The basics of twitter

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Menlo Ventures
“Twitorial”
October 8, 2012

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Twitter – So what, who cares?
140M users, $8B valuation, 900 SF employees
Everything you care about, in 140 characters or less:
News - Photos - Videos – Music – Humor
Social Network - Keep in Touch - Listen/Learn – Share
In Real Time
#FastFact Twitter: a series of short, high-pitched calls or sounds.
The founders were trying to describe in one word the sound of
mobile phone notifications buzzing in your pocket. (via Mashable)

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Users
• Musicians
• Comedians
• Politicians
• Sports Teams
• Reporters, News
• Brands
• TV Shows
• Your mom
#FastFact Twitter usage grew 43% overnight with the addition of one user…
via New York Times April 17, 2009

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Popular Tweeps
• Lady Gaga
• Justin Bieber
• Katy Perry
• Rihanna
• Britney Spears
• Barack Obama
• Taylor Swift
• Shakira
• Kim Kardashian
• Nicki Minaj
• Oprah
Celebs Brands
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Starbucks
• CNN Breaking News
• TwitPic
• UberSocial
• The New York Times
• NBA
• Google
• E! Online
Bloggers, Business & More…
• Robert Scoble
• Guy Kawasaki
• Pete Cashmore
• Michael Arrington
• Tony Hsieh
• Steve Case
• Jeremiah Owyang
• Dooce
• Stephen Colbert
• Anderson Cooper
• Ken Jennings
#FastFact Conan O’Brien famously follows just one person (a girl he
picked at random). Conan has 6,716,534 followers.

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Twitter 101
• Basics - Getting Started
• Twitter Glossary & Terms
• Tweet Consistently
• Follow Effectively
• Engage Authentically
• Reduce the Noise
• Best Practices
• More Ways to Use Twitter & What’s Next

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Basics - Getting started
• Upload a photo, Create a good bio
– No photo = no followers
– Who you are, what you do, what you like
– Add URL to increase site traffic
@johnjarve, I’m talkin to you….

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Home

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@Connect - Interactions

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@Connect - Mentions

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#Discover - Stories

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#Discover - Activity

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Profile

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Twitter Glossary & Terms
• Mention – a user’s handle in a tweet
• @ Reply – publicly visible, only appears in followers’ feeds if use the
following format:
• RT/MT –Retweet/Modified tweet, compliments original tweet

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Twitter Glossary & Terms
contd
• DM - Direct Message: equivalent to twitter email, still limited to 140
characters. To send someone a DM, they must follow you. Useful when you
want to send a message, but don’t want it public.
• Favorites – yellow star bookmarks tweets for later, or as a compliment

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Twitter Glossary & Terms
contd.
• # Hashtags – a way to organize tweets, track conversations, and
spread information. Used for Topical groupings (#socialmedia),
trending topics (#MarsRover), whimsy (#DamnYouAutocorrect)
– Helpful sites for Hashtag searches: whatthetrend.com,
hashtags.org, twubs.com
• #FF – most common hashtag, meaning FollowFriday
• Promoted Tweets – advertised tweets or accounts
• Verified Users – people who have huge followings, marked by a
blue checkmark
• More…check out Twitter’s glossary in the Help section
#FastFact The Hashtag #sandiegofires was one of the first use cases
for hashtags on Twitter – it alerted people to evacuation status in 2007

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Tweet Consistently
• How? Get in the habit – 20 minutes a day
– News related to business/interests
– Your opinion
– Something interesting non-work related (but not what you’re
eating for breakfast)
– Use media – photos, videos, links
– Respond to other’s tweets
– RT, and add value (proper format is to start with your comments)
– Listen
– Use your mobile
– Combine social networks
– Implement Twitter in what you are already doing – conferences,
lunch with a colleague, meeting a great entrepreneur, browsing
online
#FastFact Twitter was built for accommodation on mobile phones –
140 character limit was based on a 160 SMS limit, which leaves space
for a name in addition to the message

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Follow Effectively
• Follow people you know (they follow back)
– Import contacts, use the search function (search tips in
appendix), check out who your friends/colleagues are following
• Utilize other people’s lists
– Menlo’s “Reporters” and “Investments” lists
• Use Twitter as a resource - #Discover,
@Connect
– Some people follow hashtags more than users
– Respond to those who reach out to you
• Create targeted connections – what interests
you? What’s interesting to your followers?
#FastFact The world learns about the raid on Osama bin Laden’s
compound via tweet on May 1, 2011 when @reallyvirtual tweets
“Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”

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Engage Authentically
• Be human – Twitter is social
• Share your expertise, add to the
conversation
• Post links on what you find interesting
• Listen
• Show your personality
• Reach out to others
• Then take it off Twitter…

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Reduce the noise
• Use Lists
– Stay organized
– Maintain account size
• To purge, use Tweepi.com
– Create your own, use others’
• Follow content aggregators
– @TweetSmarter
– @Infographics
– Bots (@VCDelta)
– There are multiple websites that aggregate tweets and
hashtags, no really good ones yet
• Save searches, hashtags
• Block Spammers!
#FastFact Menlo is a member of more than 150 lists on Twitter!

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Reduce the noise contd
• Use Twitter Clients – HootSuite,
TweetDeck, Seesmic, UberSocial
– Saves time
– Schedule in advance or Autoschedule
– Multiple users/Social accounts
– Tracking/Analytics
– Mobile apps

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Hootsuite

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Best Practices
Do:
• Tweet others how you would like to be Tweeted
• RT with added value, put your comments before the RT
• Keep tweets short (100 characters or less gets more retweets)
• Shorten your links (if Twitter doesn’t shorten enough, you can use websites like bit.ly or
tiny.url
• Compliment often, brag sparingly
• Try to reply when people connect with you or mention you
• Give credit where it’s due
– Example: “A great entrepreneur practices Success Amnesia” via @shervin
• Be genuine, be transparent
• Tweets between 8 am and 7 pm have higher engagement
• Use links, photos, videos
• Use #hashtags but no more than 2 per tweet
• Listen
Don’t:
• Lock your profile!
• Be mundane or profane
• Steal tweets or fail to source your tweet
• RT all the time with no added value

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A few good examples…
Uses humor/personality
Mentions shervin (oops,
double check username –
twitter will autofill if you follow
someone but you’re on your
own if you tweet from a
website)
Uses headline
Includes link
Sources tweet

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A few good examples…
Mentions Travis
Compliments
Mentions Uber
Uses media
Combines social platforms

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A few good examples…
Keeps it human
inspires with words and
media: increases engagement
…and you never know when
you’ll get a retweet from @nasa

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How Jeremiah Owyang uses
Twitter
Jeremiah publishes an average of 15 tweets per day – but his goal is to add value:
1) As a ‘shared feed’ reader. I’ll post up links of what I’m reading that I find is interesting in near real
time, and give some commentary. I try to add value here, rather than adding to noise. So use me as a
news filter.
2) As a chat room. We collectively work out problems, issues, and I gain insight to other people’s
viewpoints. Often when conversations are just between a few folks, I shift to direct messages or email
–sparing my community from hearing my minutia.
3) Event capture: Lately, when I attend an event, I’ll fire off the top nuggets I learn.
4) Listening tool: It’s interesting to find out what others are sharing and talking about, from very
personal to big concepts. I frequently use the search tools around different topics to keep on top of
what’s happening.
5) Traffic direction tool: I use it to direct people to this blog, sometimes (I’ll admit) a bit too
enthusiastically. Google Analytics indicates this is one of the largest referrers of folks to my blog.
6) For work: When I’m conducting interviews or briefings that aren’t confidential, I’ll state who I’m
speaking to and what I find interesting, if you listen closely, you’ll hear me tweet about other
interesting findings from my job as a social media analyst. Also, I will announce new research, request
interviews, and promote workshops, conferences and other services.
#FastFact Jeremiah was named in Forbes’ Top 50 Media Power
Influencers in 2012, and Time Mag’s 140 best twitter feeds in 2011.

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Top tips from @shervin
• Just use the mobile app
• Follow many
• Most useful is @Connect
– Interactions: people who follow him
• Twitter is like email
– you have to respond
• Broadcasting only is a black hole
• You don’t get it until you engage!
27 CONFIDENTIAL

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More Ways to Use Twitter
• Follow hashtags
• Save searches
• Participate in Twitter chats (or just listen)
• Tweetups (Shervin’s open office hours)

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What’s next
• Ads – Twitter ads beating Facebook ads
• Twitter removes 3rd party sites and
restricts 3rd party apps (LinkedIn, Twitpic)
• Better profile pages – introduced last week
• Better curating/aggregating platforms for
news
• Better measurement tools (Klout, Twitter)

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Appendix I: Search Terms

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Resources
• Twitter Help Section, Twitter Blog
• Mashable Guidebook
• Tao of Twitter by Mark W. Shaefer
• Jeremiah Owyang, How I Use Twitter
• @TweetSmarter

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Menlo Ventures
3000 Sand Hill Rd. Ste. 4-100
Menlo Park, CA 94025
www.menlovc.com
@menloventures