How-to Twitter your Tweeple

Is it a blog, or another social network? Sometimes it’s both. Twitter updates are messages, limited to 140 characters, posted to the web. They can also be described as personal mini-feeds functioning somewhat as a news ticker on the bottom of your television screen. If you’ve ever stayed up all night, watching 24 hour news, then you may have noticed how static broadcast news tickers are. Usually, the news changes only when information updates, or when it's completely switched out with new data.

Why would someone use Twitter? Some Twitter uses include:

Special announcements
An ongoing conversation
Keeping others updated
Collecting comments
Providing live feedback
Cause marketing

Three things to do before you Twitter:

1. Read the fine print. Before you create an account read the Terms of Service at https://twitter.com/tos
2. Don’t forget to check out the Privacy Policy at http://twitter.com/help/privacy
3. If you decide to receive, and send, Twitter updates through you cell phone make sure you have an unlimited usage data plan for text messaging.
   

People following each other through Twitter can post updates online, or by sending a text message from their cell phone. You can also use third party applications in conjunction with your other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, to keep your tweeple (that means people who Twitter) updated. Here’s a screen shot of updates from people I’m currently following:

Once you have signed up for an account online begin adding people, or search for others to follow. Unless, you already know somebody’s online ID you will need to rely on people’s email address, or Twitter’s search engine to find them. Once you have a group of people you're following the sidebar of your page will begin filling up with avatars. Mine currently looks like this:


Since Twitter updates are publicly viewable online you can customize your account settings to privatize your updates (make them public or private), block certain users, and moderate follower’s requests. From your account settings you can also also customize the appearance of your page, and personal profile to use particular colors or images. I’m down with cats right now, so this is what mine looks like (you may gag from the cuteness):


To start sending, and receiving, Twitter updates using SMS (text messages) you need to first synchronize your Twitter account to your mobile device's account (aka “your cell phone number”).

First, click on Settings:


Then click the Devices tab which should bring you to this screen:

After you save your cell phone number, and click the “It’s okay for Twitter...” box, you will be asked to verify this permission. Then, Twitter will generate a six letter word. Text the exact same six letter word using your cell phone to the phone number 40404. To make this easier, I first saved the 40404 phone number as a new contact on my phone as Twitter. You should receive this message on your phone when the two accounts are properly linked to each other:


Next, to follow with Twitter, to receive their Tweets on your cell phone, visit their personal Twitter profile page to enable this feature. You can find this gray button right under the person’s profile ID. Clicking the gray button will open this larger yellow window:

Change the device updates option from OFF to ON. To follow friends, without logging in online, from your cell phone text the word FOLLOW account personal ID here to phone number 40404. Likewise, you can stop following someone at anytime by texting from your cell phone, or by changing this option via the web, by sending the command LEAVE account personal ID here to phone number 40404.

Before you begin following people with your cell phone check out a Twitter etiquette website to familiarize yourself with Twitter manners, and various Twitter glossaries/wiki sites for Twitter slang.

You can also visit YouTube for Twitter how-to videos, and download third party applications such as Twitterific or Twitteroo to learn even more.