Twitter: How to use it effectively and why it matters
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As of this writing, Twitter has about 6 million users
There are several ways to use Twitter to reach your audience
Use it as intended for “microblogging”
Every entry is at most 140 characters long. You can share your thoughts and anyone can read them. If someone likes your comments, she can choose to “follow” your updates.
To make things slightly more confusing, they can subscribe to an XML feed of your updates, but in practice that is rarely done.
Use it as to augment RSS, ATOM, and other XML feeds
Even as major browsers are continually improving the XML feed support (RSS is actually a trademark), most people are still not adopting this feature.
The old way to use the web for me was to bookmark a site, visit it daily or more often, and hope the site posted new information for my enjoyment.
As XML feed support improved in mainstream browsers, particularly with Internet Explorer 7, I added about 50 different websites into my XML feed reader. This allows me to quickly scan my preferred information sources for new updates.
Most people are still not using the XML feed functionality. Some use it with built-in browser features, others with a web-based XML feed reader such as My Yahoo, Google Reader, and so on.
While 140 characters may not sound like much, thanks to services such as TinyURL, it is possible to convey a lot of information in such a limited amount of space.
A power Twitter user will typically write a normal article and then broadcast a notification to his followers consisting of the top headline and a shortened URL.
These days, I am more likely to view new articles from links in my TwitterFox or Twhirl then from my XML reader.
Use it as a very public chat room
If I want to, I can have a public discussion with another twitter user using the @username syntax. Ordinarily, such people are hard to reach, but if my message is extremely compelling, it is the easiest way to break-through all barriers in real-time.
Note: if your message begins with @wiseleo, only your followers who already follow @wiseleo will see it. If you truly want everyone to see your conversation, start your message with “Hey @Wiseleo” or “RT @Wiseleo”. As long as the first character of your message is anything other than @, every follower will see what I wrote to that person.
Use it as an instant messaging platform with Direct Messages
Not everything should be public information. By prefacing my message with “d”, I can send it directly to another user. Because Direct Messages have a higher priority and can be delivered to your handheld device even though you don’t allow any other notifications to your handheld device, you can only send them to those who already follow you.
Become a power user with 3rd party Twitter clients
Twitter will not seem significant initially if you simply use the web interface. When you start using 3rd-party software applications such as Twhirl, TweetDeck, TwitterFox, and others like it, you will quickly realize why everyone is raving about it.
I also use Tweeter Facebook application (I prefer it to the “official” Twitter app) to synchronize my Twitter updates to my Facebook status updates and WackyB’s Yahoo! Messenger TwitterSync plugin to synchronize my Twitter updates to my Yahoo! Messenger status update. By the way, TwitterSync meows a lot… Disable sound and disable update notifications if you use other Twitter clients.
This permits me to post an update on Twitter once and have it disseminated through all of my social networking channels immediately without having to manually adjust each of them.
Viral marketing solution with re-tweeting
Let’s say you liked this article and you want to let your followers know about it. Many Twitter clients have a one-click feature to “retweet” a tweet from someone. This will expose your new post to that other person’s list of followers. As you can imagine, if you get someone like Guy Kawasaki with his thousands of followers interested in re-tweeting your post, you would be quite swamped with traffic in an instant.
Summary
Twitter is a nice platform for achieving maximum exposure for your information. Unlike allowing others to be in your Facebook or LinkedIn network, Twitter is a very light-weight tool when it comes to your privacy. If you already use your Facebook status updates to inform your friends and business associates, Twitter will allow you to do the same without allowing others to see the private information in your profile.
New Twitter users can follow and unfollow you at any time, with a single click. Try that with a traditional E-mail newsletter. Twitter users are far more likely to read what you have to say than they are to read your E-mail newsletters.
Follow people whose comments you may find interesting and some may in turn find your updates interesting as well.
Use a Twitter client to derive the most benefits. Stay engaged with your followers who comment on your articles via Twiter and more will follow.
You do not have to use your cell phone with Twitter. That is a misconception. You can choose to post updates and receive notifications from Twitter through your cell phone, but it’s entirely optional.
About the author
Leonid S. Knyshov (@wiseleo) writes about social media and other topics of interest on http://Knyshov.com
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