Koka Sexton dot Com

I recently wrote about Twitter saying “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service [SMS], instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific.” I thought I would put together a post for people to reference on everything you need to know about Twitter.

A great place to start is a video on YouTube called “Twitter in plain english.” This is a great overview for the people that ask “WTF Twitter?” and gives you a 10,000 foot view of what the possibilities are with it. By now you should have an account and you may even be following a few people that you know. Step out of your comfort zone and start following other people.

Twitter Tracking

A great way to find people on Twitter that have the same interests as you is to use the Twitter Tracking feature. Start tracking some keywords that interest you like “Starbucks” or “Earthquake” and when ever someone puts that in their update across the entire Twitter network, you will get a message. Then you can choose to follow them or not. I find people all the time that I want to follow from using Twitter Tracking. Valleywag wrote about how Twitter Tracking takes all the fun out of stalking. I say track away and hear what other people are saying about your favorite celebrity, product or city.

Follow people and be followed.

Initially I was only following about 10-20 people that I had already known from other sites but by tracking comments and digging through my friend’s followers, I built up a decent list of people to follow on Twitter. Thats when Twitter becomes interesting. As I followed more people, I started seeing that they would follow me and then some of their friends would start following me too. This started a spiral of following and followers that has incrementally increased over time. People like Robert Scoble has upwards of 15,000 people he is following.

Now you don’t need to get notifications on your phone for everyone, you can select who you want to interrupt you while you are out and about by turning off the device updates in your settings. This way you can make sure you never miss an update by the people you actively want to follow.

Common list of Twitter commands

• @username + message
  

directs a twitter at another person, and causes your twitter to save in their “replies” tab.
Example: @ijustine I love that song too!

• D username + message

sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive.
Example: d krissy want to pick a Jamba Juice for me while you’re there?

• WHOIS username

retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter.
Example: whois jack

• GET username

retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person.
Example: get goldman

• NUDGE username

reminds a friend to update by asking what they’re doing on your behalf.
Example: nudge biz

• FAV username

marks a person’s last twitter as a favorite. (hint: reply to any update with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time)
Example: fav al3x

• STATS

this command returns your number of followers, how many people you’re following, and which words you’re tracking.

Once you start getting more involved with the Twitter you will see that it is really a community of people that just want to give constant updates to people that are following them. Why does someone want to get an update if you’re stuck in traffic? Maybe they will give you a call to pass the time or send you a direct message of a funny joke to lighten the mood. don’t think this is weird, it’s happened to me.

Twitter Etiquette

As any community will tell you, there are unspoken rules of etiquette that you should follow. This has been talked about on several websites like MWGblog, Global Geek News Blog, and WebProNews. You could always Google Twitter etiquette and see more. The top 3 I will mention are:

• Keep it clean. Unless you are foulbastard (Why would anyone follow him, I don’t know) don’t be vulgar in your updates. If you have something off color to say send it as a direct message or don’t update it.
• Don’t bash other Twitterers. Why would you want to start a Twitter war and pit people up against one another? If you want to do that, again use the direct message.
• Don’t post the same update across multiple services. I was doing this for a while with Pownce and got hit with a few direct messages that said it looked like I was spamming them. Sure they can always unfollow you but is that what you want?

Get involved in the conversation

Sure you can just lurk around with all the people you are following and just keep track of what they are doing but thats boring. Start replying to them with the ‘@’ command and start a dialog. Most people are too busy to have a full conversation with you but if someone you are following says something interesting, respond. There is nothing better than getting an @ reply from your followers. I’ve watched conversations last for several minutes with some people writing back an forth. Some think that is excessive but who the hell is any ‘user’ to say what Twitter should or should not be used for. Just don’t break etiquette.

Advanced Twitter

Chances are you have a blog or are online a lot if you have been exposed to Twitter. There are ways to integrate Twitter with your every day online lifestyle with some simple tools.

Twitterfeed: Performs a useful service. It can take almost any blog and feed it into a Twitter account, so you see new items when you’re on Twitter or using any of the Twitter applications. Webware has a good explanation of ways to use Twitterfeed.

Shareaholic: This is a Firefox plugin that lets you send a Twitter update. Found something awesome online and can’t wait to pass it on? Tired of copying and pasting endless URLs? Shareaholic allows you to share, bookmark and e-mail web pages quickly without leaving your browser.

Twittervision - a Google Maps/Twitter mashups that lets you see Twitter updates on a world map. Works only for users who have their location set up in Twitter preferences.

TwitTwoo Another Wordpress Plugin that displays Twitter status in the sidebar of your Wordpress blog. It’s nicely designed, and it displays your Twitter avatar next to the tweets.

EmailTwitter - allows you to post Twitter updates and retrieve your Twitter timeline via your cellular phone or other e-mail enabled mobile device, without incurring SMS fees.

Twitter Badges: This comes straight from the developers of Twitter: Flash badges intended to be displayed on your website, showing your latest Twitter posts

TwitterBuzz is an interesting tool that turns Twitter into some sort of simple Digg. It displays a list of most popular links on Twitter. You can see all the Twitter messages mentioning the link.

TwitterFeed - a service that combines OpenID and Twitter to let you feed the entries on your blog to Twitter

Twitterholic keeps a top list of users based on how often the post, how many friends they have, and other factors.

Twitteromatic - a tool that posts all sorts of information (weather, Firefox updates) to Twitter automatically.

Twit This is a badge similar to the popular “Digg This” badges, which help the visitors of a web site to quickly include its URL into a Twitter post. It’s available as a Javascript snippet, a bookmarklet or a Wordpress plugin.

TwitterSearch Simple Twitter search.

I am sure there are a lot more than this as far as Twitter Tools go. Leave me a comment of any other you know of.

Twitter resources

There are many resources available online that give you a deeper insight into Twitter if you are interested. Here are some of the onces I know of. What are others?

• Twitter Fan Wiki
• Twitter Help
• ReTweetMe
• Twitterholic
• 5 Things to Twitter About
• How to Use Twitter
• More Help on How to Use Twitter

What do you think? Is this a good resource for Twitter users?

Please add any other tips or suggestions you have in my comments.

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