Welcome to my little Twitter Guide For Dummies
Twitter Guide for Dummies, Part 1
As you properly know Twitter is a Social Network that is quiet popular all over the world. If you are new to twitter you might find this post helpful to get you started on Twitter. In this post I will try to explain how it works and how you get started.
So how does it work?
First of all you need to create an account. You do that by clicking on the sign up button and enter in your personal details. You need to select a unique username that will follow you on twitter. It might be difficult to find a good available one, but try to find one that tell who you are or what you like.
Twitter is a messages system where you can share your thoughts and links with the rest of the Twitter community. The messages on Twitter are called Tweets and are limited to 140 charters which for some people are not much. When you have written your massage in the “What’s happening” text box, you click on the Tweet button and your tweet are submitted to Twitter for everyone to read.
Following and Followers
Following: On Twitter you can follow other people to read what they are tweeting about. Other people can likewise follow you to read what you are tweeting about. Keep in mind that everybody can follow you without your approval. Don’t write that your boss is a big idiot or stuff like that. Hi or her might be reading your tweets without your knowledge 😉
The only way to protect your tweets is to protect your profile, but that don’t make much sense on Twitter in my opinion. If you don’t want to share, Twitter is not the wright place for you.
When you have found a person or a company that you want to follow, you just click on the follow button. You can always unfollow them if you regret.
Followers: Followers are the people that are following you on twitter. At first it can’t be difficult to get people to following your, but be patient and start tweeting and begin following some other people. Some of them might be following your back. An important thing in order to get followers is to create a good profile with some information about you and your interests. Also change your picture to something more personally that the default one. Nobody wants to follow an egg. If you like you can also create your own Twitter background or change the default color. All those things can help to make people find your more interesting so they want to follow you.
Timeline
On the timeline both your own tweets and the tweets of the people you follow appear. The newest appear at the top. If someone you follow Retweet a tweet the will also appear in the timeline even if you don’t follow the person the Retweet.
This is all for part 1. Let me here what you think and what was most confusing for you when you started on twitter. I would also like to hear what you think that I should cover in part 2.
Great explanation Thomas. I was telling my Mom just this weekend what Twitter was since our church is on Twitter now. I’m pretty sure if she read this explanation, she would understand this.
Not sure how many parts you will have but be sure to cover why it’s important to tweet other people’s information and why lists are important. I think those are two areas people need to understand.
Will be back for part 2…
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne
Thank you for the ideas for the next part. I don’t know how many parts I will write yet, maybe 2 or 3 depending on feedback and questions. I am also planning to cover the Mention tab because it took me a while before I noticed how important it was checking if other people have mention me or one of my tweets or maybe have asked me a question.
See you around.
Thanks for the post and I will definitely be back for part 2. The biggest thing with twitter is getting people to not only follow you but making sure they retweet your self.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Yep, it is great if you get people to follow your, but even greater if the retweet your stuff.
This is brilliant Thomas, there are so many people out there using Twitter, that haven’t got a clue, most of them don’t even add a bio or avatar, this is certainly going to help them out 😉
Thank you Slappy Bear. I am glad you like it. I am already working on part2 🙂
Great introduction, Thomas! Very thorough. =)
I second Adrienne’s suggestions for your follow-up posts to the series and would also add info on Hootsuite and TweetDeck. Using a program to help schedule tweets makes a big difference for me! =)
Looking forward to reading more, Thomas! =)
Hi Samantha
Great to see you here at my blog. Always nice with some new faces in here 🙂
Thank you for the suggestions. It might be bit to advanged for my Twitter for Dummies, but maybe I should write a post about Twitter Apps. I just started using Buffer to schedule my tweets. It works great..
Hope to see you back soon Samantha.
This is a very nice guide! Thanks for the share. John Aguiar also have Twitter Dummy guide and Yeah I think it’s proven effective too. Looking forward for more strategic part 2. Cheers! Twitter is worthy for best blogging.
Thank you for visiting my blog. Always love to see a new face in here 🙂
I am glad you like the post. I am working on part two and hopefully I will release it this weekend.
Thanks for sharing, Thomas! Wonderful info for someone like me who doesn’t have a Twitter account. Always wanted to know how it worked in case I decide to join some day.
Hi Allyson
Glad you like it. I have just released a part 2 to this series you might find interesting as well. I you are not on Twitter you should create an account right away. It is a great way to meet other bloggers and to drive traffic for your site.
Thanks, Thomas. I am certainly considering joining Twitter and meeting other bloggers there as well. I’ll go check out part two of this tutorial now.
Hey Thomas, I am new to Twitter and just started the business tweet. Instead of wanting other companies to follow me on twitter, how do I get regular people like potential customers to follow me? Definitely take a look of your part 2. Great information.
Hi Ron
I am glad you liked my post. I see you already have got yourself a good picture and bio that tells what you are doing. Those two things are very important. I never follow people that do not have a customized picture and a Twitter bio.
What you need to do is to start to interact with other people. Start sharing videos and other things that might be interesting for your customers but also sharing other peoples thing, they might return the favor for you. I think you should start following other people that are doing something familiar to you. Maybe other people that sells or rent things for kids. You might have something in comment and you might have some of the same potential customers. Be polite and don’t spam people. It takes time to get success on twitter so you will have to be patient.
Hey Thomas,
Thanks for the reply. I will make sure to give it a try. Your tips make sense and I will start following and tweeting other pages that follow have the same interests. I’ll follow up on the progress of my twitter and definitely be back for more tips. Thanks again.
-Ron
Thanks thomas, this is perfect for beginners or “dummies” haha. Although these are things i personally understand already, ill be sure to share with others who are twit illiterate