking on Twitter Twubs.com is a registry of hashtags and twitter

chats, and includes tools that can be used at conferences and in the classroom.

Twitter chats are great ways to network online. Here’s a good article, despite the typos.

Here’s another step-by-step guide to Twitter chats.

List of Twitter chats by day of the week. List of Twitter chats by subject. Another Tweetchat list. Still more on Twitter chats and Twitter in

general.

Some interesting stats & strategies Friday at 4 p.m. ET: The most retweetable

day/time of the week. (via Dan Zarella and HubSpot) The NBC news account was hacked at 4:43 pm on

Friday, September 9 with a false account of a hijacked plane crashing at Ground Zero

48%: The percentage of Twitter users that either never or rarely check Twitter. (The Next Web).