Not yet Twitter literate? As infectious as the Twitter trend is, not everyone knows how to jump on the micro-blogging express.
For those of you who haven’t a twittering clue about the messaging medium, it is a social networking service that has revolutionised the way people communicate online.
Users sign up for free at twitter.com to send mini-messages or “tweets” to their network of friends and contacts.
In Twitter-speak, your friends and contacts are called “followers” because they receive your updated messages, or status reports. In turn, you follow them. In fact, you can follow just about anyone who will approve you as a contact. You can also choose to keep your tweets private.
Users can access their Twitter pages online via computer or by cellphone. With messages limited to a line or two, Twitter encourages streams of quick comments and snappy replies.
This is not a medium for the long-winded but, as contradictory as this may sound, chatty people may feel right at home. Short, sprightly, and frequent bursts of chatter are Twitter’s life blood.
The success of Twitter seems rooted in its restrictions: messages are limited to 140 characters each. The flow of short messages often generates, at best, a brisk repartee of ideas and opinions, thoughts distilled to their essence.
“Twitter forces you to be more concise and precise, to communicate without writing a long blog post,” says Alex de Carvalho, who is co- founder of StartPr, a brand-tracking business for PR agencies and marketing departments.
He notes that Twitter is already transforming the way some bloggers write, prompting them to write shorter posts online.
When they get started on Twitter, users can search for friends already using the service, invite friends to join or seek out people with common interests.
The most effective way to generate an audience of followers is to simply write about your interests, obsessions and peeves, says De Carvalho. Through the magic of Twitter searches, followers will come to you.
“The best use of Twitter is to talk about things that are of interest to you and it will open up doors to you. If you’re into knitting, you can do a search and find a community of like-minded people. Or write about it, and people will find you.” — © 2009 The New York Times News Service
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