Clients, friends and family are catching the twitter bug. People I never imagined would be interested in twitter are finding unique uses for twitter across a wide range of interests. One uses twitter to track news, another to follow celebrity gossip, yet another to begin networking for career development, and another to drive blog traffic.

With twitter now serving as a news source, an RSS feed, a virtual networking event and a syndication forum, it’s important to note that because not everyone is using twitter in the same way, they don’t all need the same tools or to follow the same rules!

Most people see twitter as a place where you should want to be building an audience for yourself. But lately I’ve been met with a number of instances where the member is just using twitter to observe and gather info. They’re not there to be a leader.

This got me thinking. If twitter is going to become a ubiquitous tool serving many different purposes, then what are some pieces of advice we can give new members, no matter what their purpose? So here we go… five steps to understanding twitter no matter who you are:

1) The online interface for Twitter is not the best thing to use for twitter, apart from signing up for a new account. There are a lot of tools out there that will help you get more out of it. I recommend Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop. They are pretty comparable, though I’ve recently switched to Seesmic because it has a bit more functionality. If you’re looking for something that will work for you now as a beginner and also work if you get more into it and need more bells and whistles, go with Seesmic! This is similar to downloading AIM to your desktop instead of having to sign in through the clunky online interface. What it allows:

• Automatic refresh. You don’t have to keep clicking refresh on your page.
• Pop-up alerts if someone contacts you.
• Search: search for news, celebs, like-minded individuals, specific brands or topics, anything you can think of. Keep the search bar in tweetdeck or Seesmic and it will auto-refresh. So you want to keep track of conversations mentioning your favorite movie coming out Friday? Just type it in and you’ll get all the updates in real-time!
• All the other functions of twitter. Follow people, see what they’re saying, reply to them, direct message them, etc. All without having to actually go to your twitter page through a browser.

2) So you’re all set with your desktop app and you want to check out what all these other twitter types are up to? Here’s where search becomes key. Use search to find people or brands that interest you. Like reading the NYTimes? Follow them on twitter for live updates. Think Ashton Kutcher is hilarious? He’s on twitter. Want to know about restaurant and entertainment deals in your local area? Search for your town/city name and follow people tweeting about your area, or search for local magazines, newspapers, restaurants and bars, many of them are joining twitter to send out info on special events. You’ll be surprised at how niche the information you can find on twitter can get. Get creative!

3) Now you’re starting to follow people, people you find interesting who send out useful information that you like to follow. What do you do when they start to follow you back? Or when others who you don’t know start to follow you?

Don’t panic, this is normal! This isn’t facebook, they don’t need to be your math partner from 8th grade to want to follow you. It’s not about being friends, it’s about content and topic. If someone comes across your profile and sees that you are from the same local area or work in the same industry, they may follow you because they feel you have like interests and that you may say something of value that they’ll find interesting. You don’t have to follow these people back, but you should at least take a look at their profiles. You may find some really interesting people! If you do, feel free to follow them back. If not, don’t worry, you can just let them keep following you and you don’t need to reciprocate.

This is, in fact, a good strategy to have if you are trying to build up a twitter following. In general you should keep the number of people you are following and the number who follow you back fairly even, unless you’re a celebrity. To do this while proactively following a lot of people when you first join, don’t follow everyone back, only those you find really interesting. This will even out your ratio.

4) Now you have followed people, and you’ve got all these people starting to follow you back. What should you say!? Even for those people who want to use twitter as a listening device, I can guarantee there will be times that you’ll want to jump into the conversation. Here are some tips on how to get started:

• Think of what might be interesting. And by that, we do not mean that you’re about to go walk your dog. Interesting tips, links to articles or blog posts, funny facts, quotes, news, pictures, videos. Any time you can share something with the community in link form, that is best. If it’s something you heard offline, include it, and try to say who or where you heard it. In general, you can try to stay within topics that interest you, and just talk about anything at all! You can also take queues from the people you follow, commenting on things they write and sharing info you see in twitter already. This will help you get ideas for your own posts. If you have a blog, be sure to post a link on twitter whenever you put up a new post!
• Shorten links: The point of this is that you can fit more info in your tweet if the link you’re trying to share isn’t so long. Using a service like bit.ly, is.gd or others is the best way. These are built into Tweetdeck and Seesmic. Simply click “add URL” paste in your link, select the shortening service you want, or just go with the default, and hit Shorten. It will add the link into your tweet automatically!

5) The last step to twitter maturity is understanding the language. This can seem kind of silly at times, but much of it has evolved because of the 140-character limit. Certain shortcuts have cropped up that are used often, so here’s a guide to the most popular:

• @nameofperson. This is used in replying to someone. It’s like saying “Hey Anya, that last blog post you wrote was great, I found it really interesting.” In twitter speak, a message like that would look like this: “@anyawoods Hey, that last blog post you wrote was great, I found it really interesting.” For an added bonus in this instance, make sure you re-share the link to the post you’re talking about so other people can check it out!

• RT: RT is shorthand for “ReTweet”. This shorthand is used when you saw some interesting tidbit and you want to repeat it because you thought it was great. When you’re using Tweetdeck or Seesmic you can select Retweet on a tweet you found interesting and it will set up the entire process for you. Manually, the ReTweet looks like this: “RT @person’snameyouareretweeting Message you are retweeting”
• OH: Means “Overheard”. Like you were on the bus and heard something hilarious and you tweet it, or you were at a conference and overheard someone say something particularly insightful.
• FTW: Means “For The Win”.
• HT: Means hashtag. Hashtags are used to create consistency when a lot of people start talking about the same topic. For example, lots of conferences create hashtags to when people start talking about it online, everyone is using the same code and the whole conversation can be tracked. Hashtags are also used to track larger conversations. For example, everyone is talking about the Swine Flu epidemic right now. The hashtag is #swineflu. Which means you could say literally anything to do with the Swine flu, and close your tweet with the #swineflu hashtag, and your comment would be collected with all other comments about the same topic. You can also search for hashtags so you can keep track of conversations on a particular topic. This is what a hashtag looks like in the conversation:

• #followfriday: A tradition wherein every Friday tweeters recommend people to follow. You’ll see this happening frequently, feel free to check out those who are recommended and recommend your own people as well.

There are of course lots more tips I can share on getting started with twitter, and I’m sure others have more ideas as well, so if you have something to add please add to the comments section! I’ll do a follow up to this post with more details down the line, but this is a great starting off point for anyone looking to start getting involved, for any reason, in the twitter community. Good luck! And if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!

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