You\u2019ve heard all the ruckus about Twitter, but never really got what it was all about. You watch TV every night and see all those words prefaced by \u201c#\u201d at the bottom of the screen and can\u2019t figure out why they are there? This article is for you.<\/p>\n
Twitter, beloved by the news media, celebrities, sports stars and politicians, is planning to go public with an IPO that could raise $1 billion. But in documents filed related to those plans, Twitter disclosed that its audience base is at about 218 million monthly active users. That\u2019s smaller than Facebook\u2019s 1.1 billion or Google+, which has 500 million registered users.<\/p>\n
Much of that, analysts say, is because Twitter is a harder nut to crack for many people. So, for today, let\u2019s take a good look at 10 ways to use Twitter effectively:<\/p>\n
1. Sign up<\/strong> Most people post not only their own latest updates, but also tidbits and news bites from elsewhere on the Web. Beyond the news, check out your favorite friends, athletes, politicians, musicians, comedians, movie and TV stars. But a word of caution there. Most of the famous folk hire staff to pen their posts, known as tweets. Comedians are the exception: Steve Martin, Bill Maher, Albert Brooks and others have turned the quick quip into fine art.<\/p>\n 3. Write a bio<\/strong> 4. Write in 140 characters<\/strong> 6. Don\u2019t just promote<\/strong> 7. Get response<\/strong> 9. Direct messages<\/strong> 10. Add photos<\/strong> Copyright \u00a9 USA TODAY 2013, Jefferson Graham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You\u2019ve heard all the ruckus about Twitter, but never really got what it was all about. You watch TV every night and see all those words prefaced by \u201c#\u201d at the bottom of the screen and can\u2019t figure out why they are there? This article is for you. Twitter, beloved by the news media, celebrities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[9,61],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGo to twitter.com, register and select a screen name. Your new Twitter name will be prefaced with an @ sign. As in, I\u2019m @jeffersongraham. Add it to your e-mail signature so people know to find you on Twitter.
\n2. Find people to follow<\/strong>
\nTwitter is nothing until you start building a network of folks you\u2019re interested in hearing from. Are you a news junkie? Start by getting the news feeds from your favorite news organization, whether that be USA TODAY, CNN, the BBC or The Cincinnati Enquirer. Then go deeper by following individual reporters as well.<\/p>\n
\nLet people know about you with a short, one sentence blurb about yourself, whether that be that you are the CEO of MyCompany, sales associate for MyRealEstate or a Seattle mom with thoughts on hauling kids. And be sure to include a photo, because a photo is associated with your posts in the Twitter feed. If you don\u2019t add the photo, an image of a little egg in a yellow box will show up in your tweets instead.<\/p>\n
\nThe art of tweeting requires the ability to be concise. Everything you say needs to be in 140 characters or less \u2013 no exceptions. So you need to shorten words with slang, \u201csez\u201d for \u201csays,\u201d \u201c2\u201d for \u201ctwo\u201d \u201cw\/\u201d for \u201cwith,\u201d \u201c+\u201d for \u201cand.\u201d
\n5. Use hashtags<\/strong>
\nThe hashtag symbol \u2013 # \u2013 is what\u2019s used to search for \u201ctrending\u201d topics, whether that be \u201c#governmentshutdown\u201d or \u201c#meteorwatch\u201d or simply, \u201c#JustinBieber.\u201d It\u2019s a tool to help you find what you\u2019re looking for on Twitter, and has since been adopted by Facebook as well.<\/p>\n
\nRule No. 1 of the successful tweeter is that it\u2019s not all about you. It\u2019s good to use Twitter to promote whatever you\u2019re working on, but Twitter works best when you can tip articles from around the Web to your followers. You can do that with a straight link, or retweeting others (essentially, re-posting someone else\u2019s tweet \u2013 signified by an \u201cRT\u201d). The MT, or modified tweet, is when you copy and paste a link that somebody else posted and comment on it as well. Share well, and you will get more followers.<\/p>\n
\nMany businesses are now all over Twitter to monitor what people are saying about them. You might have better luck getting companies like Verizon to respond to a customer-service issue on Twitter than you would waiting for a rep on the phone. Hotels, restaurants, airlines will see what you post and respond in kind.
\n8. Tie IN to Facebook<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s easy to pair your Twitter activity with your Facebook account, so you don\u2019t have to double the effort. Just go to Settings (the gears tab on the right) and go to the Profile section to add Facebook.<\/p>\n
\nOn Twitter you can communicate directly in private messages, but only with folks who already follow you. So be sure to follow your friends you want to DM with, and get them to respond in kind.<\/p>\n
\nText and a link are great, but let\u2019s face it, everything looks better with visuals. The images show up as a link, but they\u2019re worth adding.<\/p>\n