http://AspireLocal.com Twitter is an online social networking that connects you to the latest information about your interests. If you're new to Twitter, then this guide is good for you. If you have more questions about social media, feel free to visit our website.

1. A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO TWITTER
Meeting the needs of our customers

2. TWITTER
Twitter is an online social networking that connects you to
the latest information about what you find interesting.
If you’re just being introduced
to the joys of Twitter (or
introducing it to another
user), here’s a short and
friendly primer on what you
need to know about using the
site.

3. ALPHABET SOUP
Tech folks tend to love acronyms and jargon.
 Follow If you’re on Twitter you probably get this one already, but
let’s cover it for the sake of completeness. If you subscribe to
someone’s updates, you follow them.
 @reply When you want to get someone’s attention on Twitter, you
use an @reply, which will show up in their @connect menu on
Twitter or under Mentions in a client like HootSuite.

4. ALPHABET SOUP
 DM A direct message (DM) is sent between users, not shown
publicly on the timeline. You can only DM another user if they follow
you.
 RT A re-tweet (RT) is when you share something someone else
wrote.
MT Less common, a modified tweet is when you share
something written by someone else but modify it.
Usually this is done to fit the tweet into 140 characters.
Twoosh A tweet that is exactly 140 characters. Not used
often these days.

5. ALPHABET SOUP
 Hashtag The hashtag is a way to
mark keywords or topics in a
Tweet. For example, if you were
tweeting about the St. Louis
Cardinals’ impressive World
Series win in 2011, you might use
#cards as a hashtag.
 #FF One of the most common
hashtags you’ll see is #FF which is
short for Follow Friday. Basically, this
convention is for suggesting folks
that you should subscribe to (follow)
on Twitter.

6. ALPHABET SOUP
Geolocation or geotagging Using location data to
display where a user is when a Tweet is sent.
Lists Twitter allows you to add users to lists rather than
following them directly. This is useful if you want to
check in on a bunch of people periodically, but don’t
want them in your “stream” all of the time.

7. WHY 140 CHARACTERS?
LOGICAL REASON behind the 140 character limit
Twitter was designed to work with SMS, and most SMS systems have
a 160 character limit.
Why not 160?
Because you need room for a username and commands in addition to the 140
characters in the message. For example, if you want to tell Twitter send me a
DM via a text message, you’d use “d jzb” followed by a message up to 140
characters. When Twitter sends me a message via SMS, it includes
something like “Direct from @user” and instructions on replying.

8. HOW TO TWEET?
Things to consider when you’re new to Twitter.
Try to space out your tweets. Clusters of tweets are
going to get less attention. Even if you only allocate 15
minutes a day to Twitter, you can do this using a decent
Twitter client.
Be generous. If you’re on Twitter as part of your job and
you’re hoping people will RT you, you need to be sure to
interact with other folks and RT them as well.

9. HOW TO TWEET?
Be fun, kind and relaxed. People use Twitter for different
reasons, but nobody expects Twitter to be all corporate
and buttoned down. It’s also a limited medium for
expressing thoughts, so if you think someone may have
said something rude, it’s best to ask for clarification before
reacting.
Remember that it goes on your permanent record. You
never know when a tweet might surface via a Google
search or who might see it. While you should be informal,
you still don’t want to say anything a potential employer
might hold against you. And complaining about your job or
boss probably isn’t a great idea.

10. HOW TO TWEET?
Be aware of your company’s social media policies. If
you’re using Twitter professionally, you need to know what
is and isn’t considered OK by your company. If you’ve
been assigned a company account to keep up,
you really want to be clear on what tone of voice the
powers that be are looking for.

11. CLIENTS
 HootSuite is the current
favorite at
ReadWriteWeb. It lets
you connect via multiple
accounts, and also
works with Facebook,
Google+, LinkedIn,
Foursquare, WordPress
and others. It also allows
you to schedule posts
and share accounts with
team members.
HootSuite also has a
iOS version for Twitter.

12. CLIENTS
 TweetDeck is now an
official client from Twitter
after starting as an
independent. It’s a
power-user’s app that’s
focused mostly on
Twitter these days. Use
this one if you don’t need
to mix and match social
networks. It’s available
as a native client for
Windows and Mac OS X,
or you can use it as a
Web service or Chrome
extension.

13. CLIENTS
 CoTweet is another
team-oriented client that
supports Twitter and
Facebook. Has some
excellent team and
monitoring features that
are well-suited for
corporate use. Like
HootSuite, has free and
paid levels.

14. MOBILE AND NOTIFICATIONS
If you’ve recently signed up for a Twitter account, you
probably want to pay a visit to the account settings and
tweak the defaults.

15. MOBILE AND NOTIFICATIONS
Set it up to work
with your mobile
phone. Then tell it
to turn off
notifications,
except (maybe) for
direct messages.
Otherwise, if you
follow a decent
number of people,
you’ll be getting far
more text
messages than
you want.

16. MOBILE AND NOTIFICATIONS
Also crank down
Twitter’s defaults for
email messages.
Unless you really want
a lot of email from
Twitter, uncheck the
“email me when” for
reply or mentioned and
for all activities.

17. I hope this is useful for those of
you who are new to Twitter. If
you’re a Twitter vet and have
some tips of your own, please
give a shout in the comments.
And if you haven’t yet, be sure to
go follow me on Twitter
(@AspireLocal) as well and say
hi. Happy tweeting!