A Beginners Guide to Twitter (Part 1)
A Beginners Guide to Twitter (Part 1)
A Beginners Guide to Twitter (Part 1)
TweetersMarketing is all about helping small businesses and Internet Marketers reach their maximum potential/profit by leveraging the raw power of Twitter. If you have never used Twitter for your business or Marketing plan, this is the place to start. We have put together a number of articles on the uses of Twitter for Internet Marketers. This knowledge can be used by any online/offline business that is looking to grow their brand through Twitter.
What is Twitter? "Twitter is an information network. Millions of people, organizations, and businesses use it to discover and share new information."
We will be going over the basics of how to set up a Twitter account, finding your first follower, the basic functions of Twitter, as well as basic tweeting practices. We will then go into some more intermediate functions of Twitter and how to use them to your best advantage. Beyond that we will go over the top tools that you can use to increase your productivity and ROI by using Twitter.
Let us start with a small list of the core uses of Twitter as a marketing channel.
1. Promoting
2. Branding
3. Building a Community through Word of Mouth
4. Learning (Market Research)
5. Customer Support
In this article we will discuss the basics of using Twitter. Future articles will go into greater detail on the 5 points listed above. You should be comfortable with using Twitter in general before moving on to the marketing specific information.
So let's get started with the basics.
If you do not have a Twitter account already, head on over to twitter.com/signup and fill out the form to set up your account. The form will ask for your full name which will be displayed publicly on your profile. Your Username will be what most people will come to know you/your business by. An example is @fmracicot. Fill out the rest of the form and you're ready to start using Twitter.
Once you get your account set up, Twitter will give you a chance to see if your contacts are already on Twitter. It does this by checking your online address book. It does require that your contacts are in one of the supported services such as GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, or MSN. This is not a required step, but if you will be looking to connect with your existing contacts on Twitter, this is a great first step to start following people.
Once you get into your account, you will want to confirm some of the settings to ensure that you get the best use of Twitter. Start by clicking on the Settings link. Check the "Time Zone", enter your location, and upload a picture (typically 150 x 150 pixels works well for this). You have the option to check "Protect my updates", but I wouldn't recommend this unless you only want those whom you approve to be able to get your updates. With the goal being to get the word out to as many people as possible, checking "Protect my updates" restricts your message from getting out easily.
If you are on the go a lot, setting your phone up to allow you to use Twitter on the go is a good idea. You can do this by again going into the Settings link and clicking on the Devices tab. Enter your mobile phone number and click on the Save button. Now take your cell phone and text message the code Twitter gives you to 40404 (the number will be different if you are outside the U.S.). At this point you will need to wait for Twitter to confirm that your device is registered. This usually doesn't take too long, but be patient during this step.
Once registration is confirmed, you will want to set up a contact named "Twitter". Enter 40404 as the contact number for the new contact. Now every time you want to send a Twitter update, you will send it to this contact name.
If you have a smart phone, you may want to look into an application specific to your phone that integrates with Twitter. Follow the instructions specific to your phone to install the application. These applications tend to have a lot more functionality to them than the standard text messaging of updates.
In part two of this series we will go over the basic functions of Twitter which will get you on your path becoming a professional Twitterer.
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