What Is Twitter Why And How

What is Twitter?How do I get started?
Dan Lucarelli, Director – Marketing & Education
Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc.
djlucarelli@pa1call.org
412.326-9450

Our Agenda for Today
Social Networking – an Intro
What is Twitter?
Twitter setup – Step by Step
Twitter Do’s
Tools to make your life easier

Intro: Social Networking
Twitter is a social network.
What is a social network?

Social Network defined
Main Entry: social network
Part of Speech: n
Definition: a website where one connects with those sharing personal or professional interests, place of origin, education at a particular school, etc. Usage: computing
social network. (n.d.). Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Retrieved February 19, 2010, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social network

Examples and Scale1
Social Networks:
www.facebook.com (2)
www.youtube.com (4)
www.wikipedia.com (6)
www.twitter.com (12)
www.myspace.com (17)
All Sites:
www.google.com (1)
www.yahoo.com (3)
www.live.com (5)
www.blogger.com (7)
www.msn.com (9)
www.wordpress.com (18)
www.microsoft.com (19)
www.amazon.com (20)
1. Source: www.alexa.com, Feb 19, 2010

Number of users1
Classmates.com 50 million
Facebook 350 million
Flickr 32 million
LinkedIn 53 million
MySpace 130 million
Twitter 75 million
1. Source: www.wikipedia.org, Feb 19, 2010

Source: http://blog.twitter.com/, Feb 26, 2010

What is Twitter?

Source: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/02/25/

What is Twitter?
Twitter.com: “…is a social networking and microblogging service utilizing instant messaging, SMS, or a Web Interface.”1
Think of Twitter as a public web space or web blog where you post short messages for interested people to read – in realtime.
1. Source: www.alexia.com/topsites, Feb 19, 2010

Twitter Terminology
“Follower”: Someone who subscribes to your Web space (blog).
“Following”: A Web (blog) space you subscribe to.
“Tweet”: A post to your Web space (blog).
“ReTweet”: Forwarding something you read to your followers.

Twitter Philosophy
Twitter evolved from a web experiment between friends who wanted to broadcast SMS text messages to each other in real time.
“I’m at Starbucks. Let’s Hook Up”
Easily send one message to many friends.
Twitter has grown into a flexible real time broadcast communications platform.

Twitter: Subscription-based
Although Tweets are (usually) public, they are not pushed to you unless you subscribe to someone’s Tweets.
This is called “Following” someone.
You can set Tweets to be private, meaning you must specifically allow someone to Follow you before they can see your Tweets.
Tweets are not in the public data stream.

Tweet!

I will follow you.

Tweet!
Tweet!

I will follow you.

Tweet!
Tweet!
Tweet!

Microblogging
The key to Twitter is an SMS text message:
140 characters or less.
Post (“Tweet”) a message from a mobile phone.
Send one message – it goes to all “Followers”.
Receive messages (“Tweets”) on a mobile phone
Receive text messages from everyone you are “Following”.

Tweeting
You can send Tweets via:
The www.Twitter.com website;
An SMS text message from a cell phone;
A Twitter application on a Smart phone;
A Widget attached to: LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc.
Programmatically from an API.

Following
Tweets from people you follow show up:
On your www.Twitter.com web site when you log in;
On your cell Phone via text messages;
On your Smart phone via a Twitter application;
In a Widget within a Web site;
By querying www.Twitter.com via an API.

Setup – Step by Step
How do I sign up and start using Twitter?

Getting Started with Twitter
Step 1: www.twitter.com:

Getting Started with Twitter
Step 2: Create an Account
For a corporate account, create a non-user email to Twitter
***********

Twitter Do’s

DO: Promote your Account
Stakeholders will not follow you if they don’t know.

DO: Tweet Regularly
Find a schedule and stick to it.
PA One Call tweets once per business day.
Special circumstances warrant additional Tweets:
“Due to weather conditions, Montgomery County Locator program changed from 2/11 to 3/18. Info: www.paonecall.org(events). #paonecall”

Source: Comics.com ® 2010, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

DO: Tweet Meaningfully
Tweets should be interesting, or useful, or both.
PA One Call sends Tweets on:
“Education sound bites”
Education class reminders
An occasional ‘fun’ Tweet:
“Happy Groundhog Day!” on Feb 2.

DO: Pay attention to Followers
PA One Call’s tweets are not private
Anyone can subscribe.
PA One Call has blocked specific followers.
Followers can send messages to you directly.
Pay attention! Respond quickly!

DO: Use the “#” Tag
Users can search for specific terms.
The ‘#’ character denotes a tag.
PA One Call places “#paonecall” in every tweet.
Non-followers can search in public tweets.

DO: Build your brand
www.paonecall.org/twitter
vs
www.twitter.com/paonecall
This is called “Website Redirection”
Promote your site, not someone else’s.

Tools
(Getting Tweets in to Twitter.
Getting Tweets out of Twitter.)

Third Party Applications
www.Tweet-U-Later.com

Schedule Tweets in the Future

Resources and Third Party
Hundreds of tools are here:
http://www.twitip.com/10-more-must-have-twitter-tools/
http://mashable.com/2008/05/24/14-more-twitter-tools/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/17/99-essential-twitter-tools-and-applications/
http://www.sociableblog.com/2009/03/18/100-twitter-tools-to-help-you-achieve-all-your-goals/

Thanks! for your time.Questions?
Dan Lucarelli, Director – Marketing & Education
Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc.
djlucarelli@pa1call.org
412.464.7129

What Is Twitter Why And How

by Dan Lucarelli on Apr 18, 2010

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