How To Use Twitter

Lets face it, having a twitter account and making posts every day is not going to do you any good if you do not have any followers.

The first place to quickly gain followers is to find them here on Squidoo. In this module from my Squid Mentor lens you can find other lensmsasters who are interested in finding friends on twitter to follow.

To find followers from outside of Squidoo, try using the search button at the bottom of your twitter page. Do a search for a keyword that you focus your tweets about. A list of the latest tweets on the subject will appear. Visit the twitterers who made these tweets and leave a reply to their conversation. Also add them to your follow list. Odds are good that they will respond by following you right back.

The biggest problem that I see lensmaters doing on Twitter and Facebook doing is spamming your timeline with repeat phrases.

Do you really think that your followers will find it interesting that you repeat "I just updated my Squidoo page: www...."? This practice may be acceptable by other lensmasters that follow you, but, if you are looking or followers from outside of Squidoo, then you are going to come across as a spammer.

The Trick is to personalize your tweets because you are a person. You are not a broken record and that is what these "I just updated my Squidoo page..." tweets sound like.

For example, if your lens is about a book. Make your first tweet on the subject say something like, "I just ordered the book Peace Like A River off of Amazon, I can't wait to read it, I hear it is great." Then, your second tweet will say, "I'm halfway through the book Peace Like A River, I love it and can't put it down. It is so beautifully written." Then your third tweet will say, "Just finished the book Peace Like A River, best fiction that I have read in years. Read my full review here (put link in here)."

This will make your tweets much more interesting and will keep your followers hanging on to your tweets. It will also keep people following you and will help to inspire them to click your links.

Retweeting is a common practice on twitter and is a good way to both share useful or entertaining info while at the same time giving credit to the person that originally made the tweet.

The proper way to do a retweet is to type retweet @ and then the persons name. So if you were retweeting my post, you would type retweet, or abbreviate and use RT @jeffwend, and then paste the original tweet.

Only retweet what you truly find interesting or what you feel your followers will appreciate.

Retweeting will help to build the relationship between you and the person you are retweeting because you are sharing their tweets and a link to their twitter timeline with all of your followers which increase the odds of them gaining a new follower. Retweeting also increases the chances that you will be retweeted which will increase your visibility.

Twitter allows you to fit no more than 140 characters per tweet. For those of you are are used to article writing or blogging this is a big change. When you are used to writing minimum of 300 words per post, 140 characters can seem extremely challenging.

It may seem daunting, but you can do it. In fact with a little practice you are going to love the challenge of getting a message across is such a small amount of characters.

Here are some tips when you are stuck trying to fit your message into 140 characters:

• Switch the word "and" for + or &


• Use other characters when appropriate, in other words, # for number or %, or use = creatively.


• Contractions, instead of it is, use it's, or will not use won't.


• Shorten your URL's. A long URL can use up far too many precious characters. Use websites like ow.ly to shorten your URLs.


• Only when absolutely necessary use common texting abbreviations. In other words, using 2 instead of to, or brb for be right back. These work, but are not very professional.

These tips are very helpful when you are stuck trying to fit a message into your tweets. They are also very helpful for helping with retweeting.

Cartoon from Geek and Poke series by Oliver Widder.

The best and most comprehensive practical guide to twitter tools and how to use them are on the PCMIke Tech Blog.

PCMike goes over a list of very useful tools for twitter. My personal favorite is Hootsuite. Hootsuite allows you to easily multiple Twitter profiles, add multiple editors, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success.