Twitter for Individuals

Twitter is used to create brand awareness, increase followers, and provide informative and relevant content. 

Twitter also allows businesses to interact with consumers in real time. 

The Twitter strength are the real-time applications.

It also has paid options that enable businesses to promote accounts, tweets, and trends.

Twitter online social networking: 

• Enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets". 

• Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them.

Terms

• Twitter Handle - username, your user name, usually:

  • Uniquely catchy

  • Easy to remember and spell

  • May not want to use your full name

• Profile picture or avatar

  • Bio

• Tweet - up to a 140 character message

• Re Tweet or RT - resharing or giving credit to someone else's tweet

• Feed - stream of tweets you see on your Twitter homepage

  • Updates form users you follow

  • Advertisements

• Mention - @username - a way to reference in a tweet another Twitter user

• Direct Message or DM - a private message upto 140 characters between 2 Twitter users

  • Can only DM a user who follows you

• Privacy settings

  • Accept direct messages?

• Hashtag - # - pound symbol with letters or numbers, no spaces, the shorter the better 

  • Linked topic or conversation categorization

  • Allows others to find Tweets on the topic

  • Click on a hashtag to see all Tweets with that hashtag in realtime

  • Example, #unitewnc - a hashtag for all online tools to group dialogue on uniting Western North Carolina tech (IT)) planning

Training

• The Beginner's Guide to Twitter - Mashable

• Twitter Help Center

  • Signing up with Twitter

  • New user FAQs

• Twitter 101 - GCF Learn Free

• The Twitter Guide Book - Mashable

• Twitter Apps Guide

• Following rules and best practices

Tools

• Blab

• Canva - for your social media image designs

• Click to Tweet - promote & advertise on Twitter

• MyTweetLinks: Increases Twitter traffic

• Riffle: Full profile and info on any Twitter user

• SocialRank: Identify, organize, and manage your followers on Twitter

• Spruce: Make Twitter ready images in seconds

• Tweet Binder

• Twitonomy

Apps

• Kanvas - creative self expressions for output to Twitter

• Tweetbot for the iPhone

  • Background content fetch

  • Media Timeline

  • Drafts

  • Customer services / Customized tab 

  • Push and inline notifications

  • Power Mute

  • Wifi Streaming

Articles

• Now You Can #GoLive Right On Twitter

• Twitter unveils features to filter tweets, notifications

• How to Make Twitter Actually Useful

• Twitter Hashtags Can Contribute To Real World Change, Study Finds

• How the Branded Hashtag Emoji Is Taking Over Twitter

• Twitter's 2015 Review

• A new look for your twitter.com photos

• Twitter's Project Lightning could be called 'Moments'

• Tackling Social Media: Don’t Do It All!

• How to Clean Up Your Messy Twitter Feed

• How to Retweet the Right Way (With a Comment) on Twitter

• How to Live-Tweet an Event to Help Your Business

• 11 Twitter mistakes to avoid at all costs

• 8 Ways Twitter Chats Can Benefit Your Business

• Ultimate guide building for your twitter presence

• How often should you post on Twitter?

• How to find and remove fake followers from Twitter and Instagram

• Use Twitter lists for business

• Twitter is Deep, Facebook is Shallow

• Twitter Rolls Out Mobile Video

• 15 Affiliate Marketing Hastags

• Twitter Analytics Tools

• How to build a winning Twitter ad campaign

Tips

• Choose the right Twitter handle (use the @)

• Use #hashtags

• 140 character limit - tweet with links

  • Make full-length URLs shorter with sites like:

    • bit.ly

    • TinyURL.com

• Follow to be followed, choose wisely

• Shorten URLs with http://www.bit.ly

• Add the follow button to your site instead of a T icon

  • https://support.twitter.com/articles/81218-adding-twitter-buttons-to-your-website 

• Brand your Twitter channel to match your website and other social media accounts

• Be active every day

• Request to verify an account 

• • The blue verified badge   on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic

Also See

• Emoji

• Hashtags

• Twitter for Business