A TRUE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO GETTING THE MOST OUT OF
by
Linden A. Muellerand Sarah J. Austin
Contents4 The Tweet
5 Following
7 The @ Replies: Normal and Embedded
9 Direct Messages
9 Favorites
10 Retweets
11 Hashtags
12 Shortened URLs
13 Twitter Search
13 Automatically-tweeted Blog Posts
15 Twitter.com
15 SMS and Mobile Platforms: Twitterfon
16 Dedicated web applications: HootSuite
17 Dedicated Desktop Applications: TweetDeck & Twhirl
18 Analyzing Your Twitter Profile
18 Managing and Interacting with People
19 Sharing Photographs
19 Staying Productive
20 Staying Informed
20 Sarah’s Essential People to Follow
20 Linden’s Essential People to Follow
21 Recommended Blogs & Articles
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
Thank You!After the positive feedback we received from our blog series, “A True Begin-
ner’s Guide to Twitter,” we decided to put all of that information in one spot,
so you can keep it to reference or pass along to other beginners on Twitter.
This eBook, “A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of Twitter,” is
a kit of Twitter definitions, tips, tools, and resources that will get you started
on Twitter, whether you’re tweeting for yourself or your company or organiza-
tion. And if you’re a Twitter veteran, well, we’ve got some handy tips for you,
too.
A quick word of thanks to Sarah’s husband Chris who graciously designed
this document. We both love him (but not in the same way). Please check out
his blog Esthetik, which features his commentary on design in everyday life,
at www.ChristopherMAustin.com or follow him on Twitter (@typografika).
Another quick shout-out to Lorraine (@LorraR), a friend of Linden who has
become a friend of Sarah and whose Twitter novice-ness was Linden’s inspi-
ration for this project.
And thanks to LifePoint Church (@lifepointozark), who got Sarah thinking
about how Twitter can be used in ministry and who has been a Twitter guinea
pig on this little journey.
Thank you for downloading and reading our labor of love. Love for writing.
Love for Twitter. And love for noobs. Certainly, if you have any questions,
comments, or constructive criticism, we welcome them. Feel free to contact us
on Twitter (@xgravity23, @sarahjoaustin), via email (lam@LindenAMueller.
com, [email protected]), or on our blogs (www.LindenAMueller.
com/blog, www.SarahJoAustin.com).
Linden & Sarah
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
IntroductionSo you’ve heard about this Twitter thing and you want to join in, maybe start
tweeting to connect with the members of your organization or with the read-
ers of your blog. You’ve searched the web, but all of the guides you have found
so far are aimed at niche users, users who have already mastered the basics.
In this eBook, you will learn Twitter’s basic and advanced functions plus mul-
tiple ways for tweeting on the Web, at your desk, and on the go. On top of that,
you’ll get lots of recommended resources, so you can continue learning. Let’s
get started!
Basic Twitter Functions Twitter is simple, but we understand that everyone crawls before they walk,
so this section explains the basic functions of Twitter and defines Twitter jar-
gon. You’ll learn how to create a tweet, find and follow others, reply to other
tweeple, send a direct message, and “favorite” important tweets.
The Tweet
This is the building block of Twitter, your 140-character message, sent out to the
whole Twitterverse. What’s the point of a tweet? Well, it’s very much like the sta-
tus in Facebook: a short summary of what you are doing now (an update) or a
clever observation about the situation you find yourself in at this moment.
As Twitter spread in popularity, many people starting tweeting links to im-
ages or interesting articles, and we’ll tell you how you can do more with your
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
tweets in a later section.
Many people have asked us, “What’s the difference between a tweet and a
Facebook status?” And our best answer is Twitter is your Facebook status
without the Facebook interface. Or it may be easier to think of Twitter as pub-
lic instant messaging, a perpetual conversation with people all around the
world because it also functions as a messenger, too. In fact, the way you use
Twitter may be quite different than the way we do because so many third-
party Twitter applications exist to make Twitter work for you.
Following
We suppose that if you like to make pithy statements to yourself about what you
are doing, you don’t need to follow or be followed on Twitter, but we’re guess-
ing that you’d like to use Twitter to interact with your friends and family, people
around you geographically, celebrities, and news outlets, to name a few.
At Twitter.com, navigate to an account page other than your own, and click
the Follow button under their profile picture to begin following them. When
you follow someone else, their updates will appear on your Twitter homepage
(when you click on Home or Profile at Twitter.com) and in your Twitter time-
line. Unlike Facebook, following someone is not necessarily mutual, so you
may add celebrities like @RainnWilson or bands like @Coldplay, but they will
not necessarily follow you in return.
Following and being followed is perhaps the most overwhelming part of get-
ting started with Twitter. When you’re ready to start following others, click
Find People at the top of your Twitter page. Twitter provides four ways to find
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
others to follow:
• Find on Twitter. If you already have in mind the people you know who are
on Twitter, you can search for them by username, first name, and last name.
If you’re looking for someone specific, this is the best way to find them.
• Find on other networks. If you’re brand new to Twitter, using your con-
tact lists from Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, or MSN is the fastest way to
find people you know because Twitter pairs the email addresses in your
accounts with existing Twitter accounts.
• Invite by email. You can always share Twitter with someone you know
by inviting them by email. Even if they choose not to sign up for a Twitter
account, they can still follow you by texting ‘follow [username]’ to 40404
on their cell phones.
• Suggested users. Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s list of suggested users are
not necessarily people you know personally. More than likely, Twitter will
suggest other users who are popular or important on Twitter.
Once you’ve found a handful of people to follow, you’re on your way to a ro-
bust Twitter account. If you’re still looking for people to follow, your best bet
is to check out the profile pages of the users you know the best and study who
they follow. Chances are they’ll know someone you know, too.
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
But a word of caution: Following too many people too fast (by the thousands)
will raise a red flag to Twitter that you’re a spammer and increases the poten-
tial that Twitter will suspend your account.
And a note on who not to follow: More than likely someone will follow you
that you don’t know, and that’s OK. It’s up to you to decide whether to follow
them. If you don’t know them personally, it’s wise to check out their profile
page. You’ll know they’re spammers by looking at their followers/following
ratio; if they’re following hundreds or thousands of people but only a few
hundred are following them, they’re probably spammers and following them
is a waste of time.
The @ Replies: Normal and Embedded
You’ve read an interesting tweet and want to respond. What now? Simply begin
your tweet with the at symbol, @, and the tweet’s author’s username, like this
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
From Twitter, you can also click the gray arrow that appears on the right of a
tweet. A normal @ reply is your side of a public conversation. Your tweet will
show up for that user when they click “home” on the Twitter home page, or if they
click “@ Replies.” Normal @ replies are not private, but Twitter allows each user
the ability to control whether or not they see @ replies that aren’t directed to them
(change your settings by going to Settings > Notices > @ Replies).
An embedded @ reply is a combination of a normal tweet and a normal @
reply. Unlike a normal @ reply, an embedded @ reply does not begin with
@[username], but starts like a normal tweet: with text. Somewhere in the
tweet, you will use @[username] to provide a link to that person’s Twitter
stream, like this:
Embedded @ replies serve two purposes: They share your current thoughts
and they connect your followers to another tweeter who they might not be
following yet. Unlike normal @ replies, followers cannot filter these tweets
out by changing their settings, so you know that all of your followers will see
these tweets.
In March 2009, Twitter changed the way that @ replies are handled. Now,
whether you mention someone by putting their @[username] at the begin-
ning of the the tweet or embed it into your tweet, the tweet will show up when
they click on @[username] on their profile page. They are now called Men-
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
tions, and it makes it much easier to carry on conversations with multiple
people. Before Mentions, if you started your tweet with several usernames,
only the first person would be notified in their @ reply tab. Now, everyone you
direct a message to will know. In the rest of this eBook, we shall use the new
term, Mentions.
Direct Messages
Direct Messages (DMs) are very easy to understand: They are private messag-
es, readable only by the person you send it to. To send a DM, write simply start
your tweet with the letter D followed by the receiver’s username.
Favorites
Found a tweet that you like and don’t want to lose track of? At Twitter.com,
simply click the gray outline of a star that appears on the right-hand side of
every tweet. It will be filled in with yellow, and the tweet will appear in your
favorite list, accessible from your Twitter homepage, and more and more fre-
quently, from within dedicated Twitter clients.
Linden uses her favorites to keep track of tweets that are particularly witty or
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
astute. Sometimes, she uses them to mark a tweet that she wants to look at
again later, maybe because it contains a link to something that she wants to
read when she’s on her computer (and she’s viewing it from her iPod Touch).
Both of us tend to comb through our favorites regularly and if a tweet has lost
its zing, we’ll un-favorite it.
Remember, favorites are public because anyone can view them by going to
your profile and clicking on “favorites” in the right-hand menu.
Advanced Twitter Functions Once you’ve been on Twitter for a day or two and you’ve nailed down the basic
Twitter functions, you can move on to the advanced functions. “Advanced” is
a little misleading because these functions are easy peasy; however, they are
a little less essential than the very basics.
Retweets
A “retweet” (RT) is just like clicking “forward” in your email: When you come
across an interesting tweet that you think your followers should read, copy
the tweet, paste it into a new tweet, then add RT @[username] to the begin-
ning of the tweet, like this.
If you have room, you can add a comment between RT and the @[username]
part of the tweet (just like in the image above), but because of the 140-charac-
ter limitation, this is not always possible.
Most Twitter applications now include a RT button that fills in everything for
you, so all you have to do is click retweet and submit. This makes it super easy
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to forward those tweets that catch your eye.
Some people think that retweeting is spammy because it is completely un-
original content. You might consider instead sharing why you like the tweet
or link and using “(via @[username]) at the end to give credit to the original
author instead. Don’t worry too much, though; retweeting seems to be the
standard in the Twitterverse right now, so don’t retweet too often, weigh the
two options, and go with whichever method suits you best.
Hashtags
If you’ve been observing the Twitterverse for any length of time, you might have
noticed tweets containing the number symbol and a word, something like this:
Many websites use these so-called “hashtags” to track what is “trending”
(popular) on Twitter at the moment. Even though that example tweet doesn’t
mention Lost at all, it is about the show and should be counted if you want to
know what people are talking about on Twitter right now. In this way, hashtags
are something like an email subject line: They tell your readers (and anyone
analyzing tweets) what you are talking about in your tweet. They can be at the
end of a tweet, like above, or embedded into the tweet, like below.
No matter whether you embed your hashtag or put it at the end of the tweet,
it will show up in a Twitter search or trending report. Hashtags.org and Tagal.
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
us are two websites that track the use of hashtags on Twitter and are useful
resources if you’re looking to use a hashtag but aren’t sure if it’s in use or how
it’s being used. Tagal.us also allows you to define hashtags.
One final note on hashtags: We recommend that the first time a hashtag is
used, it should be defined with the hashtag #define. A tweet that defines
each hashtag will help future users understand when the hashtag should
be used. While Tagal.us lets you define hashtags, those definitions are not
accessible through Twitter Search. If you use a #define hashtag, users
searching tweets will find your definition. We recommend first defining in a
tweet, then adding your tag and definition to Tagal.us for maximum impact.
Shortened URLs
Many interesting applications have sprouted because of Twitter, and URL
shorteners are one of them because URLs are long and hog all of your limited
characters before you’re able to explain why you’re sharing a particular link.
URL shorteners take an original URL, smash it down to 15 or so characters,
and provide a new URL. If you are using the Twitter.com site to post your sites,
you will need to either install a bookmarklet, like the ones offered by Snipr
or TinyURL, or visit their websites to shorten your URL. Most third-party apps
include a URL shortener within their interfaces or a bookmarklet for your
browser to make URL shortening easier.
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
Twitter Search
Twitter has a built-in search that searches all tweets in the public timeline. At
search.twitter.com, you can do a simple search if you’re looking for a simple
keyword, but if you want to narrow that search to a location, person, date, or
many other limiters, use the advanced search tool. Once you have the results
that you like, you can subscribe to those results via RSS to receive future up-
dates that meet the same criteria.
Automatically-tweeted Blog Posts
One reason many people start tweeting is to advertise their blogs to a new
readership. You can shorten your URL (see above) and type in your post title
manually, or you can take advantage of the many services that will access
your RSS feed, package your post title and a short summary (if you so choose),
and tweet your blog posts on your behalf automatically. Twitterfeed is prob-
ably the most popular site offering this service, but HootSuite does this too.
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
One word of warning: Some people might consider this spamming if you only
send out tweets that promote your blog or website. Twitter does not exist pri-
marily as an advertising medium but for community building, and as such, if
you use it for only advertising, you will not win favor from the very people you
are trying to attract to your brand. Besides, building community is the way to
build success on the Internet.
Twittering on the Web, at Your Desk, and On the Go The beauty of Twitter is its API (application programming interface) that al-
lows third parties to rebundle Twitter’s information into other websites, desk-
top programs, and mobile phone applications; therefore, it allows you to use
Twitter as it best suits you and your online lifestyle.
One characteristic of the Twitter API is that it requires you to enter your Twit-
ter username and password on other sites that use the Twitter API. This means
that Hootsuite, TwitPic, and all other Twitter-related websites will ask for your
confidential information. Do not be alarmed. But do make sure you are log-
ging in to a valid website. Linden usually waits several weeks before using the
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
newest Twitter fad website to make sure that it isn’t phishing for usernames
and passwords, or asks @sarahjoaustin or @llcadle, two of her tweeple who
are in the know about Twitter trends.
Note: All of the instructions in the Basic Functions section work no matter what
platform you use, although many platforms have streamlined the mention,
retweet, and direct message functions.
Twitter.com
If you are connected to the internet, the most straight-forward way of tweeting
is by going to Twitter.com, logging in, and publishing a tweet. It’s a no-frills
interface, but it gets the job done.
SMS and Mobile Platforms: Twitterfon
You don’t have to be on a computer to tweet, and this is one of the things that
makes Twitter so powerful. Even without a smartphone, you can tweet by sim-
ply sending your tweet as an SMS message to 40404. You can send DMs and
mentions and use hashtags just like normal.
If you do happen to be using a smartphone, then you have several other options
available to you, and while you could pay for Pro or Premium apps, there are via-
ble free options, and Twitterfon is our favorite. Twitterfon’s no-nonsense interface
is intuitive and has a short learning curve compared to other free options. This is,
however, a highly subjective observation, so we recommend that you try all of the
free options listed below and tweet with each one for a day or so. If you are like us,
a clear personal favorite will present itself fairly quick.
Other SMS and Mobile Platforms
• Twitterific (Premium version available for $9.99)
• Twittelator (Pro version available for $4.99)
• Tweetie ($2.99)
• Twitterberry (free)
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Dedicated web applications: HootSuite
You also don’t have to be on Twitter.com to tweet, which seems silly, right?
You’d think that a company would want to keep its users on its own site.
Nope. Twitter is very generous in sharing itself with other websites. Many of
these websites improve upon Twitter’s basic format by allowing you to man-
age multiple accounts, schedule tweets in advance, and add editors to your
Twitter accounts without handing out passwords.
Our favorite third-party website is HootSuite.com. As of this writing, it’s still
in beta, but the developers are adding new features weekly. In addition to
the bright interface, easy management of multiple Twitter accounts, and pre-
scheduled tweeting, we especially like to see statistics on items we link to, the
ability to add Google AdSense code to tweets, and funneling our blogs’ RSS
feeds to our Twitter accounts.
One major reason to choose HootSuite is for managing multiple Twitter ac-
counts. If you got into this Twitter thing to help promote your business (web-
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
based or not), you will need a public Twitter account for that purpose, but
you might consider using a personal account to get your bearings in Twitter.
Go ahead a set up both accounts now and configure HootSuite to give you ac-
cess to both. From this one interface, you can send tweets from both accounts
without first logging out of one account to use the other. You can even, if nec-
essary, post the same tweet to both accounts.
Dedicated Desktop Applications: TweetDeck & Twhirl
The last method of accessing Twitter is via a dedicated desktop program like
TweetDeck or Twhirl. These two programs are free, and both provide basic Twit-
ter functionality. In addition, they both use Adobe Air to keep memory usage to a
minimum, and both display small on-screen notifications when a tweet arrives.
Though they are similar in many ways, we like them for their differences.
In particular, TweetDeck is useful for organizing tweets by columns. In each
column, you may specify what tweets are shown: all friends, mentions, direct
messages, favorites, etc. Additionally, you can use a Twitter Search within
TweetDeck and assign results to their own column. For example, when Lin-
den tweets about Lost, she can add a #lost column that imports all tweets
from all users that include the #lost tag. This allows her to see what others
think about the show, meet other tweeple with similar interests, and converse
with them.
Twhirl, on the other hand, is particularly useful for managing multiple Twitter ac-
counts. Each account you add has its own window, and in each window you view
the account’s Twitter feed live. Twhirl allows you to control what notifications
appear on your screen, so you’re not overwhelmed by the tweets coming in.
Sarah runs both programs simultaneously to manage her multiple Twitter
accounts. She uses TweetDeck for her personal account and uses Twhirl to
get updates on two other accounts she manages. So she’s not overwhelmed
entirely by all those updates, she has set TweetDeck to update only every 15
minutes, and Twhirl only notifies her of mentions and DMs.
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Other Twitter Tools & Resources We learn about new Twitter tools and resources every day, but there are so
many, you can easily become overwhelmed. We’ve categorized them by func-
tion and given them a brief description. We hope you’ll find them useful, too.
Analyzing Your Twitter Profile
• Mr. Tweet: Discover recommended tweeple based on your current connections.
• TweetStats: Tells you when you tweet most, who you mention most, and
your most-tweeted words.
• Twitter Grader: Find out where you rank among all tweeple.
• Twitalyzer: Measure your impact and success in social media.
• WeFollow.com: Tag your Twitter profile with keywords so other like-mind-
ed tweeple can follow you.
Managing and Interacting with People
• MyCleanr: Find out the people you are following who aren’t using Twitter
any more. Tells you how long ago in years and days since they last tweeted
and lets you delete right from their interface.
• Tweepler: Sort through your new followers, view their last few tweets, and
make an educated decision as to whether to follow them in return.
• Tweeto’clock: Find out when it’s best to tweet someone to get a response.
• Twimailer: Get more information directly in your inbox when someone fol-
lows you.
• Twitoria: Just like MyCleenr, find out the people you are following who
aren’t using Twitter any more. Tells you the how long ago in days it was
they last tweeted and displays their profile information.
• Twitter Karma: Displays mutual Twitter relationships, tweeple you are fol-
lowing but who haven’t reciprocated, and who follows you but you haven’t
reciprocated
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A True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Twitter
• Twitter User Classify: This Greasemonkey script puts a color-coded bar at the
top of each Twitter profile to tell you that user’s following-to-follower ratio.
Sharing Photographs
While Twitter is a text-only medium, once again, its open programming plat-
form allows the flexibility of tweeting photographs with tools like TwitPic.
com. Simply login to TwitPic with your Twitter information; upload a photo;
add some tags, a location, and a message; and click Post It. TwitPic will tweet
a link to your photo and your message to your Twitter account.
Staying Productive
• Google Calendar: Add events to your Google Calendar from Twitter.
• Package Tracker: Get near-instant DMs whenever your package from UPS,
FedEx, USPS, DHL (and others) is updated.
• Remember the Milk: Send items to your Remember the Milk to-do list
straight from Twitter.
• Timer: Set the timer to DM you at a specified time.
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• TwitterSafe: Back up your followers just in case.
In addition to the items listed above, the article “Live Inside Twitter and Still
Stay Productive” from Mashable lists some other useful productivity tools.
Staying Informed
• TweetCongress.org: Follow your Congress-tweeple or sign a petition to get
them on Twitter.
• CNN: Get top news stories from CNN.com.
• NPR News: Get top news stories from National Public Radio.
• TwitPoll: Poll other tweeple and get instant results.
• Favotter: Stay on top of what other tweeple are calling their favorites.
Sarah’s Essential People to Follow
• @BabyDots: A personal friend with an Etsy store. Lots of links to her un-
believably cute children’s clothes.
• @ChurchTechie: Author of The Reason Your Church Must Twitter. Lots of
new Twitter tools and resources, especially for ministry.
• @Coldplay: Updates from the crew and band while they’re on tour and on
the go.
• @NBCOlympics: Busiest when Olympics are in progress but provides ath-
lete news year-round.
• @MowgliAustin and @handsomeRav: My cats. They’re full of snarky com-
ments and requests for tuna.
• @tweeples_guide: Shameless plugging. This is the account I use to share
Twitter-related articles and tips.
Linden’s Essential People to Follow
• @HotDogsLadies: Random, snarky tidbits from the life of Merlin Mann
• @OzarksRedCross: Shares info on upcoming events, training, and when nec-
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essary, emergency information. Look for your own local Red Cross here.
• @Rosso: Techie, photographer, cook, traveler, and writer. If you know me,
it’s pretty obvious why I like her tweets from that description.
• @MollyDotCom: Frequently hilarious posts from a CSS/Opera maven who
loves her cats
• @Problogger: Lots of links for bloggers and tweeters, plus interesting
tweets about his life in Australia
• @PenelopeTrunk: As far as I can tell, Trunk is the master of telling an en-
tire story in those 140 characters. You can learn a lot about efficient tweet-
ing from following her.
Recommended Blogs & Articles
• Twitter Fan Wiki
• TwiTip.com
• Mashable.com’s Twitter Lists
• 3 Things Twitter’s Been Doin’ For Me Lately (sja)
• 3 Must-Have Twitter Tools for Multiple Account Management (sja)
• Guest Post: How Twitter Made Me a Better Social Networker (sja via lam)
• Why I Separated My Twitter Account: 3 Reasons to Consider (sja)
• Twitter Nation? Give it a Whirl! (lam)
• Hone Your Writing/Editing Skills: Another Reason to Give Twitter a Try (lam)
• Twitter in the News: The Gettysburg Address, Twitpitches, and Twitstories (lam)
• Twitter Saves (lam)
Creative Commons 2009
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License