Social Media: Twitter 101

LAAMA Christmas Luncheon: DEC. 17, 2009

@saharconsulting

Sahar Consulting
www.saharconsulting.com
 What is Twitter
Twitter is a micro-blogging application started in
2006, became popular beginning 2009 when
celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and his competition
with CNN to acquire the 1st million followers erupted,
followed shortly by Oprah; joined the fascinating
world of Twitter. Twitter is the most used word in the
English language in 2009.

The updates on Twitter are called “Tweets” & Can’t be

More than 140 characters.
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 Why to care about Twitter
Twitter is the fastest-
growing social-media site,
with an estimated 14 M
unique visitors/ month.
Most of the users are age
25-54, largest segment the
45-54 age groups.

Twitter like any other social media platform is not an

advertising medium, it is about 2 way conversations ,
building & nurturing relationships.
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 How Businesses use Twitter
Businesses use Twitter to meet potential customers
and leads. Twitter can also be used to:
1) Develop and promote a brand
2) Interact with a customer base
3) Track what people are saying about a company
and its brand
4) Create buzz around upcoming events
5) Promote other created content, including
webinars, blogs
6) Develop direct relationships with bloggers and
journalists for potential PR placement
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 Where to Start: @name

Sign up for a
Twitter
account

1- Start by choosing a username as short as possible

as it counts within the 160 characters, choose your
real name or the business name for @name & add the
real name in the settings. Choose a password, then
sign in. 6
 What Next: Fill BIO

Go to Settings at the top of the page, the different

settings items will show:
2- In Account: Enter your details as Email etc…, fill
out your BIO (160 characters) , make sure to add
keywords relevant to your business, industry and
clients. 7
 Add a professional picture

3- Add a picture: click on Picture in settings,

browse your computer for a professional nice
picture, suggested that you use the same picture on
all your social media profiles. A JPG, GIF or PNG
of max. 700k. Save 8
Personalize your background
Still in Settings, go to
Design, on the bottom of
the page, click on change
background image:
•Browse your computer.
•Upload either your logo
or a picture you can use
as background
•Save it, choose as a tile
background or single
picture.
•OR 9
 Personalize your background2

Some free services like ww.twitterbackgrounds.com

you can have a free background if you use your logo
or picture, or $4.95 if they upload up to 20 pictures for
you as a background, or $99 if they totally personalize
the background for you. Make sure it follows the
theme of your brand. 10
 Follow people/ be followed

Start by following the people you know, enter your different

Emails, servers and passwords. Twitter will send them Follow
notices. Then start following people of interest to you:
1- Study the ratio between people’s followers and who they
follow, avoid the lopsided ones.
2- Look at the frequency of their tweets/ posts not too often, not
to little. Take your time adding people you follow.
3- Use applications as www.twellow.com to find people
using Keywords. 11
 Find people of interest to follow

Find the top users on Twitter as they will give you

more exposure and visibility if they either follow
you back or reply to you-
Find them on www.twitter.grader.com/topusers
Courtesy of Hubspot.com 12
 People that follow you

You are not obligated to follow anyone that follows
you.

Don’t follow everyone.

Choose quality versus quantity. (look at Zappos)

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 Some terminology before you start

Replies: Responding to a specific person by using
@theirname .

Direct Messages: or DM are private messages that
other tweeters can use to reach you privately, it can
only be exchanged between people that follow each
other.

Retweets: RT:@username tweet, when someone re-
sends your tweets.

Trending Topics: Twitter will always show the top
10 trending topics.

Favorites: Save your testimonials
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 Some terminology before you start
Tweeple – Are the people that are tweeting.
Mistweet - This is a Twitter message you wish you hadn't sent.
Even if you delete unwanted messages they can still appear in
searches.
Tweetup – When some Tweeple get together for an "in person"
meeting. Twitter has a new official Tweetup page, but it was
down as I wrote this. You can also follow the Twitter Tweetup
account to get the scoop on upcoming events.
Twoosh - It is a perfect, 140 character Tweet.
Twitterbait – Every now and then some users will bait a
popular user into sending them an @username response. This
gets the baiter's username in front of the more popular poster's
network of followers and can result in quite a few new
followers.
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How it looks on a profile

Credit to Hubspot 16
 Engage your followers

Rules of engagement:
1- Your tweets have to offer value
2- Link wisely helpful links
3- Quotes can be inspiring but not all the time
4- Be yourself, add humor
5- RT others important tweets, copy their tweets and add
RT in front of the tweet
6- Answer your Direct messages DM
7- Thank whoever mentions you (To check that click on
@yourname)
8- Don’t use automated direct messages they feel
spammy 17
 Search Box

The Search Box: where you can search for your

keywords, industry leaders, ongoing conversations,
groups, and chats.
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 Applications to organize profiles

Increase profile features, have more control on your
tweets, follow groups, handle multiple accounts:
1- www.tweetdeck.com: Desktop software that lets
you create a new column that filters the hashtag or
chat name.
2- www.seesmic.com: beautiful desktop client for
Twitter with a slightly translucent and tabbed
interface.
3- www.ubertwitter.com: is a company devoted to
delivering highly functional Twitter clients for
mobile devices (For Blackberries)
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 Spy on Keywords / Competition

Applications to listen on Twitter:

1- www.tweetbeep.com
2- www.twilerts.com
3- www.search.twitter.com

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 Twitter

The bird that connects and promotes all

other social media channels/ networks.
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 Thank you

Looking forward Tweeting with

you
@saharconsulting
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 Prepared by:
Sahar Andrade
@
Sahar Consulting
www.saharconsulting.com
www.linkedin.com/in/saharandrade
www.saharconsulting.wordpress.com
www.twitter.com/saharconsulting
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