What is Twitter all about?

I keep hearing people talking about how they are using Twitter for their business. What is Twitter all about?

Twitter has been all the rage for the past few years. However, a lot of people have had a hard time understanding what the “point” of all this twittering is.

What is Twitter?

In a nutshell, Twitter is sharing short messages in 140-character posts. Some people call it microblogging, or lifecasting. Twitter often gets a bad rap, as its participants are accused of broadcasting the mundane details of their lives. Although there is some truth to this, Twitter has the potential to be so much more. Twitter is really all about interaction and building relationships. In fact, a lot of self-employed people use it just to feel like they are connected to a world outside of their home office. Twitter is about getting involved in conversations with people you follow, sharing information, ideas, and often a laugh.

Twitter terminology

If you choose to get started on Twitter, you'll begin to notice there is a whole set of terms associated with it. Lets go over a few of the most popular ones:

Follower: When you decide you want to be able to see what someone is saying on Twitter, you follow them. This is similar to "friending" someone on Facebook. You don’t have to know someone to follow them, and in most cases they don’t have to “approve” you following them. Likewise, people can follow you as well. They can be people you actually know or complete strangers.

Tweet: A tweet is a post. It consists of a 140-character message of your choosing.

Retweet: This is when you re-post something someone else said. The benefit of this is that you are passing on a message from someone you follow to the people who follow you. Great content spreads quickly like this.

At-reply: When you want to specify someone that a message is directed toward, you include their Twitter handle, which includes the “@ sign” followed by their username. When you do this, the user will be notified that you tweeted them.

Direct Message: A direct message is essentially like a 140-character email message within the Twitter platform. This form of communicating is private.

Things you should know

Everything you post is public to the world.

You don’t need to get overly freaked about this, but it's something to keep in mind. You don’t want to give too much information about yourself or say something that could be used against you at a later date. It is possible to protect your account so that it can only be viewed with your permission, but honestly, this goes against everything that Twitter is about. If you don't feel comfortable sharing openly, Twitter might not be for you.

Be authentic.

Since Twitter is all about relationship building, it makes no sense to try to build relationships on anything but the truth. Businesses sometime have a hard time embracing this about Twitter, but it just doesn’t work when it is burdened with too many rules. Twitter is all about being Ed the Software Developer who works at ABC Labs, not ABC Labs, a cold, impersonal company. Twitter was made for people. Mix up your tweets: talk a little business, talk a little about you, comment on other people’s conversations, and share knowledge that your followers would appreciate.

Twitter is not nearly as good without a desktop app.

It’s really inconvenient to have to log on to the Twitter website to post or check your account. For the most part it doesn’t really notify you that you have been referenced in a tweet or if people are retweeting your messages. You will ideally want to use the Twitter app on your desktop or smartphone.

Getting started

Once you get on Twitter you will need to complete your 160-character bio and upload some sort of avatar. If you are using Twitter for personal use, make sure your avatar is an accurate reflection of your personal brand. If you are using it for business, make sure to have a clean, professional avatar that reinforces your company's branding. If you're using your Twitter for any type of professional purpose, make sure to note your profession in some way, but feel free to pepper your profile with some personal tidbits as well.

Before you really get going with Twitter, you may wish to join and follow a few interesting people and just observe how other people are using Twitter. As the creators of Twitter have said: There is no wrong way to use Twitter. Each person uses it a little differently as they see fit. For more information about getting started, you can read the Twitter 101 section on the website.

Finding people to follow

One of the easiest ways is to just use the “Find People” feature on twitter.com. You can search by name or by keyword, although this feature can be just a bit buggy. There are also some other websites that allow you to search for users in certain areas or with specific keywords in their bios.

When using Twitter effectively, you can really connect with people you never would have. Because of Twitter, I know dozens more creatives than I ever would have before, have become much more involved in the design community, and have learned about tons of new websites, resources, and technologies. If you are thinking that Twitter is just another time-suck, you are probably right. But if you manage your participation well, it can have great benefits.

If you log on and try it out, make sure you follow @strongdesign or follow me directly at @melissabalkon. Happy Tweeting!