Twitter for Dummies (6 page)

For example, if your name is John Ira, you may want to pick a Twitter username such as
@johnira
or
@john
. If users have already claimed those monikers, try adding an adjective or descriptor, such as
@handsomejohn
or
@johntheterrible
. If you prefer for people not to know who you are, you can choose a name that’s a bit more generic. You can also use a handle that you’ve established on other Web sites. You may also want your username to match your e-mail address — for example, if your e-mail address is
[email protected]
, you may decide to use
@doglover1980
as your Twitter name.

Be forewarned! If you choose to use your last name only, like Michael (
@gruen
), you may find yourself without a first name in the eyes of other twitterers.

Using Twitter for your business? You can use your company or business name as your username, and you can fill in that business name in the Name text box on the Settings page for your account. But if you do, be sure to include the names of anyone who handles the company Twitter account in the 160 character “Bio” text box on the Settings page for your Twitter profile. (We cover how to customize your profile in the “Customizing Your Profile” section, later in this chapter.)

If you’re looking to be a bit more removed and really would prefer to use a nickname rather than your name, or your company or product name, be sure to choose a username that’s friendly and accessible. On Twitter, you want people to respond to you, not be put off by a risqué or otherwise questionable handle. And if you run into your Twitter pals at networking events or other real-life social situations, you want to make sure that you don’t mind having your username written on your nametag or shouted out in greeting.

Lean toward using a short Twitter username.
Remember:
Tweets are only 140 characters, so when people are replying to you, if you have a longer name, you leave them less room for message content. Twitter limits your username to just 15 characters for this very reason. (For more on how to reply to another person on Twitter, turn to Chapter 5.)

Your Twitter name has power and influence on
search engine optimization
(SEO), or how close to the top of a search results list you appear in a search engine such as Yahoo! or Google. Businesses should consider using valuable keywords as their Twitter names.

Finding Contacts

When you first sign up for Twitter, you’re prompted to see if your friends are on Twitter (see Figure 2-4). Finding contacts on Twitter can be a lot of fun! The easiest way to find your friends is to import your friends and contacts from other services that you already use (such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL, and Hotmail). You may be pleasantly surprised at how many people you know who are already busy tweeting away.

To import contacts and make them part of your Twitter world during the registration process, follow these steps:

1. Select the e-mail account type from which you want to import on the left-hand side of the screen.

2. Type your e-mail credentials (username and password) in the Your Email and Email Password text boxes.

Having Twitter automatically find your contacts involves entering your e-mail account password. Although Twitter has established itself as a trustworthy service, in general, be very cautious about sites that ask you for your e-mail address and password.

3. Click the green Continue arrow.

Twitter looks at your contact list from your e-mail account and gives you a list of all the people from your address book who are already on Twitter.

4. Select the check boxes for the people you want to follow.

If you click the Select All check box, everyone is selected. If you uncheck the Select All check box, everyone is unselected, and you can go through your list of contacts, picking and choosing who to follow.

When you follow people on Twitter, you see their updates on your Twitter Home screen.

5. When you finish selecting people, click the green Continue button.

If you didn’t select all the people in your address book, you’re asked whether you want to invite any of the people you didn’t select to join Twitter. (For more on inviting people to join Twitter, see “Inviting Contacts,” later in this chapter.)

If you’re not careful about where you click, you can accidentally send an e-mail to everyone in your address book. However, if you want to invite all your contacts to join you on Twitter, go ahead and share the Twitter love!

6. Repeat these steps for all your other networks, if you have them.

If you skip this step during the registration process, you can always search for people by first name, last name, or e-mail address by clicking the Find People link at the top of any Twitter page.

Using useful people-finding tools

Jumping into random conversations is a great way to find like-minded Twitter users, but it’s not the only way. You can use a few tools to discover people on Twitter who share your interests or live near you.

One of the more interesting tools out there, TwitterLocal (
www.twitterlocal.net
), helps you find Twitter users by geographic location. It’s a great way for people interested in real-life meet-ups, as well as those in localized industries (such as real estate and car sales) who use Twitter to drum up business, to contact each other.

Twellow (
www.twellow.com
) is another handy tool for widening the scope of your Twitter universe (which, yes, some call a
twitterverse
). Twellow sorts Twitter users by categories based on keywords found in the Bio sections of their profiles. Users can also claim Twellow profiles for any Twitter usernames that belong to them, by proving who they are. Claiming lets you edit the entry to add more categories or remove incorrect categories. Twellow is searchable by name, location, or category, similar to an online yellow pages for Twitter (hence the name Twellow).

Part III explores more of these third-party tools.

Searching by using Twitter Search