89
101+ Ryan McCormack http://bitstrategist.com January 3, 2010

Twitter 101+

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Want to know the basics of Twitter, and then take it a bit further? Here's my take on the popular microblogging platform, and what you need to know to make the most of it.

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Page 1: Twitter 101+

1 Ryan McCormack :: January 2010 :: http://bitstrategist.com

101+

Ryan McCormack http://bitstrategist.com

January 3, 2010

Page 2: Twitter 101+

2 Ryan McCormack :: January 2010 :: http://bitstrategist.com

What you’ll find here…

•  An overview of the service •  How messages work •  Who can see your messages •  The basic tools you use with Twitter •  A few simple tips

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What you won’t find here…

•  Detailed usage guidelines •  Twitter influence, analytics, ROI, … •  Strategy for businesses and Twitter •  Why Twitter is important

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Outline

•  Overview: What is Twitter •  Messages •  Sharing •  140 Characters •  Twitter Myths •  Tools for Tweets •  Five tips

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What is Twitter

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Twitter is about sharing messages

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A definition

Twitter is an online service that allows you to share 140-character messages

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The basics: Reading messages

•  You choose people whose messages you want to be able to read, and you “follow” them

•  Their messages (or “tweets”) show up in your “stream”

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The basics: Reading messages

Stream of “Tweets”

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The basics: What is a stream?

•  A collection of messages you can view (aka “timeline”)

•  Your follower stream has messages from the people you follow, sorted in reverse chronological order

•  Any set of logically grouped messages (e.g., by user) can be a stream

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Streams (cont’d)

Time The stream never stops flowing…but that’s ok

Older messages

Newer messages

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Streams (cont’d)

What you see: The most recent stuff

The entire stream

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The basics: Sending messages

•  You can write short messages and the people who “follow” you can read them (if they’re public, everyone can)

•  Whoever reads your messages can also share them with whoever follows them

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The basics: Sending messages

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The basics: Tools

•  You use a “client” to send and read messages

•  Example: twitter.com web site

•  Additional clients exist on the web, desktop, and all mobile devices

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Seems simple…what’s the fuss?

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Before we begin…

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Twitter is the Wild West of technology

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Twitter provides the building blocks

•  140 character messages

•  How “following” works

•  Favorites, Lists, (Twitter) Retweet

•  Privacy, blocking and spam reporting

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The crowd makes up the rest

•  Twitter specifies nothing about syntax beyond d as the first “word” of a direct message

•  The community has evolved its own microsyntax, etiquette, and conventions, much of which Twitter has adopted

•  Things are still evolving!!!

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Messages The social objects that are shared on Twitter

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Messages can be anything

What’s Happening?

Sharing Information

Maintaining “presence”

Social Good

Being Funny

Having Deep Thoughts

Connecting with people

Sharing Opinions

Self-promotion

News

Events

Articles

Video

Images

Events

Politics

News

People

Promoting Others

Blogs

Web sites

Sharing Information

News

Events

Articles

Video

Images

Blogs

Web sites

Sharing Opinions

Events

Politics

News

People

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Messages can be anything

Sharing Information

Maintaining “presence”

Social Good

Being Funny

Having Deep Thoughts

Connecting With people

Sharing Opinions

Self-promotion

News

Events

Articles

Video

Images

Events

Politics

News

People

Promoting Others

Blogs

Web sites

What’s Happening?

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A few sample tweets

Source: http://bit.ly/8PKCKw

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Sharing images and video

•  Many services exist for sharing multimedia

•  Media are often seen with messages (like email attachments)

•  Twitter account usually linked

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Example: Image sharing

Take a photo with your

phone

Use mobile client to

create and post a

message

Message shows up on Twitter

with link to image

Link shows image in client

Image lives on Twitpic web site

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Twitter has a shibboleth (more later)

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From the Wild I

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From the Wild II

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How messaging works

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Twitter sends your message for you

THE SENDER @mashable

(aka Pete Cashmore)

THE MESSENGER @twitter

THE RECIPIENTS The people who can

see your message (but may not)

THE MESSAGE

“Apple to sell Android iPhones!

http://bit.ly/34a4al”

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Recipients can be many or one

“I found a gr8 Halloween costume for Bingo!!! Lolz…See

you tonight”

“Fantastic article: 20 Food Rules from Michael Pollan

http://bit.ly/mcTCj ”

BROADCAST MESSAGE (“TWEET”) Messages you want many to see

DIRECT MESSAGES (DM) Messages you want ONE to see

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So, who sees your tweets? YOUR FOLLOWERS

People interested in what you share

Public timeline

Search

Retweets

EVERYONE ELSE People who find what you’ve shared (if allowed)

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Reply to a message (“@ replies”)

@mashable Ha! The day Apple does that

I’ll eat my shoe

@mashable No way! I can’t believe it!

@mashable Have zombies taken over at

Apple, and Jobs is under mind control?

“Apple to sell Android iPhones!

http://bit.ly/34a4al”

Conversational response to a message, attribution provided

with @username

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“Retweet” a message (RT)

•  Twitter slang for repeating a message from someone else

•  Example of the power of network effects in many-to-many communications

•  One metric used to measure influence

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Retweets can cause chain reactions

•  Network effects can amplify your message

•  Example •  I have 10 followers •  I send a message and they all see it •  1 of my followers retweets my message •  Their followers see my original message, and some of them

retweet it •  And so on, and so on….

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The parable of the chessboard

•  One penny per square

•  Double on every subsequent square

•  How many squares before there is more than $1 million on the board?

27 squares = ~$1.34 million

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Sample network effect: 3RTs = ~250,000 possible views

@hirshberg 1337 followers

He must be joking: RT @mashable Apple to sell

Android iPhones! http://bit.ly/34a4al

@Alyssa_Milano 236,575 followers

Crazy news about Android phones

http://bit.ly/34a4al (via @mashable)

@seanpercival 7763 followers

RT @mashable Apple to sell

Android iPhones! http://bit.ly/34a4al

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Anatomy of a Retweet

He must be joking: Comment about the message (optional)

RT: An indication that this is a retweet

@mashable: The person who wrote the original message

Apple to sell…: The actual message (possibly edited for length)

He must be joking: RT @mashable Apple to sell

Android iPhones! http://bit.ly/34a4al

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The “Twitter” Retweet

•  Appears as a message in your stream

•  Does not contain RT or @

•  Has no comments or additions

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Sharing People and the social aspect of Twitter

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So who uses Twitter, anyway?

•  Twitter is a huge community

•  20-40 million unique visitors per month to twitter.com

•  20-50 Million messages / day (roughly 4 billion tweets in 2009)

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More visitors than NYTimes.com

Twitter growth has been phenomenal*

* But it may be flattening…

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Twitter is used by “everyone”

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People “follow” others and are followed

Your “Followers”

People you follow

Your Twitter “friends”

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People can protect their privacy

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People are identified using a handle and an @

@mashable is a “handle” on Twitter

(like an email address)

Profile page information

Link using @

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Follow “valuable” people…that’s the point

•  Friends and family

•  Colleagues, competitors, professionals

•  Celebrities, authors, educators

•  People who are funny, insightful, inspiring

•  Anyone who’s interesting!!

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Use Twitter “lists” to find interesting people

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Twitter lists (cont’d)

•  Lists are “curated collections” of people on Twitter

•  You can create them or follow lists created by others

•  Use tools like Listorious (.com) to find lists by category, tag, popularity etc.

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So who’s got the most followers?

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk): 4.0+ million followers

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Unfollow / block time wasters

•  Bots, spammers and snake-oil salesmen

•  People with whom you wouldn’t have a beer

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Meformers (80%) vs. Informers (20%)

Source: http://bit.ly/1X18c1 3000 tweets, 350 Twitter users

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140 characters Short messages can pack a punch, but there are some tricks

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Different messages for different mediums

Fortune Cookie 10-20 words

Telegram 10-100 words

Magazine article 250-1000 words

Book 50,000+ words

140 characters = ~25-35 words

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Length isn’t everything

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” (57 characters)

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Why 140 characters??

Compatibility for mobile-device text messaging (SMS)

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Twitter lingo and tools shorten messages

•  URL shorteners (e.g., bit.ly)

•  RT = Retweet, DM = Direct message

•  @username for people

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Lingo and tools shorten messages (cont’d)

•  Abbreviations (e.g., omg, ftw, btw, fyi, lol)

•  “Hashtags” to support search (e.g., #design)

•  Attribution shortcuts (by for authors, via for sources, symbols like ^ for “cotweets”)

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Twitter Myths

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Myth 1: People only talk about what they ate for lunch

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Myth 1: People only talk about what they ate for lunch

•  Possibly true, but…

•  If someone you follow talks about things you don’t like, don’t follow them

•  For friends at a distance, this kind of presence can be fun

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Myth 2: It’s a flood…I can’t read it all

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Myth 2: It’s a flood…I can’t read it all

•  Twitter messages aren’t necessarily critical

•  It doesn’t matter if you see everything

•  In most cases, you won’t….

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Myth 3: Twitter is for teenagers

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Myth 3: Twitter is for teenagers

•  Actually, many teenagers don’t like or use Twitter all that much

•  Twitter hits a broad demographic; it’s not focused in any one age, economic, or geographic group

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Myth 4: Everyone can see what I say

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Myth 4: Everyone can see what I say

•  If you want the world to see your tweets, you can, but…

•  Twitter has privacy settings where you can protect your tweets

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Myth 5: You can really make a fool of yourself

Actually, this is true…

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Tools for Tweets

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RSS

Desktop Mobile (Apps and SMS)

Web

Lots of ways to access Twitter

“Apple to sell Android iPhones!

http://bit.ly/34a4al”

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Twitter.com

Web-based clients Brizzly

Seesmic

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Mobile clients

Twitterific

Tweetie

Twidroid

OpenBeak (Twitterberry)

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Desktop clients

Tweetdeck

Seesmic

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Helper web sites

Oneforty: For tools+apps

Twitter search

Listorious: For lists

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Strategies and etiquette

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There’s no “right” way, but…

•  Tons of people will tell you how you “should” use Twitter

•  How you use it depends on your goals

•  Don’t use it if you don’t get anything out of it!

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1. Silence is golden…

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1. Silence is golden…

•  Don’t break it unless you think you can improve upon it

•  Think about your audience and what they get out of what you say

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2. Minimize self promotion

Maximize “good” promotion

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2. Minimize self promotion

•  It’s ok, but do it sparingly: •  New blog posts •  Awards or accomplishments •  Cool stuff you did (e.g., projects)

•  If you’re just using Twitter personally, brag all you want

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2. Maximize “good” promotion

•  Good is relative; think of your audience

•  Tweet about interesting articles, design, images, video that somehow “fit” your Twitter persona

•  Retweet good stuff from others

•  Recommend people worth following (e.g., on #followfriday or through lists)

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3. Don’t just be a parrot

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3. Don’t just be a parrot

•  Plenty of people on Twitter just repeat what others say (through retweeting or quoting)

•  There are more than enough of these people

•  Add value

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4. Give credit where credit is due

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4. Give credit where credit is due

•  People share a lot of great ideas

•  If you pass them along, let people know where they came from!

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5. For followers: Quality, not quantity

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Summary

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What is Twitter

An online service that allows you to share 140-character messages