A step by step guide for new twitter users
This ebook will guide you to use the popular micro blogging platform twitter for fun, traffic and profit
Please do follow me on twitter:
@tamalanwar
To get the latest ebook, visit http://blogkori.com/ebook
Setting up a twitter account
Twitter is a social networking tool with a very simple concept. It’s always a stupid thing before you start to use it. I’m creating this series about Twitter and how to use it for fun, traffic and profit.
If you’re watching your friends talking about twitter and you want to give it a try, let’s begin. Trust me, twitter is a great experience and even great when you’ll use it!
On this very first post, I’m talking about the basics of this wonderful social tool. Twitter has become one of the most popular things of the web to connect with people around you.
Read what they say,
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question:
What are you doing?”
Go to twitter.com and sign up for your free account by clicking, “Get Started Now“
Type your full name, username, password and email address, continue to next step. You can now use your email address book to check which of your friends are on twitter.
Now on this screen, you can select some people to follow. A follow means you can read what others are writing. You’ll see those updates on your dashboard.
After clicking “Finish” you’ll see your twitter dashboard. This is the place to see your friend’s updates and write your own messages. Now on the top of the text box, “What are you doing?” write your message. You’re allowed to write 140 characters per update.
Before you update your status few more times, let’s do some work. Go to “settings” or twitter.com/account/settings and complete your profile with your name, time zone, web address, location and a short bio. -click “save”
Go to “picture” tab or twitter.com/account/picture from the same window and upload a square image for your profile. -now that’s cool!
You can also search for people you know by clicking “Find People” or twitter.com/invitations and start to follow them.
You can send a reply to a user by starting with @ + Username message Eg: @tamalanwar hi how are you?
You can also send a direct message with d Username message Eg: d tamalanwar hey what’s up man?
Using twitter with your mobile phone
You can take twitter with you when ever you go. You can use this service with your mobile, iphone, PDA, PSP or any other handheld devices. This is a great way to share what you are doing in the real time.
Using twitter with text messages
You can use twitter to update your status even if your handset doesn’t have internet
You can use the SMS feature to use twitter. But before that, you have to setup your mobile with your twitter account. Go to your dashboard and then Settings > Devices or twitter.com/devices. Now type in your mobile number with your country code, like this:
+880xxxxxxxxx;
+880 is the country code and the following is my phone number. Check, “It’s okay for Twitter to send txt messages to my phone. Standard rates apply.” When you’ll click
“save” then you’ll have to send the green code shown on the next screen to twitter number.
After you sent the code to twitter, you should get a confirmation SMS, that this number is being attached with your account.
Just send a message to the twitter number and you’re status will be updated!
Mobile web
You can use twitter with your mobile by visiting m.twitter.com. Just login and experience the same site in mobile view. It’s one of the easiest ways to use twitter in your mobile phone. It’s simple and light. You can see the updates of your friends and can search for people and browse profiles.
Twitter for iPhone
You can experience a great twitter site from your iphone by browsing twitterforiphone.com. This is a twitter site specially designed and optimized for iphone users. The interface is clean, stylish and you can do the same things what you can do on the main site.
TwitterBerry for BlackBerry phones
TwitterBerry is an application for BlackBerry phones. Most of the latest models support this app and it’s highly integrated for BlackBerry phones.
Hardware requirements:
• BlackBerry OS 4.1.0+ (BlackBerry OS 4.2+ for TwitPic support)
• BlackBerry Internet Browsing Service (BIS-B or BIBS) OR a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) OR a direct TCP data connection
Twitroid for Android phones
Twitroid is a twitter client for Android mobile phones + you can use identi.ca -a twitter like service with this application.
TinyTwitter
TinyTwitter is a cool java application for mobile twittering. If you don’t want to use excessive data when updating twitter, then this app is for you. This is a light app that works on almost every java enabled phones. It won’t load your friend’s tweets until you order it to do and you can update your status by transferring less data -this is way cheaper than text messages.
Spreading your tweets all over the internet
Your 140 character twitter updates are not limited inside your profile or in your friend’s timeline. Twitter gives you the scope to bring them out.
Add twitter on your blog
You can add your twitter updates on your blog. This way your readers will know what are you doing right now. It’s harder to update your blog regularly but it’s easy to update your twitter status. This way your readers will know that you’re still connected with you.
Go to twitter widgets from twitter.com/widgets and select your platform. Select
“Blogger.” Select number of updates, badge title and click on the blogger button to install it on your blogger blog automatically. You can also click on “Grab the code” to get the HTML code. Now you have to paste this code into your blog’s sidebar.
Blogger blog: Go to Dashboard > Layout > Add a gadget. Select “HTML java code”
and paste the code “Save”
Wordpress blog: Go to Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and select “Text” now paste the code and press “Done“, “Save”
And there you have your twitter widget!
Add twitter on MySpace
Twitter has two flash myspace badges. One with the twitter box and the other one with a simple status message. Go to twitter.com/widgets > MySpace, select your badge and choose colors, get the code.
Now login to MySpace and click “Edit profile” now paste the code anywhere under about, my stuff etc. -you need to have the latest version of flash player to see the widget.
Add twitter on Facebook
Twitter has a great application for Facebook. Login to your facebook account and go to Twitter app. Now add the application and submit your twitter id and password. On the application menu, you can see the recent tweets of your friends and you can also update your status. You can also add the twitter box on your profile or in your page.
Update your facebook status with twitter
You can automatically update your facebook status with your twitter update. Go to the twitter application from facebook. On the top right tab, select settings (next to your name) and then “Twitter Settings.”
Now from the box, select “Additional Permissions” and then check “Update my status without notifying me.” Click “Okay“
Now whenever you’ll update your twitter status, your facebook status will be updated too! Facebook won’t update the tweets that start with a @reply.
There are even more services which allow you to use your twitter message as the status.
The more you spread your tweets, the more you can keep updated with people around you.
Tips about using twitter search
search.twitter.com is the place and you don’t even need a twitter account to use it. So what it does? This is a huge search engine that indexes twitter updates and which can deliver results in real time. With a click of a button, you can see who is talking about that topic and that means you’re getting the real time response from the world! Go ahead, take a look! PS: this is not the actual twitter search bar, go to search.twitter.com
Enough experiment, now lets see what can we do with it? Start by searching a topic you’re willing to know about. Most people put their blog post url’s on their updates. You may find some recent posts while searching iphone, new year, obama etc.
Knowing what happened!
When BlogKori.com was in blogger platform, I used the DNS service from NameCheap to attach the domain with my blog. One evening I was unable to access my blog. I thought blogger is having an issue but my other blog tamalanwar.com (from another domain company) was working fine. I knew that it’s something about NameCheap but what really happened and am I the only one facing this problem?
I searched twitter for “NameCheap” and know that everyone who’s using NameCheap DNS service is having the same problem. -that’s faster than getting support! Got the explanation and became worry less.
Getting the news
Most people ask me when is the next Google page rank update? I don’t know it but I’m also looking for that update. So the problem is solved by searching twitter for “Page rank” -if you see a buzz about it, then you’ll know that it’s been updated recently.
I got the latest news and happening about the US Election 2008 or about the Mumbai terrorist attacks from twitter. It’s updated and getting it just from the person who’ve witnessed it.
Searching for someone who needs help
Lot’s of people in twitter ask their followers, how to do this, how to do that? Now, as a blogging blogger one of my daily task is to solve blogger and webmaster problems.
Before I used to join forums to search for problems, but that’s a bit time consuming. I search twitter for, “Blog help”, “Blogger help”, “RSS”, “SEO help” etc. I get real time results and try my best to connect with that person with that solution.
Last month I found a person who tweeted that she lost her blog post and she needs help getting it back. I connected with her on twitter and exchange tweets and messages to solve this issue; this is another way to bring on new people to you and to your blog.
And off course there’s an advanced search option for searching a specific tweet. Please remember, you don’t need a twitter account access twitter search.
How to be an active twitter user?
Unlike any other social websites, twitter has its own community. If you want to bring something out from twitter, then you have to update, follow, share and contribute.
The more time you spend on twitter to connect with others, the more your friends will know you and they will be interested. So before you dive into the community, you must have a plan using twitter.
First set some goals
• What you want from twitter? (traffic, fun or some business contacts)
• What kind of information you want from others? (friends, companies or professionals)
• Do you want them to get interested in you? (as a customer, reader or associate)
• What kind of profile you want to create? (as a consultant, service provider or a creator)
The main key with twitter is activity. When you’ll start to follow few people, some other people will follow you too. Now using twitter with the website or from your mobile will not help you to keep in touch all time. For this you can install some cool applications.
For desktop:
If you spend more time doing projects on your computer, then use desktop twitter clients.
These two twitter clients uses Adobe air platform,
Twhirl
Twhirl is a simple application which will allow you to use twitter on your desktop. You can see your friend’s timeline, direct messages, @replies. You’ll get notification of tweets every time there’s a new message. This way you can keep in touch with your friends all the time. You can also use multiple twitter accounts with twhirl.
TweetDeck
TweetDeck is a service similar to Twhirl. It’s huge and has lots of features. You can search twitter for people and topics with this software. You can also see the most tweeted keywords from TweetDeck.
For firefox:
I spend a lot of time surfing websites with my browser. This is why I prefer using twitter from my browser.
TwitterFox
TwitterFox is a firefox plugin which is light and easy to use. You can see your friend’s timeline, messages, @replies. You can also post links to twitter just from your browser.
TwitterFox made my twitter life faster.
TwitterBar
TwitterBar is a simple extension for firefox, no fancy! You can use this to post twitter updates just from your address bar.
Being an active user in twitter
Post expressions and interesting tweets: Like what happened on your work, your feelings, emotions about some matter etc. Personal tweets makes others see your life and they will know what kind of personality you have.
Post achievements: Like what you did today, how was your day, how you made this and that and every small joys of your life and work. People love to read other people’s achievement and it inspires them a lot.
Post questions: I post question when ever I get into any trouble with my blog. I asked my twitter friends if my site is loading or not from their server and they replied! -that’s the true power of twitter.
As an instant messenger: Twitter works just like an instant messenger. With my twitterfox, I connect with my friends and readers almost in real time. While writing this series, I had a serious discussion with one of my friend, @stwange and he gave a lot of tips to improve it.
Direct messages, replaces email: I send more direct messages than emails. I don’t send an email if I had to say a few words. And twitter. Whenever I connect with a new person, I instantly follow them on twitter for instant communication.
Add value: Don’t just put updates like, “I had breakfast; going for shopping or playing games, etc” write some tweets that will help others. Like if you have a latest news update, something you discovered, some tips, anything which will help a lot of people.
Make money with your twitter account
Making money with twitter platform is a new concept and most people don’t like it. I believe making money with a micro blog is similar to the way we make money with our blogs. If it’s fair to make money with a blog, then making money with your twitter account is also fair. Now lets see how we can make money with twitter,
TwittAd
I think TwittAd is the first service that offered twitter monetization. With this platform you can sell your twitter account background. Advertisers will buy your background space and place their brand and you’ll get paid -this is the main concept.
When I looked into their “current listings” and “recently sold” section, I learned that you have to need a lot of followers to earn with this service. With this info you’ll know how much you can make with your twitter background.
Most of the twitterers sell their spot for a week and you won’t get $5 if you have less than 500 followers, that’s a really bad thing. On the other hand selling your twitter background is really bad for your business/ blog. If you use your background to show your own info, then I think it will benefit you more than $5 a week! TwittAd pays via PayPal when the account reaches $20.
Be-a-magpie
Most people compared Be-a-magpie as the PayPerPost of micro blogging. Yes with this service, you can post paid tweets. I loved this twitter monetization system and it’s almost a perfect one. From the start page, you can add your twitter user name and they will calculate how much you can earn per month. They said I can earn €11 per month with my tweets. That’s really great for doing what I do everyday.
They will match your twitter updates to show relevant tweets. You can set the ratio to 3, 5 or 10 tweets per ad. I showed 4 tweets so far and my account balance is €1.39. They will pay you via PayPal when your account will reach €50, you can also transfer this fund to your magpie advertiser account.
AdCause
AdCause is a new service and they also show paid tweets but their concept is focused on flat rate tweets. You create an ad spot. For an example, you’ll show 5 tweets per ad for 1 month and set your price $10. If the advertisers like the offer, they will buy the ad from you. Your account will then publish automated tweet ads. I think this is the unique way to make your followers unfollow you, because the ads will be the same and you don’t know how often they might spam your account with ads!
TwitterHat
.
TwitterHat has a basic concept of using twitter for profit. What they offer is the way to advertise on twitter links, using a top banner ad. We all post links on twitter right? After signing up, you’ll have to create a tinyurl type of url from them each time you want to post a link. When your followers will click on the link to see the page, they will also see a banner ad on the top.
• 1000 points = $10 gift card
• 2000 points = $20 gift card
• 3000 points = $25 gift card
-a big time waster, I don’t have the time to play with my twitter account, do you?
The Branch Network
TheBranch is not a site to make money for twitteres. This site is focused for advertisers who want’s to advertise on twitter. They are connecting with all major twitter service and clients to show ads on them. Who knows, may be there’s a hope for twitteres to earn money with your tweets!
What can we learn here?
No matter how hard you try to make money with twitter it’s not enough to depend on it.
If you monetize your twitter account, then it’s just another source to earn some extra money online. There’s a reason why I created this post about money making in twitter. Now there are only a few sites but within the end of the year there will be plenty of them, this indicates that twitter is a very profitable source.
Just take a look at your twitter profile and try to think what a great asset you’re ignoring! The best way to use twitter for profit is to use it for your own brand and business building. Twitter is the unique way to send your message in 140 characters to your followers around the word; on their pc, apps or on their mobile device.
Thank you!
Please do follow me on twitter: @tamalanwar
To get the latest ebook, visit http://blogkori.com/ebook
