If you keep wondering what Twitter is, why everyone is talking about it, if you should start doing it, or if you should just ignore it entirely and hope it will simply GO AWAY, The Complete Guide to Twitter, by Mark O’Neill, from MakeUseOf might help you make up your mind.  The guide “tackles every Twitter feature, tip and trick you can think of.”  The recently released guide provides instructions and screenshots for learning how to use the Twitter interface, provides suggestions for tweeting from your desktop, and details many other helpful hints.

Twitter Basics
Even if you are not sure if you want to play around with Twitter, you might want to consider signing up for an account.  It is very easy for your name or brand to get hijacked in social networking sites and very difficult to get them back.  I recommend this for most social media sites, even if you aren’t sure you want to use the application.

Here’s the basics for Twitter:

• To Tweet means to send a message.
• You can only Tweet/post 140 characters.  Shorten words and be brief, use slang and abbreviated words just like you would if you were sending a text message.
  • Twictionary: The Dictionary for Twitter! is a great place to find the meanings of abbreviated words on Twitter.
  • Use URL shortening services like tinyurl to save characters in your messages.
  • If you want to send pictures with your tweets, use a content hosting service like Twitpic.
  • @twittername sends a message to a specific user – EVERYONE SEES IT
  • d twittername sends a PRIVATE direct message.  YOU CAN ONLY SEND DIRECT MESSAGES TO PEOPLE YOU FOLLOW AND THEY ACCEPT THE REQUEST AND FOLLOW BACK.
  • BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU TWEET – You can protect your updates with a privacy setting but it will be very hard to understand the nature of twitter, promote yourself, or make new contacts if you do.  YOU CAN DELETE A TWEET BUT THEY DON’T EVER REALLY GO AWAY.
  • DON’T SPAM! Don’t send messages to people you don’t know.
  • DON’T BE SELF PROMOTING! Mix your messages.  It’s best if you use Twitter for personal contact most of the time and self promoting occasionally.

• Followers are people who want to see what you are tweeting
  • Remember to use Twitter to relay interesting news, valuable information, your opinions on current events…
  • Don’t follow everyone.  Be selective until you get the hang of it.
• ReTweeting is when someone resends a tweet that someone else said.
• Hashtags are used to search the Twitter system for tweets about a particular topic.  Users can define their own hashtags by using #before a word or phrase.
  • I monitor #cofc, #chs, #Addlestone Library, and #club addlestone right now on the CofC Twitter Account.  I monitor other hashtags on my personal twitter account.
  • #hashtags is a good place to look for twitter trends.
• Sending and Receiving Tweets
  • You can send tweets from the Twitter website, your phone, or with external applications.
  • I like tweetdeck and hootsuite because they allow me to manage multiple searches and twitter profiles.
  • You can also tie your twitter account to your Facebook profile.  When you do this, anything you post on your wall is automatically sent out via your twitter account.

How Can I Use It In My Every Day Life?

• Watch Twitter hashtags to keep abreast of current trends
  Bates Information Services provides many useful tips for using Twitter in real life in her October 2009 Bates Info Tip available at www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html One of Bates’ suggestions is to use  word-cloud generators to see what words are most frequently used in conjunction with a news event.  She uses Search Cloudlet, an add-on for Firefox.

• Analyze current trends
  One of today’s hot topics is Balloon Boy (found via the new Bing Twitter Search)
  

• A very quick Wordle visualization based on the tweets produced this – Balloon Boy Hoax, and some comparisons to Kanye.  I find this humorous.

There are lots of ways to visualize twitter trends.  A good starting point to find out how is to read the article 17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe by flowingdata.

• Monitor Mentions
  Bates also provides a useful suggestion to “monitor mentions of your organization’s names…” in her October 2009 Bates Info Tip.   As I noted above, I monitor #cofc, #chs, #Addlestone Library, and #club addlestone right now on the CofC Twitter Account.  Although it is fairly quiet on twitter in the library right now, we do have times when activity increases.  For example, we see more activity on #cofc, #chscool, and #rave when students plan a rave in the rotunda.

YouTube Video by sultanolli3

It is nice to know what’s going on around you.  Especially if in the next 15 minutes there are going to be a lot of students dancing in the rotunda.  I’ve been watching the library hashtags for most of the fall 2009 semester and there are a growing number of students using it to communicate with each other.  They seem to use it primarily to communicate where they are in the library or to relay information about where they are going after they leave.

• Gather Highlights from a Conference or Event
  Another great suggestion from Bates in her October 2009 Bates Info Tip is to “Gather hightlights from a conference.”  She suggests searching for the conference hashtag within a week of the conference and copying and pasting all the tweets into Wordle.net to generate a word cloud that can help identify dominant conference themes.  Using a hashtag for a conference or event helps facilitate communication during and after the conference.  It allows attendees to keep in touch, plan meet-ups, discuss information, ask questions, and clarify information that is being presented during the conference.  After the conference attendees many groups continue using their hashtag to stay in touch and continue communicating after the conference is over.

• Community Involvement
  I think one of the best parts of twitter is the ability to keep in touch with people you meet and add them to your social network.   How many times have you added someone to your phone, scribbled emails on your hand, scraps of paper, or a restaurant napkin, and couldn’t ever seem to get back in touch?

  I also think twitter is a wonderful way find local and global events happening that you might not have been aware of otherwise. Two such events/organizations in Charleston I have been able to contribute to and be a part of due to my daily interactions on twitter are the Social Media Club Charleston (#smcchs) and BarCamp Charleston (#barcamp) an ad-hoc, user generated “unconference” taking place October 24, 2009 at the Lowcountry Innovation Center.  I have also found it helpful to follow certain organizations on twitter like CAA (College Arts Association), ALA (American Library Association),  and wfh?! (user-editable encyclopedia for hashtags found on Twitter that tells you what is trending).

  My best advice about twitter is to try it out.  Initially, I was skeptical myself about the usefulness of this particular social web app.  Now I think that I couldn’t do without it.  It is my instant line of communication to people with the same interests as me, exposing me to places, events, and organizations I want to know about.