Twitter terminology and best practices for using Twitter.

1. Twitter Tutorial Allison Barker Manager – Documentation, Training, and Support nGenera Corporation 7April 2010

2. About Me 10+ years of experience in knowledge management Cisco Systems – networking equipment (hardware and software) SolarWinds – network management software nGenera – collaboration software for the enterprise Over a year (gasp) using Twitter for personal and professional purposes AGGIE

3. Twitter: What You Need to Know Origin and Terminology Best Practices Suggestions for Whom to Follow How to Use It (Get Out Your Laptop)

4. What We’re Not Going to Cover Other Third-Party Twitter Clients Strategies for Social Media Campaigns Using Twitter

5. Origin and Growth Created in 2006 as a real-time “microblogging” site used to publish short messages Tipping point for popularity: SXSW 2007, where daily usage went from 20K messages (“tweets”) to 60K messages 75M unique visitors (23.5M in the US) in Jan 2010 50M tweets are every day Growth of 1400% in 2009

6. Stated Purpose What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it's not a social network, but it's an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world. - Twitter CEO Evan Williams

7. Terminology Tweet: Message sent through Twitter. 140-character limit, which was derived from the same SMS character limit Username: Account user’s “handle.” (Examples: @abwonderland, @BarackObama, @MyStarbucksIdea). The @ symbol denotes that this is a Twitter user, not a tag Follow: Adds a user account to your list of users whose tweets you want to watch. They might or might not follow you. Updates for everyone you follow appear in reverse chronological order. Retweet (RT): Rebroadcast someone’s tweet to your followers. Example: RT @MyStarbucksIdea: win $10,000 for your idea to develop a more recyclable coffee cup. Join the Beta Cup Challenge: http://is.gd/bbSvx

8. Terminology (cont’d) TweetDeck: the third-party Twitter client we’ll use to explore Twitter. It’s the most popular desktop application, and has an iPhone app also. Tag or hashtag: helps spread information while organizing it. Use the # symbol to label a tweet with a particular subject. Also makes tweets more findable. (Example: search for #DallasCowboys) Helpful site: tagal.us, which helps you determine what tags people are already using Twitpic: Twitter’s default image hosting service. Bit.ly: Twitter’s default URL shortener. Shortens a URL of ANY length to a max of 13 or so characters, by redirecting it. DM: A Direct Message is a private tweet from one Twitter user to another. You can only DM Twitter users that are following you. Anything else?

9. Twitter Best Practices Make sure what you say has value and is relevant Remember that Twitter is real time, so subjects can become irrelevant quickly. Make sure links work. Spam is not tolerated, and the definition of spam keeps expanding, so carefully consider what you tweet to ensure that you maintain your credibility. Self- and corporate-promotion are expected, but don’t be obnoxious. Give credit to authors (use RT). Respond quickly to questions or interactions from other users. Tweets are forever Check spelling and grammar. (There’s no spell check!) Be careful about what you say and how you say it.

10. Never say anything on Twitter that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to read!

11. Getting Started - Suggestions on Whom to Follow Guy Kawasaki, Silicon Valley VC – www.twitter.comuyKawasaki Mashable, an online social media guide – www.twitter.comashable Bryan Person, social media “evangelist” – www.twitter.comryanPerson Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) – www.twitter.comainnwilson Austin American Statesman – www.twitter.comtatesman Chris Brogan, marketer – www.twitter.comhrisBrogan Wall Street Journal – www.twitter.comSJ Dave Neff, local PR guy and blogger – www.twitter.comaveiam Elise Hu, local journalist – www.twitter.comlisewho IEEE US – www.twitter.comeeeusa

12. Whom to Follow Do a search for any person or company you find interesting or want to know more about. Also follow people whom you want to follow YOU. It’s not guaranteed, but it gets their attention

13. How to Use Twitter through TweetDeck Log in Add Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts Tweet Retweet Include links and select Autoshorten Make tweet our Facebook or LinkedIn status also Search Follow people

14. Questions? My contact infoabarker@ngenera.com512-656-1225 mblhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonbarker