twitter 101+
DESCRIPTION
Want to know the basics of Twitter, and then take it a bit further? Here's my take on the popular microblogging platform, and what you need to know to make the most of it.TRANSCRIPT
1 Ryan McCormack :: January 2010 :: http://bitstrategist.com
101+
Ryan McCormack http://bitstrategist.com
January 3, 2010
2 Ryan McCormack :: January 2010 :: http://bitstrategist.com
What you’ll find here…
• An overview of the service • How messages work • Who can see your messages • The basic tools you use with Twitter • A few simple tips
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What you won’t find here…
• Detailed usage guidelines • Twitter influence, analytics, ROI, … • Strategy for businesses and Twitter • Why Twitter is important
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Outline
• Overview: What is Twitter • Messages • Sharing • 140 Characters • Twitter Myths • Tools for Tweets • Five tips
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What is Twitter
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Twitter is about sharing messages
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A definition
Twitter is an online service that allows you to share 140-character messages
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The basics: Reading messages
• You choose people whose messages you want to be able to read, and you “follow” them
• Their messages (or “tweets”) show up in your “stream”
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The basics: Reading messages
Stream of “Tweets”
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The basics: What is a stream?
• A collection of messages you can view (aka “timeline”)
• Your follower stream has messages from the people you follow, sorted in reverse chronological order
• Any set of logically grouped messages (e.g., by user) can be a stream
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Streams (cont’d)
Time The stream never stops flowing…but that’s ok
Older messages
Newer messages
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Streams (cont’d)
What you see: The most recent stuff
The entire stream
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The basics: Sending messages
• You can write short messages and the people who “follow” you can read them (if they’re public, everyone can)
• Whoever reads your messages can also share them with whoever follows them
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The basics: Sending messages
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The basics: Tools
• You use a “client” to send and read messages
• Example: twitter.com web site
• Additional clients exist on the web, desktop, and all mobile devices
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Seems simple…what’s the fuss?
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Before we begin…
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Twitter is the Wild West of technology
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Twitter provides the building blocks
• 140 character messages
• How “following” works
• Favorites, Lists, (Twitter) Retweet
• Privacy, blocking and spam reporting
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The crowd makes up the rest
• Twitter specifies nothing about syntax beyond d as the first “word” of a direct message
• The community has evolved its own microsyntax, etiquette, and conventions, much of which Twitter has adopted
• Things are still evolving!!!
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Messages The social objects that are shared on Twitter
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Messages can be anything
What’s Happening?
Sharing Information
Maintaining “presence”
Social Good
Being Funny
Having Deep Thoughts
Connecting with people
Sharing Opinions
Self-promotion
News
Events
Articles
Video
Images
Events
Politics
News
People
Promoting Others
Blogs
Web sites
Sharing Information
News
Events
Articles
Video
Images
Blogs
Web sites
Sharing Opinions
Events
Politics
News
People
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Messages can be anything
Sharing Information
Maintaining “presence”
Social Good
Being Funny
Having Deep Thoughts
Connecting With people
Sharing Opinions
Self-promotion
News
Events
Articles
Video
Images
Events
Politics
News
People
Promoting Others
Blogs
Web sites
What’s Happening?
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A few sample tweets
Source: http://bit.ly/8PKCKw
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Sharing images and video
• Many services exist for sharing multimedia
• Media are often seen with messages (like email attachments)
• Twitter account usually linked
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Example: Image sharing
Take a photo with your
phone
Use mobile client to
create and post a
message
Message shows up on Twitter
with link to image
Link shows image in client
Image lives on Twitpic web site
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Twitter has a shibboleth (more later)
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From the Wild I
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From the Wild II
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How messaging works
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Twitter sends your message for you
THE SENDER @mashable
(aka Pete Cashmore)
THE MESSENGER @twitter
THE RECIPIENTS The people who can
see your message (but may not)
THE MESSAGE
“Apple to sell Android iPhones!
http://bit.ly/34a4al”
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Recipients can be many or one
“I found a gr8 Halloween costume for Bingo!!! Lolz…See
you tonight”
“Fantastic article: 20 Food Rules from Michael Pollan
http://bit.ly/mcTCj ”
BROADCAST MESSAGE (“TWEET”) Messages you want many to see
DIRECT MESSAGES (DM) Messages you want ONE to see
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So, who sees your tweets? YOUR FOLLOWERS
People interested in what you share
Public timeline
Search
Retweets
EVERYONE ELSE People who find what you’ve shared (if allowed)
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Reply to a message (“@ replies”)
@mashable Ha! The day Apple does that
I’ll eat my shoe
@mashable No way! I can’t believe it!
@mashable Have zombies taken over at
Apple, and Jobs is under mind control?
“Apple to sell Android iPhones!
http://bit.ly/34a4al”
Conversational response to a message, attribution provided
with @username
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“Retweet” a message (RT)
• Twitter slang for repeating a message from someone else
• Example of the power of network effects in many-to-many communications
• One metric used to measure influence
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Retweets can cause chain reactions
• Network effects can amplify your message
• Example • I have 10 followers • I send a message and they all see it • 1 of my followers retweets my message • Their followers see my original message, and some of them
retweet it • And so on, and so on….
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The parable of the chessboard
• One penny per square
• Double on every subsequent square
• How many squares before there is more than $1 million on the board?
27 squares = ~$1.34 million
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Sample network effect: 3RTs = ~250,000 possible views
@hirshberg 1337 followers
He must be joking: RT @mashable Apple to sell
Android iPhones! http://bit.ly/34a4al
@Alyssa_Milano 236,575 followers
Crazy news about Android phones
http://bit.ly/34a4al (via @mashable)
@seanpercival 7763 followers
RT @mashable Apple to sell
Android iPhones! http://bit.ly/34a4al
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Anatomy of a Retweet
He must be joking: Comment about the message (optional)
RT: An indication that this is a retweet
@mashable: The person who wrote the original message
Apple to sell…: The actual message (possibly edited for length)
He must be joking: RT @mashable Apple to sell
Android iPhones! http://bit.ly/34a4al
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The “Twitter” Retweet
• Appears as a message in your stream
• Does not contain RT or @
• Has no comments or additions
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Sharing People and the social aspect of Twitter
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So who uses Twitter, anyway?
• Twitter is a huge community
• 20-40 million unique visitors per month to twitter.com
• 20-50 Million messages / day (roughly 4 billion tweets in 2009)
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More visitors than NYTimes.com
Twitter growth has been phenomenal*
* But it may be flattening…
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Twitter is used by “everyone”
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People “follow” others and are followed
Your “Followers”
People you follow
Your Twitter “friends”
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People can protect their privacy
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People are identified using a handle and an @
@mashable is a “handle” on Twitter
(like an email address)
Profile page information
Link using @
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Follow “valuable” people…that’s the point
• Friends and family
• Colleagues, competitors, professionals
• Celebrities, authors, educators
• People who are funny, insightful, inspiring
• Anyone who’s interesting!!
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Use Twitter “lists” to find interesting people
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Twitter lists (cont’d)
• Lists are “curated collections” of people on Twitter
• You can create them or follow lists created by others
• Use tools like Listorious (.com) to find lists by category, tag, popularity etc.
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So who’s got the most followers?
Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk): 4.0+ million followers
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Unfollow / block time wasters
• Bots, spammers and snake-oil salesmen
• People with whom you wouldn’t have a beer
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Meformers (80%) vs. Informers (20%)
Source: http://bit.ly/1X18c1 3000 tweets, 350 Twitter users
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140 characters Short messages can pack a punch, but there are some tricks
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Different messages for different mediums
Fortune Cookie 10-20 words
Telegram 10-100 words
Magazine article 250-1000 words
Book 50,000+ words
140 characters = ~25-35 words
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Length isn’t everything
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” (57 characters)
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Why 140 characters??
Compatibility for mobile-device text messaging (SMS)
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Twitter lingo and tools shorten messages
• URL shorteners (e.g., bit.ly)
• RT = Retweet, DM = Direct message
• @username for people
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Lingo and tools shorten messages (cont’d)
• Abbreviations (e.g., omg, ftw, btw, fyi, lol)
• “Hashtags” to support search (e.g., #design)
• Attribution shortcuts (by for authors, via for sources, symbols like ^ for “cotweets”)
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Twitter Myths
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Myth 1: People only talk about what they ate for lunch
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Myth 1: People only talk about what they ate for lunch
• Possibly true, but…
• If someone you follow talks about things you don’t like, don’t follow them
• For friends at a distance, this kind of presence can be fun
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Myth 2: It’s a flood…I can’t read it all
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Myth 2: It’s a flood…I can’t read it all
• Twitter messages aren’t necessarily critical
• It doesn’t matter if you see everything
• In most cases, you won’t….
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Myth 3: Twitter is for teenagers
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Myth 3: Twitter is for teenagers
• Actually, many teenagers don’t like or use Twitter all that much
• Twitter hits a broad demographic; it’s not focused in any one age, economic, or geographic group
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Myth 4: Everyone can see what I say
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Myth 4: Everyone can see what I say
• If you want the world to see your tweets, you can, but…
• Twitter has privacy settings where you can protect your tweets
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Myth 5: You can really make a fool of yourself
Actually, this is true…
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Tools for Tweets
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RSS
Desktop Mobile (Apps and SMS)
Web
Lots of ways to access Twitter
“Apple to sell Android iPhones!
http://bit.ly/34a4al”
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Twitter.com
Web-based clients Brizzly
Seesmic
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Mobile clients
Twitterific
Tweetie
Twidroid
OpenBeak (Twitterberry)
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Desktop clients
Tweetdeck
Seesmic
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Helper web sites
Oneforty: For tools+apps
Twitter search
Listorious: For lists
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Strategies and etiquette
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There’s no “right” way, but…
• Tons of people will tell you how you “should” use Twitter
• How you use it depends on your goals
• Don’t use it if you don’t get anything out of it!
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1. Silence is golden…
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1. Silence is golden…
• Don’t break it unless you think you can improve upon it
• Think about your audience and what they get out of what you say
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2. Minimize self promotion
Maximize “good” promotion
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2. Minimize self promotion
• It’s ok, but do it sparingly: • New blog posts • Awards or accomplishments • Cool stuff you did (e.g., projects)
• If you’re just using Twitter personally, brag all you want
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2. Maximize “good” promotion
• Good is relative; think of your audience
• Tweet about interesting articles, design, images, video that somehow “fit” your Twitter persona
• Retweet good stuff from others
• Recommend people worth following (e.g., on #followfriday or through lists)
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3. Don’t just be a parrot
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3. Don’t just be a parrot
• Plenty of people on Twitter just repeat what others say (through retweeting or quoting)
• There are more than enough of these people
• Add value
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4. Give credit where credit is due
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4. Give credit where credit is due
• People share a lot of great ideas
• If you pass them along, let people know where they came from!
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5. For followers: Quality, not quantity
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Summary
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What is Twitter
An online service that allows you to share 140-character messages