Story of Twitter: One day in February 2006, Glass, Dorsey, and a German contract developer Florian Weber presented Jack’s idea to the rest of the company. It was a system where you could send a text to one number and it would be broadcasted out to all of your friends-Twitter. By March of 2006, Odeo had a working Twitter prototype. In July, TechCrunch covered Twitter for the first time. That same summer, Odeo employees obsessed with Twitter were racking up monthly SMS bills totaling hundreds of dollars. The company agreed to pay those bills for the employees. In August, a small earthquake shook San Francisco and word quickly spread through Twitter – an early ‘ah-ha!’ a moment for users and company-watchers alike. By that fall, Twitter had thousands of users.
Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates 140 characters long. Twitter is
“A real-time information network that connects users to the latest stories, ideas, opinions, and news.”
The service can be accessed through a variety of methods, including Twitter’s website, text messaging, instant messaging, third-party desktop, mobile, and web applications. Twitter is currently available in over 30 languages.
TWITTER STATISTICS
- Twitter has 645 million active users
- 27% of Twitter’s user base is active
- The highest proportion of active users = 33% Netherlands.
- Users are mostly mobile clients (including iPad software): 61% of all tweets
- 75 %of activity occurs third-party desktop and mobile applications
- Top countries: Japan, Netherlands, Spain, U.S., Indonesia, Venezuela, Canada, U.K., Mexico, Colombia, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, Argentina, France, South Korea, Chile, Germany, Philippines, and India.
TWITTER BASICS
Etiquette: You should praise people in public, but ask for favors in private. Don’t post blatant commercials for your business or use people’s account names when mentioning them. Don’t post anything on Twitter you wouldn’t want your mother to read, as everything is public and in the Library of Congress.
Read “The 100 Twitter Rules Thttp://www.cnbc.com/id/43759244/The_100_Twitter_Rules_To_Live_Byo Live By” and live by them respond to questions or points persons to useful information. Relevant questions about your industry: Develop credibility by answering questions for a product or service they may need. Tweets are used to connect with consumers in meaningful ways, offering everything from special discounts and exclusive content to new product information. Share interesting articles from other people. Retweet great articles that they link to on their own Twitter accounts. Why a twitter follower is more important than an email address:
- The sheer number of people to spread the message to all friends instead of 1-1 communication
- Increased number of brand impressions
- Ability to tweet more times
- Tweeting to brand vs. mentioning brand (handle, brand name)
IMPRESSIONS
- Retweeting: The best way to share someone’s content and give them awareness to your followers. You can press the Retweet button, but don’t use unless you don’t have the RT@username. Why? Because Twitter doesn’t post the RT@username in the new tweet you send, it simply posts a small graphic near it saying you retweeted it. Not as effective and engaging.
- Targeted Tweets: Send tailored tweets to specific audience subsets and enables brands to reach specific audiences on Twitter without sending a Tweet to all followers. By targeting users who are most relevant to tweeted content, based on their device of choice, Twitter can focus on those who are most likely to respond and react.
- Tweets: Don’t start tweets with a Twitter handle unless you want that Tweet to be seen by a limited audience (by the person whose handle you’ve started the Tweet with, and only anyone who follows both of you)Requests for support, complaints, and feedback, praise (thank you, retweet it and save it to your favorites), & competitor mentions (monitor for information/ data). Try to keep your Tweets under 120 characters so others can add comments to your tweet in an RT. Search Topsy.com to find the most relevant and influential tweets. Use @FEMA format to date/time stamp breaking news, e.g. 6/1 12:32 pm EDT, and include ORIGINAL date/time with RTs. Late RTs add to the confusion and put lives at risk in a dynamic situation such as dangerous weather. Hand craft your tweets for all your new articles. Ask questions. “Do you agree with my take here?” “Is _______ the next great point guard?” Questions have the highest engagement and will help build your audience. (But if you ask questions, have some intention of using the feedback in some way – otherwise, it’s faux engagement). Consider balancing the types of tweets with a ratio of posts addressing: (1) what you do; (2) what you love; and (3) who you are.
- DM system: This is a great way to connect personally with users that you’ve already had public conversations with.
#HASHTAGS
The ‘#’ is sometimes called a ‘hash,’ and using hashtags is a way for you to insert searchable tags and keywords into your tweets. People use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and help them show more easily in Twitter Search. Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets marked with that keyword. Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics. Use TagDef to look up hashtags you don’t understand. Hashtags are most effective when used in the middle of the sentence to differentiate color in the sentence and draw a readers eye’s to click on the hashtagged word. You can follow trends on lists as well as Twitter users. Use hashtags like #wikileaks #syria #ows related to your topic etc so your tweets are seen by a larger audience. Hashtagify.me, a website that lets you search for the most popular hashtags and the influencer in that industry. Use Hashtagify.me to find out popular hashtags related to your industry and start using them in your tweets to widen your audience and gain followers. Check out these hashtags for writers:
- #amwriting / #amediting – Both #amwriting and #amediting are Twitter “chat” hashtags and you’re welcome to join in at any time. These two tags have grown so popular that there is even a web community over at AmWriting.org. #writing / #editing are similar to #amwriting and #amediting. As far as I know, these are the less popular versions of the tag.
- #wordcount – This tag is used by writers who want to share their up-to-date progress on whatever project they’re working on. Be prepared to see a lot of numbers!
- #nanowrimo – If you’re a novelist, you’ve probably heard of NaNoWriMo.
- #ww / #writerwednesday – Every Wednesday, Twitter users use this hashtag as a way of giving shout-outs to other writers, particularly the ones that they enjoy following. At least, that was its original purpose. Nowadays, this tag is used for all manner of writing-related activities on Wednesday.
- #writetip / #writingtip — If you’re looking for tips and tricks to apply to your writing, this is the hashtag you need. Great for newbies, amateurs, and aspiring writers alike.
- #askagent / #askauthor / #askeditor — There are times when you have a question for agents, editors, and authors. Unfortunately, you may not know any agents, editors, and authors. Who can you ask? If you ever find yourself in that situation, use these hashtags. Agents, editors, and authors browse these hashtags and will often answer the questions that pop up.
- #writingprompt — Writing prompts are a great way to jumpstart your creative juices. Search Twitter for this hashtag and you’ll find hundreds and thousands of great writing prompt that you can use.
- #99c — Nowadays, a lot of products are priced at the $0.99 price point – and e-books are no exception. Many authors sell their stories for $0.99, and many of them use this hashtag to notify potential readers. Use this tag if you’re looking for something at this price, or if you’re looking to sell your own work.
TWITTER LINKS
Use a URL shortening service, like http://bit.ly so you maximize the room you have to share information in your tweets and so you can track how many people are clicking and sharing your tweet. Tweet a link to an article you’ve read and would recommend. Use a link shortening tool like bit.ly or TinyURL to post a compact link. Use a hashtag to point to the article’s relevance to your industry. Commit to saving links to useful articles and tweeting about them daily. Use the Tweet button included on many blogs, allowing you to recommend the article directly from their site. Use an app allowing you to save an article for later like GetPocket.
TWITTER ADVERTISING
Go to the tweet box in ads.twitter.com. As with all Promoted Tweets, advertisers only pay when users engage with it, and Tweets that generate the most engagement are likely to appear more often. Best time to tweet is Monday-Thursday 1-3 pm. Time is on your side! You can also advertise on business.twitter.com.
MARKET RESEARCH
Ask followers to check out your website and offer feedback. Add a tweet button to your blog or website. You can do quick market research on Twitter to get feedback on new products, ask for client opinions or input on new products, and gauge interest to upcoming events. Use TweetDeck or HootSuite.com to monitor multiple lists on one screen, I prefer the old version of Tweetdeck because it has more options. Ask colleagues for recommendations on vendors. Use a hashtag for your industry so your tweet will have greater visibility. Take a look at your competition list and see what they’re talking about/customer’s questions? Search for an industry topic and see what people are frustrated with. How can you use that to your competitive advantage? Create a list of people you follow who post related content or people whose content you want to be able to keep track.
LIVE EVENT TWEETING
You can use Twitter to evaluate interest in an upcoming event you’ll be offering. In an article on Research Access, Angela Lauria reports about two of her clients offering teleseminars and using Twitter to announce the events and link to the registration pages. Article for the Eventbrite blog and shared her Twitter event promotion tips: Post-event tweets that are less than 100 characters so people can easily reply to them. Offer good content. Don’t sell the event. Create a hashtag dedicated to the event, declare it publicly on Twitter, and promote it. Create a public Twitter list of all the attendees and promote it on your blog and other social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn. People like to see themselves mentioned online, and your list provides social proof that your event is valuable and well-attended. Creating an event list also provides sponsors with confirmation the event is popular. Create a promotion surrounding the events. Quashie suggests running a simple “Follow Us” promotion and giving away a free pass to every 50th new follower that uses your event hashtag. Cross promote the event on your other online sites and accounts: Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and ask colleagues to do the same.