Twitter Power Tips
Tim O’Reilly: @timoreilly
Sarah Milstein: @SarahM
Authors of The Twitter Book
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
www.oreilly.com

Hashtag for the Webcast:
#TwitterBook

Why use Twitter?
• Find a community of people who care about the
same things you do
• Get news and recommendations from that
community
• Let them know what you’re doing and thinking
• Share ideas and links that matter to you
• Learn social media skills: what works, what doesn‘t
• Just to have fun

Create More Value Than You Capture
•The secret of social media is that it's not
about you, your product, or your story. It's
about how you can add value to the
communities that happen to include you. If
you want to make a positive impact, forget
about what you can get out of social media,
and start thinking about what you can
contribute. Funnily enough, the more value
you create for the community, the more value
they will create for you.

O’Reilly books are the expression of a
community and its interests

my twitter input feed

retweetradar

nivi and the @timoreilly bump

NyTimes twitter feed for contrast

twitter search for @nytimes

This is important!
• In social networks, you gain and bestow
status through those you associate with
• A key function of a publishing brand is the
bestowal of status by what you pay attention
to
• If you only pay attention to yourself, you
aren’t as valuable to your community
– You don’t learn as much from your readers
– You don’t bind them to you by amplifying
their voice

My Twitter workflow

Found something good in my tweet
stream

Expand the link, save work for the
reader, use via not RT

My “tweetqueue”

Request for coverage from
@monkchips

Getting input from experts - don’t
just retweet mindlessly
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Jay Rosen’s Mindcasting meme

http://www.digitalmediabuzz.com/200
9/05/mindcasting/
•Digital Media Buzz, Mindcasting: the New Blue Ocean
•The act of building an editorial presence in Twitter by filtering, processing and
structuring the flow of information that moves through the medium using one’s follow
list, journalistic sensibilities and individual right to publish updates.
• * Account title to the discretion of the owner
• * Follow list used as an editorial filter
• * Three content layers: established, daily and one-off themes that interact
dialectically
• * Posts, done 15-20 times per day at different intervals
• * Professionally written tone
• * Direct interaction with audience/readership
• * Liberal, sensible use of hyperlinks
• * Fully articulated thoughts
• * No retweets (instead use the via @GrammarGirl convention for crediting the
source, then reword the post to sharpen, comment or otherwise add personal value.
— JR)

A few more
tips and tricks

Why use Twitter
as a business?
• Interact with customers—they like it
• Get real-time feedback
• Provide customer service
• Drive traffic and sales

Search smarter

Advanced search
http://search.twitter.com

Advanced search
http://search.twitter.com/advanced

Google it

Google it
site:twitter.com/Username whatever

Track trends

Track trends
http://whatthetrend.com
http://twist.flaptor.com

Repost
important stuff

But don’t
spam people!

Make sure
people see
your messages

Track
click-throughs

Track
click-throughs
http://bit.ly

Twitter Boot Camp
June 15, New York City
http://bit.ly/BootCamp

http://bit.ly/TheTwitterBook
http://bit.ly/BootCamp