Twitter Articles

Article / Updated 03-02-2020

Ever thought about using Twitter to get some eBay business? Twitter has 500 million total users (more than 215 million active users) and serves up over 500 million tweets a day. What’s a tweet? Not just a sound effect from a parakeet anymore. Now it’s a short online comment from one Twitter user to another; tweets often flit back and forth between users who follow each other. Tweets are not only comments but also other quick notes that can be quotes, links to news stories, and the occasional self-promotion. If you like to chat, comment, and read news stories, you’ll probably like Twitter. You don’t have to be there all day, because when people “talk” to you there, you will see it in your “Notifications” column. To answer, you just click the Reply link. You’ll find that your conversations on Twitter will engage you — but only if you engage with your followers. Those who are constantly broadcasting are just trying to build follower numbers — but it’s been proven that this practice will not increase sales. So if you go to Twitter and sign up, you need to give your Twitter stream a name. You should use your real name — for several solid reasons: Friends will find you easier. If you change businesses down the line, you won’t have to start over with a new name. On the Internet, you are the face of your business — and everything you post is archived somewhere. Your tweets on Twitter are archived in the National Archive (no joke). If it’s good enough for @MichaelDell (founder of Dell), @SteveCase (founder of AOL), @RichardBranson (founder of Virgin Group), it’s a good idea for you too. After you sign in, you need to put up a picture and fill out a short bio. The first thing you need to do is put up a picture — preferably yours. People like to see what you look like when they find you on Twitter. Do everyone a favor and describe yourself clearly, as best you can, in the allotted 160 characters. Although Anita maintains a separate Twitter account personally, the account represents her @ModelSupplies brand. In the account setting page, scroll down and put a check mark in the box next to Always Use HTTPS. This will cause Twitter to use a secure connection where possible to encrypt your account information. After you fill out all the cyber-paperwork, you’ll see your very own Twitter page. It will be a very blank page. When you visit the Marsha Collier’s Twitter page, you’ll see a tab that, when clicked, reveals Lists made of people on Twitter. There is one full of eBay Social Sellers that lists eBay sellers who participate in social media and are fun to follow. Just click on the link or go to http://twitter.com/MarshaCollier/ebay-social-sellers. On the list page, just click the link and you will automatically be following everyone on the list. When you see their tweets in your stream, click the Reply link to say hello — or share something interesting. No doubt they will follow you back. To find other people to follow, go to the search box on Twitter. Here you can type in keywords that reflect your interests or the items you sell, and you will be presented with a list of accounts who have mentioned this word in their tweets. If you put in a search for antiques, click the Accounts tab in Results, you will find a long list of people with similar interests. Type in your hobbies and your interests. You’ll find a bunch of people to follow, and your Twitter home page will become far more interesting. You can also search to find like-minded folks on Klout. This is a website that measures social media influencers and allows searches by category. Here are the current influencers in the topic of jewelry-making. Search Klout with keywords, and you can find (by clicking All) folks who tweet about topics that interest you.

Article / Updated 03-28-2017

Not every Twitter account is written. Quite a few really useful Twitter accounts are automated bots (short for robots) that publish Tweets that have never touched human hands. At first, this sounds kind of awful, but there are some great reasons for doing this. Want to be among the very first to know when there is earthquake activity near San Francisco, California? Follow SF Quakebot (@EarthquakesSF) to receive Tweets based on real-time seismographic information from the USGS. Want a funny way to explain McCarthyism to a friend? Go look at Robot J. McCarthy (@RedScareBot) which scans Twitter for Tweets containing words like “communist” and automatically shares them with ironic commentary as if they were written during the height of anticommunist witch hunts. Concerned about government accountability? Congress-edits (@CongressEdits) automagically tweets whenever wikipedia.org is anonymously edited by someone whose IP address shows they are accessing the site from within the US Congress. Some Twitter accounts simply syndicate material from online outlets: event listings, blogs, newspapers’ websites, and so on. Done well, accounts like these are quite welcome in Twitter’s community. Accounts like the New York Times (@NYTimes) and CNN (@CNN), while no longer just the bots they originally were make up some of Twitter’s most-followed media accounts because even when they were 100% automated, they were still tremendously useful. Other popular forms of automated accounts can be worthwhile. Companies don’t need a human being to type great quotes or famous lines from movies and click Post. If set up mindfully and including great sharing copy and articles, an automated Twitter account that helps people follow a blog with automated Tweets can be a great idea. Or, automated Tweets can be a good addition to otherwise manually composed Twitter accounts. Many, if not all, business users employ some degree of automation to ensure that their account is sharing useful, engaging, relevant content throughout the week at the times their audiences are more likely to want to engage with it. They do this by scouring for great stuff to share and then composing Tweets in advance, using a scheduler such as Buffer, HubSpot’s Social Tools, or HootSuite. It’s also not uncommon, especially among business users, to allow certain apps to make automated posts to your otherwise handwritten account on your behalf. Use these apps with care.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016

Using Twitter is fun and surprisingly easy. It doesn’t matter where you access Twitter, — on Twitter.com, or on a desktop or mobile app on your smartphone. You can quickly navigate the Twitterverse with just a few commands. Even Twitter etiquette is straightforward and simple. Before you know it, you’ll be sending Tweets and following on Twitter like an expert.

Step by Step / Updated 03-27-2016

Many twitterers use Twitter almost exclusively on their mobile phones. Text messaging (SMS) is the most basic way to access Twitter via your cellphone. In addition to sending tweets as SMS messages from your phone, you can receive your contacts’ tweets on your phone via SMS.

Step by Step / Updated 03-27-2016

Direct messages (DMs) let you send your contacts private notes through Twitter. Just like regular tweets and @replies, direct messages are limited to 140 characters. Unlike regular tweets and @replies, the only person who can see a direct message is the recipient. You can send a DM only to a Twitter user who's following you (but you don't have to be following that user), which helps cut down on spamming and other unwanted messages. To see whether someone is following you and to send a direct message:

Step by Step / Updated 03-27-2016

With many web services, signing up is the easiest part of an otherwise-complicated process. With Twitter, using the site is just as easy as signing up. To sign up for a Twitter account, follow these steps:

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Because of the 140-character limit for tweets, people often abbreviate common words and phrases on Twitter. The following table has abbreviations, or Twitter shorthand, that you see often. You will most likely want to use the shorthand, so the table illustrates its use in Twitter messaging. Twitter Shorthand Abbreviation What It Means Usage 4 For What do you want it 4? 4U For you I have something 4U. BFN Bye for now Off to work, BFN. BTW By the way BTW, I stopped by your office. DM Direct Message Sent you a DM. FYI For your information FYI I’ll be there. IC I see IC you’ve changed your avatar. IMHO In my humble opinion I think that’s bad IMHO. IRL In real life Can’t wait to meet you IRL. LMAO Laughing my *** off That’s so funny! LMAO! LOL Laughing out loud OK, I’m LOL! OH Overheard OH (at the beauty salon): Love your haircut. OMG Oh my gosh OMG I can’t believe I watched that video. ROFL Rolling on the floor laughing And now I’m ROFL. RT Retweet RT is what you see when someone repeats one of your tweets to their followers. RU Are you RU going to the tweetup? Tweet Post a comment on Twitter Have you posted a tweet today? Tweeps Twitter members I got RTs from 6 tweeps today. Tweetup A real life meet up of Twitter members Where’s the tweetup? Twitterverse The world of Twitter Welcome to the Twitterverse! TY Thank You TY for all the RTs. W00t! Yay! W00t! I got a deal at the store today.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

You can find your friends on Twitter by importing contacts lists from other services — such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL, and Hotmail — that you already use. Twitter will let you know who among your contacts are already busily tweeting away as registered Twitterers. Click Who to Follow at the top and then click the Find Friends tab. You'll see five different account choices. Select the account type from which you want to import. 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 cautious about sites that ask you for your e-mail address and password. Type your credentials and password and click Sign In. Allow access. You'll see a button that says Grant Access, Allow, or something similar. Click it, and Twitter looks at your contact list and gives you a list of all the people from your address book who are already on Twitter. 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 finish selecting people, click the 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. If you're a Twitter newbie, the answer is probably "No," but the choice is yours. If you're not careful about where you click when you invite contacts to join you on Twitter, 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! Repeat these steps for your other networks, if you have them.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

You can use Twitter to connect with your friends by sending them an invitation to join Twitter. By inviting your friends to become Twitter contacts, you're letting them know that you're on Twitter and that they can follow your updates by signing up for Twitter themselves. To send an invitation during the Twitter registration process, you can import your contacts from your e-mail address book and invite them to use Twitter. (Just select your contacts you'd like to invite on the Why Not Invite Some Friends? screen and click the arrow.) But if you've already set up your Twitter account and would like to invite friends, follow these steps: On the top navigation bar of any Twitter page, click the Who to Follow link. The Who to Follow page opens with two panes. The right pane has the Invite Friends option In the Invite Friends text box, enter the e-mail addresses of the people to whom you want to send an invite. Separate e-mail addresses with a comma and a space. After you enter all the addresses you want, click Invite. You're done! You can always e-mail people you know whom you think would most enjoy or benefit from Twitter, sending them a link to your Twitter profile and writing a note explaining what Twitter is. Many people choose this approach when they first join Twitter so that they can keep the invitation process personal.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Your avatar appears to the left of all your tweets, so it's your official face on Twitter. People don't like following you on Twitter if your avatar is just the default. So make sure that you change your Twitter avatar to a photo of yourself or a picture of something else. You can also change your Twitter avatar as often as you like. Some Twitter users change their avatars almost daily to different photos of themselves, while some users leave their avatars the same all the time, and still others change their avatars according to a specific occasion — holiday-themed photos for Christmas or Halloween, for example. To change your avatar, follow these steps: Sign in to Twitter, click your username in the upper-right, and choose Settings. The Settings page opens. Click the Profile tab. Filling in profile information helps people find you easily. Click the Browse button and navigate to the picture that you want to upload. Twitter supports the .jpg, .png, and .gif (including animated .gifs) file formats. Click the Save button. Your picture is uploaded to Twitter. The size of your profile image is restricted to 700 KB (which is a rather large image), and Twitter crops it automatically into a square for your public profile. Choose an image that's square or close to square, or make sure that the part of the image you want featured in your avatar's thumbnail version is in the center of the image. Try to find a picture that's at least 73 x 73 pixels. Otherwise, Twitter stretches the picture out, causing some distortion. If you upload a photo and it doesn't look quite right, don't panic! Just find a new picture (or adjust the original file) and try uploading it again. You can upload a new picture at any time.