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Chapter 1: Introduction
What Is Twitter, And Why Should You Be Interested In It?
Why indeed? Because, after all, isn’t it just another social networking site?
I think it is a little more than that. It IS a way of networking with other people, that much is true, but you could also call it a phenomenon. Sharing knowledge, advice, updates and much more in just 140 characters is a challenge that thousands of new people are taking up every single day. Twitter has hit the headlines more and more in recent times, and revealing just a few of the stories that have been published should give you an idea of just how important this site can be to you.
When the Presidential race was on, both candidates were making good use of Twitter to garner support for their campaigns. Barack Obama is still the most followed person on the whole of Twitter… although he hasn’t been tweeting much since he started running the country. He still has well over 600,000 followers at the last count however.
And celebrities are using the site more and more too – to connect with their fans, promote their careers and much more besides. Some of these have been proved to be fake, but there are plenty of real celebrity Twitterers out there too.
The British comedian, actor and writer Stephen Fry has the second biggest number of followers on the site. He often responds to messages and takes part in conversations as well. American actress Demi Moore proved that Twitter can be much more than just another social networking site by helping to prevent an apparent suicide bid by another user.
You can see how Twitter has pervaded the lives of many different people. You can make a difference with this site, and you can also use it for many different purposes, as we’re about to find out in this book. But the main thing to remember at this stage is that you can reach a huge audience. It may not be anywhere near as big as the one President Obama enjoys, but you can still end up with thousands who will read every tweet you write.
Twitter is not just for the rich and famous – although judging by the number of stories along those lines that have been hitting the headlines recently, you may wonder.
But no matter what line of business you are in; whether you are based primarily online or you have offline interests as well, you CAN benefit from having a free account on Twitter. And this book will show you exactly how you can do it.
We’ll explore everything you need to know during each section. You’ll not only know how Twitter works and how to make the best of it, you’ll also discover how you can make it work for YOU. There are certain points that you will need to bear in mind if you want to build up a huge band of followers instead of just having a few hundred, or even a few dozen. We’ll cover all of these one by one.
We’ll also cover the importance of getting set up in just the right way. Once you know what you are doing on Twitter, you will instantly be able to tell which people haven’t taken the time to get set up properly. You won’t be one of those because you will have read all the tips and techniques I am about to give you.
You’ll soon see that the book is split up into several different sections. These have been designed to be read in that order, so as to get the best out of this book. You need to have a great home page before you start learning all about the tricks of the trade that I have included in Section Four.
So let’s get started and go straight to Section One, so you can get started with the least of delay.
Chapter 2: What To Do Once You've Joined
Okay, so you've gone to http://twitter.com and signed up for your free Twitter account. That is the easy bit, and it should only take a few moments to complete the process.
The first thing you need to think of when you sign up is what username you are going to use. This could depend on how long your own name is, as you only have a limited number of characters to use. Your username will then form part of your own unique home page address, i.e. http://twitter.com/username.
And of course you don’t need to use your own name either. You could use your business name if you wish.
The next step is to go through the five step process I am about to share with you. Now I know you are probably itching to start ‘tweeting’ – the term that is given to sending messages through Twitter – but it is essential that you make sure you get your account sorted out properly first.
As you become more and more familiar with the site, you will be able to spot those people who have jumped in without completing all the steps I am going to show you. And there is one word for what their home pages look like – unprofessional. It can’t be a coincidence that most of these people have either (a) tweeted a few times and then disappeared entirely, or (b) made sure all their messages are of a marketing kind.
There is nothing wrong with marketing on Twitter, but if you are going to heavily promote everything you have to sell, don’t expect to get many followers or much success. You’ll find out why as we go along. Incidentally all of these steps can be done by clicking on the ‘settings’ option at the top of your home page once you are logged in.
So let’s get started with the first step, shall we?
Filling Out Your Bio (Profile)
Twitter is all about brevity. And when you only have 140 characters to use to create each new message, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to find that your bio only consists of one line as well.
But it isn’t much of a problem – provided you write it in the right way. You need to think about it from a certain angle to make sure you have a successful bio that draws people in. In other words, a good bio will get you more followers.
One good method to get ideas for your own bio is to have a look at what some other members have already done. Type a word into the search box – any word will do for the purpose of this example – and take a look at the results you get back. Click on a username and you will be taken into their home page, which will have their bio in the top right hand corner, underneath their little photo.
Which ones really get your attention? The best ones are generally those which describe the person and what they do without going into sales mode. Your bio is not the place for trying to sell people something. It is a place to introduce yourself, and nothing more.
You will no doubt also notice that some people don’t bother to fill in their bios at all. This is a BIG no no. If your bio is not filled in, people only really have your tweets to go on to decide whether you will be worth following or not. And if they aren’t interested in the latest few they read, you could easily lose a potential follower there.
So how do you write a great one line bio?
The trick is to think about what you do, and what you are on Twitter for. And above all, think in keywords. Remember that you haven’t got much room to make an impression. Let’s suppose you started off like this:
“Hi I am Dave and I’m from Texas in the US. I love internet marketing and...”
And at that point you probably have very few other characters left to make anything out of. More than half of the words in that piece are superfluous – ‘am’, ‘and’ and ‘from’, for example. It’s not essential to tell everyone your name as your username will appear in the top right hand corner of the page anyway. And the same goes for your location, which you should fill in separately on your profile.
So let’s go back to keywords. Remember that your Twitter home page can show up on Google’s search pages, so you want to think about what pages you want to appear on. Twitter’s own search facility can help people find you as well, so be sure to include all the relevant words you can.
The trick here is to get a balance between writing a proper sentence, and simply putting a string of keywords down. So an internet marketer who writes their own series of eBooks - as well as doing some affiliate marketing on the side – might come up with something like this:
“Internet and affiliate marketer; writer and promoter of eBooks.”
You could go a bit longer than that, but for the purpose of the example do you see how effective a short phrase like that can be? It isn’t a proper sentence as such, but it is packed with keywords and it manages to tell people 4 things that the person does.
So take time over your bio – it is a very important part of your home page. You’ll be able to fill it in using the account tab in your settings.
Why You Shouldn't Protect Your Updates
I just want to mention this because if you are going to use Twitter to help promote your business, you shouldn’t protect your updates.
An update is basically a message that you post to your home page. If you protect it (which can be done by ticking the appropriate box on your profile page), it means no one who visits your home page will be able to see your updates... unless you accept them as a follower.
So basically they have to send you a message asking if they can see them, and if you say yes, they will be able to. What a crazy way of doing things! This is really only suitable for people who want to Twitter with friends and family. It’s great under those circumstances, but it’s not so good if you are trying to use Twitter to enhance your business and promotional efforts. The other point to bear in mind is that if they can’t see what you are tweeting about, all they have to go on is your one line bio. That’s pretty much it. You are preventing people from seeing your tweets if they look up tweets on a certain subject as well, so you won’t get anywhere near as many followers by doing this.
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