Twitter for Dummies (26 page)

Networking is by far one of the most powerful uses that anyone can make of Twitter. But, finding interesting people, maintaining your network, and digging in to really understand who you are connected to are not always straightforward. Here are some tools that will improve your networking experience on Twitter:

Find your followers.
You can use sites such as Twitter Karma and FriendorFollow to check and compare who follows you and whom you follow, and to keep up with those people you want to add to your follow list. You can use these kinds of services to check out your followers and to double-check that you’re following the people who are important to you:

•
FriendorFollow (
http://friendorfollow.com
):
Came onto the Twitter scene more recently than Twitter Karma, and its interface is a little bit easier to understand. The FriendorFollow interface tells you who your mutual follows are, whom you follow without being followed back, and who follows you without you following them back. You can then pick and choose whom to follow and whom to stop following. FriendorFollow connections don’t automatically opt you into individuals’ device updates, so it’s okay to use the tool to connect to many people, even if you have device updates turned on for your account.

•
Twitter Karma (
www.dossy.org/twitter/karma
):
Offers you a way to see whom you follow, who follows you, and which users both follow you and are followed by you. You can also use Twitter Karma to add followers, as well as remove users whom you no longer want to follow. But Twitter Karma tends to select Notifications On as the default setting when you add a new follower from Twitter Karma’s interface, so be sure to double- check that user’s profile if you don’t want to receive her notifications by text message.

Find new people to follow.

•
We Follow (
www.wefollow.com
): User-generated Twitter directory launched by Digg Founder Kevin Rose at SXSW in April 2009. Associates up to three hashtags with each twitterer who lists themselves in the directory and then presents the most followed individuals and accounts for each category. Because the results are searched by follower numbers, it’s a particularly good way to find the top celebrities, musicians, journalists, politicians, and so on who are using Twitter at any given time.

•
Twellow
(
www.twellow.com
):
Structured like a Yellow Pages for Twitter, allows you to find new followers based on category, name, location, or trending topics. If a Twitter user has been active long enough to have a few tweets on the record, as well as a bio, you can find him on Twellow. If you search for yourself on Twellow, you can claim your profile, meaning that you contact Twellow and prove that you are you in order to get editing privileges for it, and then tweak it to categorize yourself so that others can find you based on your interests, services, or professional categories.

•
Twitter (
http://search.twitter.com
or your Home screen):
We’d be remiss not to remind you here that you can find new people to follow on Twitter itself in three useful ways. Twitter’s people search function is ironically the weakest. Even to find a specific individual that you know to be on Twitter, you’re often better off searching Google for his first and last names and the word Twitter. Twitter also offers a list of suggested users, and while there has been some controversy around who gets to be on that list and who does not, it includes some pretty interesting accounts and is worth browsing. But to
really
fine-tune your interests, periodically search Twitter itself for tweets about topics close to your heart and unique amongst your interests. You never know who you might find. Click on a user’s name in any tweet he’s written and peruse his last page or so of tweets. You get a surprisingly good feel for who they are as a person that way. It’s very cool.

•
100TWT
(
http://100twt.com
):
This site simply combines the streams of the 100 most-followed Twitter accounts. So while it overlaps heavily with the Suggested Users list, it does a nice job of letting you skim random tweets from the Twitter heavyweights in a combined screen. Poke around from time to time, and you may notice some cool ideas coming from equally cool people.

Find users by location.
TwitterLocal (
www.twitterlocal.net
) used to use Twitter’s XMPP feed to show what users were in what locations. Because Twitter has its XMPP feed switched off for the time being, TwitterLocal is offered only as a downloadable Adobe Air application you can use to view tweets by location. You can also try several other good sites for finding local twitterers:

• Hubspot’s TwitterGrader returns lists of the top graded twitterers for given cities (
http://twitter.grader.com/top/cities
).

• Twellow’s Twellowhood feature (
www.twellow.com/twellowhood/
) lets you find twitterers by city using a zoomable map.

• LocalTweeps (
www.localtweeps.com
) lets twitterers sign themselves up by tweeting their zip code publicly.

Back up your data.
Tweetake (
http://tweetake.com
) offers you a way to back up your Twitter data, including your follower and following lists, so that you don’t lose the data if Twitter ever crashes. The initial backup takes quite a long time, so be prepared to wait a little while.

Find out when you lose followers.
TwitterLess (
www.twitterless.com
) and Qwitter (
http://useqwitter.com
) are two tools that alert you when someone stops following you. Depending on your outlook or your reason for using Twitter, you may want to know when you lose followers — but this information can also be quite the blow to your ego.

It’s just not encouraging feedback, and it’s a waste of energy to try to “determine” why someone left your stream. These tools are very much against the spirit of Twitter, where unsubscribing is really just a personal choice about the consumption of content, not a personal affront or rejection of the friendship. Laura has many business and personal contacts that don’t happen to be interested in the way she uses Twitter. It’s really no big deal. It’s probably not even a good idea to use these quitting services, especially as some are set up to imply that a certain tweet caused the unfollow. Use with caution!

Watch Twitter unfold, on a map of the world.
You can use a mash-up application called Twittervision (
http://twittervision.com
) that displays the activity on Twitter in real time on a Google map. When each tweet comes in, it’s associated with the actual, physical location from which it came, as well as the specific Twitter user, on a live, constantly updating map. Twittervision is certainly not an efficient way to find new people to follow, but it can be entrancing to watch. We’ve heard that someone who viewed the display at the Museum of Modern Art stared for a very long time and came away pretty breathless, saying, “I’ve seen God.” Far be it from us to pass judgment on anyone’s sense of reverence. It’s enough to say, you may find it kind of fun and mystifying to watch. Just don’t expect “utility” from it, per se.

Part IV

Knowing Why We Twitter

In This Part . . .

In this part, we ask the big questions: Why are you on Twitter? As a business, how can you use Twitter to build and stabilize your brand? As a not-for-profit, what can you do to make people evangelize your cause? What should you say? Whom should you talk to?

We answer these question and more in this part, and we promise we won’t put you through an existential crisis.

Chapter 10

Finding Your Tweet Voice

In This Chapter

Diving into Twitter

Deciding whether to tweet for work or fun

Figuring out who you’re tweeting to

Being yourself on Twitter

Knowing what to keep personal and private

If you let it, Twitter can conveniently become an integral part of your day-to-day life. Twitter is available almost everywhere — you can update your Twitter feed many ways on many platforms. Wherever you have Internet or cellular coverage, you can more or less use Twitter. The mechanics are pretty easy.

But as you get up to speed and even “embrace the twecosystem,” writing and sharing in only 140 characters at a time definitely takes some getting used to. It may seem a bit limiting at first, but over time that limitation changes the way you write and communicate. If you plan to use the service with some regularity, you’ll probably want to think at least a little bit about how your updates compare with the image you want to convey.

In this chapter, we explore different approaches to using Twitter and how you can find your own unique voice.

Finding Your Voice, Whether for Business or Pleasure

When you first sign up for a Twitter account, you don’t follow anyone yet, and nobody follows you. Updating your feed may seem a bit awkward. You’re tweeting into the void, you have no idea who’s really listening (if anyone), and you’re almost certainly wondering what the heck the point of tweeting even is. Don’t feel bad — most everyone’s first tweet (see Figure 10-1) is a little awkward. But if you follow our advice, you should be able to get the hang of Twitter in no time!

When you start following users and other users start following you, you may want to think about what sort of things you want to share with your following. For many new users, one of the great debates is whether to use Twitter for business or pleasure, and we address that a lot in this chapter. You might have joined Twitter for either reason (or both). As you come to embrace the medium to its fullest, you will find yourself figuring out what kind of voice you want to use on Twitter. The answer, as with so many answers about Twitter, depends entirely on what you want to get out of the Twitter experience.

Part of determining your identity on Twitter involves choosing your username (which we cover in Chapter 2). If you choose a nickname or pseudonym for your username, you probably aim for Twitter personal use. If you use your business name as your Twitter handle, you likely intend to create a presence for your company. But if you use your real name as your username (which is probably the best way to go), it simply implies that you are who you say you are — and you can take your account in the direction that makes the most sense to you as you evolve. That’s one reason why you probably want to use your real name or some variation of it.

Whatever name you pick, you can change it at any time on your Twitter account’s Settings page. We explain how to make this change in Chapter 2.

No matter what you name your Twitter presence, you need a voice and personality that’s uniquely yours. We go over some tips and thoughts on how to make your Twitter voice your own in the section “You as you on Twitter,” later in this chapter.

Your business on Twitter

Can you use something as simple as Twitter for business? Absolutely! However, you can’t exactly adopt the usual salesperson “Sell! Sell! Sell!” mentality on Twitter. To operate as a successful business presence on Twitter:

Master the art of give and take.

Figure out how to engage your Twitter base in conversation.

Give your audience, clients, and customers a reason to read your tweets.

Twitter is a conversational medium, and for businesses to mesh well with user expectations, companies and businesses need to understand how to navigate the landscape as a brand. You can read about strategies and case studies in Chapter 11 (no bankruptcy pun intended).

If you’re representing a large company (such as
@JetBlue
or
@Starbucks
), your Twitter presence might be a little more complicated because you’re not representing just yourself, but your business — and for some companies, that may mean tens of thousands of people. That’s a lot of responsibility!

If you’re managing a Twitter presence on behalf of your company, we highly encourage you to start a separate account for yourself so that you can get used to the service. Before you start tweeting on behalf of your business, know what users expect from brands and businesses, and how customers like to be approached. Getting used to how businesses operate on Twitter can prevent you from making a serious faux pas down the road. That said, a lot of what makes the best business accounts great is their personality and humanity, so the case can also be made not to always have two different (business and personal) accounts.

In Chapter 11, we go over how businesses can best take advantage of Twitter.

You as you on Twitter

Although Twitter can be a powerful tool for business owners and employees, it’s just as powerful for individuals who really have no intention of conducting any sort of business on it (although business might happen accidentally).

Twitter was originally popular helping individuals keep in touch with their friends and acquaintances via mini-updates. Many personal Twitterers still tend to use Twitter in this manner, updating a close circle of friends about thoughts and happenings in their lives. Over time, you can keep up with — and even make new — friends you might otherwise not contact often. Twitter removes many communication barriers.

A few things to consider for your personal Twitter presence:

Keeping your tweets private:
If it helps you feel more comfortable with your personal use of Twitter, you can set your updates to Private. (We show how to adjust that setting in Chapter 2.) Enabling the privacy feature ensures that no one, other than the users you authorize, has access to your updates. However, setting your updates to Private also prevents Twitter Search from picking up your tweets; it’s a minor inconvenience that you may be willing to accept if you really feel strongly about protecting your personal updates from the world.

Introducing your business:
Regardless of whether you plan to build your business by using Twitter “just as a person,” you might want to include some information about your occupation and company in your Twitter profile, and perhaps add a link back to your company’s online presence. The
social capital
(trust, thought leadership, and more) that you earn within the Twitter community may lead to new opportunities for you and for your business. Also, your opinions and statements may be biased because of your job, so in the interests of transparency, disclosure is a good idea.

Making it personal:
You don’t have to include any business information on Twitter if you don’t want to. Twitter was built with personal connections in mind. Twitter is personal, so dress up your profile and adjust your settings in a way that makes sense to you and what you want to get out of your Twitter experience.

If you’re twittering as an individual who works at a company, use a real photo of yourself as your avatar and put your company logo on the Twitter background that you use for your page. By using this setup, you let people know that you’re affiliated with the company, but users don’t mistake you for the company’s official twitterer. Be sure you follow your company’s regulations regarding what you’re allowed to share. For example, many Apple employees can’t reveal that they work for the company.

Mixing business with pleasure

Some of the most successful Twitter personalities have embraced Twitter by transparently sharing personal, professional, family, and other aspects of themselves all rolled together. This is nothing wildly new. We’ve always spent time with colleagues, clients, and our professional network at the golf course, out to dinner, attending charity events, and the like. Most networking events have a highly social component to them. It’s simple: People like to do business with people they like.

Some find balancing your personal life and your professional life on Twitter tricky at first, but you can definitely do it. Give yourself time to discover what you’re comfortable doing. We don’t really know anyone who completely stops talking about work when out with friends — or vice versa — because work (whether we like it or not) is a big part of who we all are. Because Twitter is built for human communications, it can handle many facets of your life; you just have to find your own balance.

It’s all about balance

Balance is important on Twitter, as in life, if you want to connect with people in a genuine, mutually beneficial way. Twitter is a pretty “what you give is what you get” kind of a place. Your true voice is often the best bet, unless you’re really constrained for business reasons and need to rein it in. Accounts that are nothing but business (or worse, strictly business-promotional) all the time may have a pretty hard time growing much of an engaged base.

Want to be uber-personal all the time? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it will influence the size and shape of your network. Don’t be offended if it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Present yourself the way you feel most comfortable.