Twitter 101: It’s Time To Advocate!

Author: Matt

31 Mar

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past several months learning about Twitter and more recently answering the slue of questions from those new to the platform or interested learning more about it. As a result, we have recently put together a simple 90-minute crash course called…Twitter 101 (go figure:).

twitter

Here is a quick overview of this session – I would love your feedback…are we missing anything, did we focus on the wrong things, etc.?

Social Media Facts

Social Media are platforms for interaction & relationships, not content and ads (as with traditional “old media”)
5 Misconceptions about Social Media:
1. Another fad
2. It’s for kids or teens
3. Used by tech geeks
4. Not for businesses
5. A BIG waste of time
Social networks & blogs = 4^th most popular online activity ahead of email
67% of overall global online community now visit these sites
The biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “member Community” web sites globally came from the 35-49 yr old age group (+11.3 million)

What is Twitter?

Twitter is “The world’s largest cocktail party!” With 11 million registered users, Twitter is growing 6X faster than Facebook.

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ “updates” known as tweets. (wikipedia)

Twitter Crash Course

Create your Twitter profile
Followers – see everything you tweet; Following – you see everything they tweet
Search for other Tweeps – “find people”
Tweeting:
1. Begin engaging in conversations once you have some that you’re following
2. Do tell people what you’re doing, but less than 50% of your tweets
3. Share useful stories, blog posts, quotes or information – you want them to share with their followers
@ Replies
Direct Messages or DM’s
Retweet or RT

Time Management

Restricting your time on Twitter is important

Block off three 15-20 minute blocks of time throughout your day
When you’re on Twitter – don’t reply to email, answer phone calls etc. FOCUS on Twitter, ENGAGE
If time allows, spend the evening catching up with your tweeps; especially if your time was cut short during the workday

Useful Twitter Sources & Sites

www.tinyurl.com – shortens any URL allowing you to include it in your tweets, keeping it within the 140 characters

www.twitpic.com – allows you to share photos on Twitter

www.tweetdeck.com – helps you organize those you’re following into categories & makes it easier to tweet with each.

www.tweetlater.com – just like Google Alerts, it uses “keywords” to help you find others that are tweeting about things you’re interested in, allowing you to follow them.

www.twellow.com – allows you to search by category or industry + same functionality of Twitter Search

www.mrtweet.net – this is your personal networking agent that looks at your existing followers and following and lines you up with others that share similar traits.

Filed under: Social Media

10 Responses for "Twitter 101: It’s Time To Advocate!"

amymengel March 31st, 2009 at 11:15 am 1
You’ve definitely covered the basics! Here are a few of my thoughts:

It may be useful to include a bit or two about how Twitter can be used as a monitoring tool for brands serve customers immediately and throw in a quick case study or two (@comcastcares, for example: http://tinyurl.com/7qcr2u).

Brian Solis also has an excellent list that he updates frequently highlighting Twitter apps and resources: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-community-and.html

I’d also consider touching upon hashtags and scheduled Twitter conversations like #journchat, for example. It’s a little more “advanced” but definitely can be valuable for people who are trying to figure out how to use Twitter effectively and learn from the people on it.

Good luck with the course!

@amymengel
Matt March 31st, 2009 at 11:42 am 2
Awesome feedback, Amy! I really like your point about using Twitter as a monitoring tool – perhaps we can bring this up when talking about some of the tools like TweetLater.

We considered the hashtag scheduled conversations/event on Twitter but felt that might be for the Twitter 201 level:).

Let me know if you’d be interested in teaching such a course in your market…I’d love to have you!

Matt
Leslie Banks March 31st, 2009 at 12:48 pm 3
I like the inclusion of facts/stats. Numbers always help give context re: Twitter and it’s place in the online world.

If your course is for companies/brands, it would be helpful to educate companies on how to be part of the conversation on Twitter and how to find their angle/voice on Twitter. What do they want to say — it’s more than just pushing out advertising and marketing messages. What do they want to learn from their audience and potential clients?

@redinthecity, @MStarAdvisor
Arik Hanson March 31st, 2009 at 8:34 pm 4
Definitely agree with Amy on the hash tag conversation. That’s an important education piece–I’d argue that actually should go in the 101 program.

I think we need a better Twitter elevator speech though. I’ve found myself in situations recently where I could have used a 30 second description of Twitter and its benefits. World’s Largest Cocktail Party is accurate, yes, but it may not help promote the perception we’re hoping for at this point.

I’ve given this concept some thought, too, over the last few weeks and what I think is most important based on what I’ve seen my from my PR colleagues and business partners is more of a hands-on session. It sounds like that’s what your recommending, but I would literally sit down with people and help them set up an account, show them how to find and follow folks with common interests, follow a hash tag conversation, things like that. Again, probably where you were going with this…

Finally, to your resources list, I’d add two: http://www.tweetchat.com (to follow hash tag convos) and http://www.tweetgrid.com.

@arikhanson
Mike Pilarz April 1st, 2009 at 6:39 am 5
This is a great introduction to Twitter, Matt.

Here’s something you might consider. A colleague and I recently gave a similar introduction to Twitter for our team and found that one of the most compelling ways to earn immediate buy-in was to personalize the conversation by:

- Doing a search.twitter.com query for each participants’ business name or industry, showing them the conversation that’s *already happening*(in real-time) around that key term.

- Showing a competitor’s Twitter page, illustrating that their industry peers are already using the tool effectively and building up a community.

Using tactics such as those helped to dispel the misconceptions you described above and set the stage for the rest of the presentation.

Keep up the great work!

@mikepilarz
Megan P. O'Malley April 1st, 2009 at 7:23 am 6
Overall, you definitely hit on the major points. I like the time management module. It’s so easy to let Twitter take over your day.

I do think, though, that it would be worth at least mentioning hashtags. Things like #followfriday can be really helpful to newbies; when I first joined Twitter, I was a bit confused by what all those #s meant! More complicated uses of hashtags, like scheduled convos, definitely are the 201 level, as you say in one of the comments.
Allan Schoenberg April 1st, 2009 at 11:48 am 7
Have to agree w/everyone above that this is well done. In fact, I’ve used parts already (is the invoice in the mail?). One thing you should add in your Crash Course section are # and $ and why/how people use them.

@allanschoenberg
Matt April 1st, 2009 at 5:43 pm 8
Awesome feedback…as I would expect from each of you:). Mike – I REALLY like your suggestion about searching for the conversations already taking place about Twitter on the industries of each audience or specific business name. We’ll be doing these with many industry-specific groups and I think this would really hit home for them…thanks!

I totally see value in the hashtag and $ but think that may be too challenging for beginners. Perhaps its worth a mention.

Soon moving this 90-minute crash course into a webinar…stay tuned!

Thanks again for everyone’s comments!

Matt
Wendy Van Parys April 1st, 2009 at 6:05 pm 9
Great basics for beginners, Matt! I also think twinfluence.com is a nice way for Tweeple to get a sense of what they are doing right (in line with their goals) and how they might improve.

Also, @jasontryfon has just launched tweepular.com today (4/1): a new web-based app with similar functionality to tweetdeck that bypasses the resource-hogging problems.

And Hubspot has a very helpful step-by-step whitepaper on Twitter for beginners that may provide some additional ideas.

I look forward to your webinar!

@wvpmc
Matt April 1st, 2009 at 6:14 pm 10
Thanks for your suggestions, Wendy! I have to check twinfluence.com & tweepular.com out ASAP to determine how they might fit into this session. As you can see, the 90-minute session could easily be a full day:).

Cheers!

Matt