A guide to Twitter: The basics

David SomervilleNovember 2011

@southcoastdavid@a1surf

Why use Twitter?

• Boost website traffic• Creates a community • Quick and easy Customer Service

(get feedback)• Make friends, build business

contacts and networks• Get news, information, content ideas• SEO benefits – link building

The basics: Profile Picture

Select a clear profile pic that will be readable

or noticeable when small.

For Twitter you can use animated gifs asavatars, so these can look good and

attract attention.

The basics: Background

You can replace the default ‘blue sky and clouds’ Twitter

background with your own customised one.

Make it simple and a statement. One thing to bear in mind is that the main columns can hide anythingthat’s central, so get around this by using the space to

theleft and right.

Remember the background is static, not linked, but you can

display all sorts of information on it.

The basics: Mentions

You can see people talking about you by

clicking the ‘Mentions’ tab on your Twitter

home page.

To mention someone on twitter by appending their twitter name with ‘@’

The basics: Direct Messages (DM)

If someone is following you (and you are following

them) you can choose to send a private ‘Directmessage’ to them. This is the same as a normal tweet in terms of character restriction, but it’s

notpublic.

This is useful if you want to ask someone a question without your followers seeing, i.e. approach them about supplying a competitionprize etc.

Tweeting: ContentAs with all social media, it’s important to post up a mixture of

content. Due to twitter’s restriction of 140 characters, it is used a lot just forquick text updates or observations, but it’s worth also doing things

suchas:

• Include links (back to your site or others)• Include photos or videos• Ask a question• Join a conversation by giving your thoughts/advice• Topical related content• Discount codes/offers• Create hash tagged topics • Run competitions/games

Tweeting: Content (cont.)

As part of the ‘twitter etiquette’, it’s a good

idea to thank people if they haverecommended you or said somethingpositive.

Rewards – if you know it’s a birthday of one

of your influential followers then why not send them a present?

Tweeting: Shortening Links

Twitter now automatically shorten links (to

19 characters) if you tweet that way.

And if using Tweetdeck or other third-party

sites they use bitly or tiny services.

Tweeting: Hastags #

Hashtags are basically a way of tagging your tweets so thatthey can be more easily found by people searching forspecific keywords.

You simply use a ‘#’ before the word you want to make ahashtag. If you’re using more than one word then DON’Tput spaces between them.

By using a site such as hashtags.org you can find popularhashtags related to your subject. Or you can make up yourown.

Tweeting: Hastags Gone Bad

Hastags can be used badly too…Here’sHabitat’s blatant spamming misuse…

Tweeting: Hastags Gone Bad

This resulted in hundreds of angry tweets frompeople…

So they deleted the posts and replaced them…butthe posts will always remain there on TwitterSearch!

Tweeting: Hastags Gone Bad

What could they have done instead?

• Replied to each person who tweeted and apologised• Apologised in person• Offered discounts as an apology• Asked what information, offers etc people want• Responded quickly to deal with it

Case Study from Social Media Today

Tweeting: Retweeting (RT)Retweeting is when you share someone’s tweet with your

followers by clicking Retweet or RT.

They will see you have done this and some people will thank you for it

directly. And they may follow you back as well.

It’s good to RT as well as posting your own content, as it helps prove

your respectability in that area.

When you RT something it’s often an idea (space permitting) to add a

brief note at the front (i.e. “Really useful article” or “Great advice

from…”).

Tweeting: Tag peopleTag people in your tweets – when tweeting about a particular

story,event, brand, person etc you can ‘tag’ them in your tweet by

using their name, i.e. @ThePonyClub.

Not only should the person see you have tagged them which may earn

you a RT – but also their followers may see your tweet, which can gain

you followers (and possible RTs).

An example is @ThePonyClub. They have nearly 4,000 followers, most

of whom you would expect are ‘horsey’, therefore they are all potential

good followers for @horsemart.

Building followers: Follow the crowd

One simple step is to follow more people (who are relevant to your

industry) and a percentage of them will follow you back.

To find out who to follow you can…

1. Use Twitter’s built-in ‘Who to follow’. This suggests a list of people you could follow, based on your interests, tweets etc.

2. Use Twitter’s ‘Search’ – you can enter keywords related to yourindustry and it will suggest people who match them. Use the controls of “near:[location]” and “within:[miles]mi” to target this if better for your brand.

Building followers: Follow the crowd

There are also options in the ‘Advanced Search’ to help you.

When you have found someone who you want to follow you can also

then browse who they follow and their followers, then just pick out the

ones you want to follow.

Other third-party tools can be good for seeing who to follow as well.

Tools like SocialBro can show you how influential or important people

are and how many followers they have.

Building followers: Off-Twitter promotion

In order to help build your follower it’s worth promoting your Twitter

account in other places too.

This includes on your main site, in enewsletters, print ads etc. Twitter

itself has a number of buttons you can add:https://dev.twitter.com/docs/twitter-for-websites

One note though is to try and give people a reason WHY they shouldfollow you.

For example, don’t just say “Follow us on twitter”, but instead expand

with “Follow us on twitter for all the latest horse owning and ridingadvice, news and more”.

Building followers: Create lists

On Twitter you can create lists of people you follow and name them. By

making these Public, other twitter users can then find your lists and

follow those, which helps to show you as an authority and spreads your

profile virally.

For example on Horsemart we could create a list for ‘Professional

riders’ or ‘Celebrity horse owners’.

Create lists you think other people would find useful.

You can do this on Twitter or even on Tweetdeck

Monitoring: Searching

As well as getting into the habit of tweeting regularly, it’s alsoimportant to frequently monitor what people are saying about

you onTwitter.

The simplest way is to use the ‘Mentions’ tab on twitter itself – this will

then list everyone who has mentioned you using your “@xxxxx” name.

It’s worth also searching for your name or even misspellings of it (i.e

Friday ad, fridayad etc) so you can check those tweets where you

weren’t mentioned directly.

Monitoring: Searching

You can use the search functions in twitter or the third party services

(like Tweetdeck).

It’s also useful to do regular searches for important keywords in your

industry or competitors (you can obviously “follow” competitor

updates, but do so from a personal account if you don’t want them to

know!).

Monitoring: Replying

It’s crucial that if people are talking about you on twitter that you reply

as soon as possible.

It’s also important that if they have negative feedback or are slating you

that you deal with it politely – if necessary ask people to email or

message you privately to avoid an online discussion.

If you think that the people posting are spammers or trolls then it’s fine

not to reply! And if they are proper spam then block/report them.

Good Twitter Customer Service

One excellent example of good customerservice on Twitter is the Airline JetBlue(@jetblue)…

They ensure they respond quickly and in a friendly way to every tweet that mentions them.

This has lead to hundreds of positive mentions on Twitter from people who they have helped and direct ticket sales increases.

Monitoring: Track it!

Just as you are (or should) be doing with any content you post on

Facebook etc, you should use Google’s trackable link building tool.

Simply list ‘Twitter’ as the Source and ‘Social’ as the Medium.

You may find that the type of content you use works better for one

social channel than another.

Twitter Tools

Here’s a selection of tools that will help you with your tweeting…

Tweetdeck.comHootsuite.comUse these as desktop or web apps (or mobile) to tweet from,

schedule tweets, create searches/monitoring etc. Both allow multiple

accountuse.

SocialBroA new Chrome app that allows you to access a whole host of infoabout your account, your followers etc

Followerwonk.com Find users with similar interests by searching their bios

Twitter Tools

Topsy.com Real-time search for twitter (and G+ in beta) to see who has

beentweeting about specific keywords.

You can set up email alerts too which is handy for monitoring of your

brand name.

BackgroundsHere’s two useful links with more information:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-twitter-background-photoshop/

http://edigitales.org/making-twitter-background-things-you-need-to-know/