Twitter 101

So, I posted a blog yesterday about my twitter marketing pet peeves and a few great tips from Forbes.com on how to twitter market successfully. Boom Pow! Between yesterday and today about 100 people message me: What is all this twitter about? I don't get it. Why are people doing this?

I went ahead and assumed that since Ashton Koocher(haha) is tweeting and he has half of America following him, that everyone knows what exactly tweeting is all about. My mistake.

So I am gonna break it down and give you some great applicable uses for twitter and some links that will teach you how to catch the twitter bug.

To get started, watch this video:

https://help.twitter.com/portal

After you watch the video, scroll down and read all of the helpful information below to help you begin to understand how to use twitter.com.

Hopefully you read all of that useful informaiton and watched the video. Now you have the basics. If you haven't read this information on twitter.com, then the rest of this blog will end up being confusing, so make sure to read it before finishing this blog.

Here is where the fun begins.

Finding people to follow: 

Twitter is about connecting with people like you. Family, friends, people that have the same passions that you do, people that intrigue/interest you, or people that can use your service or product.

Search for friends, family, maybe even motivational speakers,experts in your industry that you would like to network with or learn from, famous people that intrigue you, such as Oprah, President Obama, @AskOzzie, P Diddy, etc.....

I started following people like P diddy, thinking he would say cool stuff or teach me how to break in to the music industry, but of course neither happened, so I stopped following him. It's that simple. Many people get on and just begin following every person they can because they think it will build their network. That is the worst thing to do. Just because you follw them does not mean they will follow you or ever care about connecting with you.

Afte you have found a basic group of people you want to follow, now you can expand it even more and search topics that interest you. I searched "Pearland" because I live here, work here and my family has been here since the 40's. I also search the "Houston Texans" because they are my favorite sports team and I have season tickets. I follow my favorite athletes on the team to see what they have to say. Mario Williams doesn't tweet much, but I also follow Shaq and sometimes he says funy stuff. Have fun with it, you can always stop following them if they bore you.

Twitter Language 101 - Getting your message out:

Now that you have established a presence in the twitter world, it's time to take it to the next level. Since you only have 140 characters per tweet you must use them wisely. For the Text saavy audience you know that the language of text/tweet is different than the language of e-mail. E-mails are expected to be professional and words are expected to be fully written out. The language of text/tweet is made of shorthand, abbrevations, and substitutions.

Example:

E-mail message: It has been too long. How are you doing? What are your plans for this evening?

Text/Tweet: message: Long time, no C. How r u doin? Plans 2nite?

Get creative, but don't confuse people.

Twitter is also a great place to go ahead and post links. With 140 characters you have to get your message across and then get them to click on your link. Links are a great way to let people see your larger messages without having to write 10 tweets to complete a thought. It works well for tech saavy people because we can link to our blogs, cool news articles, our web sites, etc...

Link Tip: Sometimes you may be tweeting a link that is too large to fit with your message in 140 characters. Go to www.TinyUrl.com. Copy your original link from your web browser(I highlight it, then click Ctrl+C). Then, paste the URL that you copied from the web browser in the designated box on the www.TinyUrl.com page(I use the Ctrl+V to paste). Click the "Make TinyURL!" button and presto-changeo! A new, smaller URL will automatically save itself to your clipboard. Simply paste the new URL into your tweet after your inviting message. Pretty cool, Huh?

Making a connection and having people follow you:

Now I will explain hashtags. If you want a better chance of people finding you based on your tweet content you may want to use hashtags. Example: #Texans is a hashtag. The # sign is what is called the hashtag. Sometimes when I tweet about the Texans my tweet may read: "Great Game today! Super Mario and Brian Cushing lead the #Texans to a victory. Bring on the next victim: #Titans." In that message I placed a hashtag on the #Texans and the #Titans. That way other people will begin using the same hashtags. If others want to chime in on the conversation they can search for our hashtags and tweet about these teams. We may even begin a debate. Some people get pretty serious about their team. If many people tweet about the Texans or Titans and use the hashtag, then it will become a trending topic. Meaning, lots of people are tweeting about the same thing. Hashtags are simply put at the front of words to make them stand out and make them more searchable/connectable.

As you tweet more and interact more, you are putting more tweets out there for people to see what interests you. Other people will begin searching topics and see your tweets. That is a good thing. The more people that read your tweets, the more people that might like what you have to say and begin following you. More followers means more people believe that what you have to say is relevant.

Hopefully this blog post was educational and will help you to begin exploring the world of twitter. Possibly, it could even help your business marketing campaign or simply get you connected with some new or old friends. Whatever you do, do it well.

About the Blogger:

My name is Ozzie ramirez and I am part owner of Capital Trust Realty and AskOzzie.com located in the Pearland and Greater Houston Area. I am a licensed REALTOR® in the state of Texas and I use social media to grow my business.

Follow me on twitter: www.Twitter.com/AskOzzie

Become a fan on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/FanofOZ

Come check out our new office:

2506 Francis Dr.    Pearland, TX  77581