DIY: Twitter 101 Etiquette: Guide to Understanding The Basic "Laws" of Twitterland

This one goes out to all my tweeps!

This blog post was originally inspired by our Search Engine strategies seminar with Kevin Ryan who opened with encouragement to take 2 Advils and hang in there tomorrow morning for the end of the SES 09 conference.

He first introduced Andy Beal who was a rebel with his black underground background for his presentation who discussed the following Twitter basics…

Avoid Being A Twit on Twitter:

You heard it on the news.
Your daughters were talking about it.
Your mommy friend with the iphone does it all the time.
You heard Ryan Seacrest talking about it on the radio.
You saw a page get indexed for your competitor with it.

Then you had to, so you did it. You started a twitter account. CELLLL-EBRATION! Welcome to the club. Now, get ready for the ride.

If you’ve ever been addicted to anything, here comes another.
When you’re ready for help with your twaddiction, here’s the Twitter 12 Step Program

So, CCWD is here to help get you started on this crazy adventure you are going on. Let us help you get yourself acquainted. Here are your MUST KNOW TWITTER RESOURCES & TIPS!

Twitter Etiquette 101:

1. When you fist sign up for Twitter, get your name right!
   • Nicknames are for mostly teenagers. Dont use the same username you’ve had since high school.
   • If you’re not ready, secure your brand anyway. This is an opportunity to start branding yourself, your product or your service.
   • Twitter profiles get Google-juiced quicklyClick HERE to read more about selecting a username via our DIY – How To Create A Twitter Account to Brand Yourself & Market Your Business Manual
2. Ooooh, pretty!
   • Stand out from the crowd!
   • Pimp your profile. Make it worth coming back to. Look professional or stylish.
   • If nothing else, change the darn default colors!
   • http://twitterbacks.com – You can use their templates to download and customize in photoshop.
3. Don’t Just Sit there, Tweet!

   Start talking. Have something to read when you start looking for people to follow. They will go to your twitter page so make sure they WANT to follow you to. Get started chatting. Here’s how you can engage…

   What does that mean??? The basics…

   • @usernamehere – this makes a comment public but would be for a specific user.
     i.e. – “@calcoast Thank you for your helpful post on getting started with twitter!”

     NOTE: Its important to receive/review replies to you from anyone even if you aren’t following them. All @replies will allow you to get that message from anyone. This is important to brand and reputation management. You may view this by logging into your Twitter account and selecting the “@replies” link in the nav of your homepage.
     
     Or, click HERE for our blog post on how to set up alerts to your email each time you are mentioned on twitter with our blog, DIY – Tweet Beep Alerts: Monitoring Your Brand, Industry & Target Market.

   • D usernamehere – 1 on 1 instant message. Does not go public. This is crucial when you you start to have a conversation with someone. We don’t all want your whole convo!
   • #keywordhere – This is a hashtag which tags the comment for that topic with specified keywords. So if you just tweeted about President Obama being in OC this week, label the end of your post with “#obama”
   • Favorite your…er favorites.
   • “Don’t Use Protection!” – Do not block users form seeing your update or approving them to see. You want to encourage interaction. Make it easy to do so.
4. Learn the Pidgin
   • 1st, you only get 140 characters (many people use their cell phones) so use them wisely! Remember, your engaging your users so you want to try and call them to action. Encourage feedback. Save room for your link reference as well!
   • Need to shorten your URL to save character space, use bit.ly to generate a new shorter URL that is even trackable!
   • common terms:
     • tweet = send message
     • Tweeple/Tweeps = people you’re connected with on twitter
     • Follow/Followers = those who get/give updates with your profile.
     • Retweet = when someone sends something someone else has said. It’s a forward. Correct formatting…
       “RT @username Copy and paste forwarded tweet text here.”
     • Check out http://twitionary.blogspot.comfor all terms
5. Follow The Leader
   • This is not a popularity contest!
   • Follow 500 and you will burn out. So, follow press, employees, important customers, close friend and family or those you REALLY want regular updates on/from. Those who will bring value to your network that you want to learn, laugh or love from and with, etc.
   • Remember that you follow other to encourage them to follow you back. How else will they know you’re out there. If you build it, they wont necessarily come. Now go get em tiger 😉
   • Engage users to follow you by interacting with them directly one-on-one. Start with @username and start chatting about something they mentioned.
   • If you haven’t already, now is a good time o set up your device updates if you so please. None of us have a lot of time. I don’t always remember to twitter before I shut my laptop for he day. I can remember to twitter when I’m waiting at the doctors, sitting at a stop light or waiting for my lunch. So, make it easy to update with Mobile Device updates! Simply log into your account and select “Settings” and then “Devices” and follow the onscreen prompts. Once the account is set up, you should receive a confirmation text message to your phone. Save that message as a contact and start using this as your posting platform rather than twitter online itself! No excuses! Once this is set up, you can choose to turn device updates on for those who you follow and would like to receive twitter text message updates from.
6. Its One Big Cocktail Party

   Make sure you put your best foot forward.

   • Watch for interesting conversations. Use Twitter Search to find topics your interested in by searching via keyword
   • Don’t send Twitter spam. Ick!
   • Use @ Conversations with people to build new followers.
   • Don’t always expect a reply.
   • Sometimes direct messages fall on deaf ears. It only gets through if that person is following you.
   • Have some etiquette. Don’t send regular consecutive updates. Those of us who are not interested in having 6 texts tell us what you ate for lunch, by unfollow you or at least turn device updates off if you do! Take ot to a private convo or direct message if you must! Click HERE for more on Twitter Etiquette.
7. Back to Sharing
   • Why should someone follow you? Make it worth their while.
   • Be the first to break the news.
   • Live Tweet events/conferences.
   • Be funny, be resourceful, be viral
   • Keep it 80% social, 20% business. Who wants to follow boring snoring?
8. Cross Promote Carefully
   • Use Twitterfeed.com to integrate your blog into your twitter stream.
   • Use Twitter Facebook application to have Facebook auto update when you twitter. 2 birds, 1 stone!Update your facebook through twitter using the Twitter Facebook application HERE.
   • Use Twitter Widgets to integrate your tweets into your Myspace page or any other online presence that accepts HTML
   • Strictly Business!
   • Your Twitter reputation IS your reputation
   • Don’t get pulled into a negative conversations
   • Monitor your reputation on Twitter – search.twitter.comtweetbeep.com
   • If you’re gonna get heavy on business, make sure you know who’s talking about you!
     http://blog.twitter.com/2007/09/tracking-twitter.html
   • Online reputation management tool, Trackur.comCl
9. Tools
   • Tweetdeck.com
   • Twhirl.com
   • Twitterific

Click HERE to read more on optimizing and populating your Twitter page with DIY – How To Use Twitter: Get Twitter Followers & Potential Consumers!

Finally,as our SES session closes, we are reminded that everyone is using twitter, even MC Hammer. Kevin Ryan laughs at the MC Hammer Reference. He says “The 80s called and they want there joke back.”

Ryan cracks me up. Chris thought he was bagging on the panel yesterday. He can spread the loving sarcasm. He’ll crave it next year. LOL.

To follow Cal Coast Web Design on twitter, visit Twitter.com/calcoast or converse with us @calcoast.