I've just become a twitter - now what? Any experts to guide me?

Hi Mary - I would start by using twitter to build relationships. Not really all that techy, just need 2 rite n 140 charctrs or less.

OK - thanks.

I've already updated it 12 times so I'm getting content on it at least.

Mary

Mary,

Twitter is great for building relationships and using those relationships to drive traffic to your site.

Is your site a blog? If it is, go to twitterfeed.com : feed your blog to twitter - post RSS to twitter automatically and sign up for a free account. Then add your blog RSS feed to your TwitterFeed account and everytime that you make a new blog post, it automatically tweets it for you!

If you use FireFox as your web browser, get the Twitter Bar or the TwitterFox add-on and you can tweet right from your browser. TwitterFox also allows you to read your tweets, replies, and direct messages as well.

Make people that follow you feel welcome by going to Schedule Future-Dated Twitter Tweets TweetLater.com and create a free account there as well. You can create a special, custom message that welcomes new followers for you and it tweets them for you automatically. You can even schedule tweets with this free service as well as other things. Anyone that follows me gets an automatic welcome message and I don't have to worry about it!

You can also live-tweet what you're doing with services like TwitPic / Share photos on Twitter and Dial2Do - Home. TwitPic allows you to upload and tweet pictures from your cell phone and you can really share a lot of yourself and personality with this service.

You can do the same with Dial2Do. Dial2Do is one of my favorite new services. You can sign up for a free account and you can literally phone in your tweets! It will transcribe your voice to text and send it to Twitter, Blogger, WordPress, texts, Gmail, and a lot more. It'll even read your last 10 tweets to you and you can respond to them as you listen to them! It's awesome and fun to use...and free!

Well, anyway, those are the services that I use a lot and they help me have a lot of fun with Twitter. Dana is always wrestling her kiddos out of bed and Big Mike is always working on the next "big thing". Maybe they'll drop in here and give some advice as well.

Hope that helps! Have fun!

I use twitter to build relationships with prospects, and also to index my sites for SEO purposes. Its just like any other web 2.0 site that can help you boost your SERP ranking very quickly ... AND drive traffic if other people follow you on twitter.

Its great and addictive, so people will check out what you're up to

Thanks for all the information people, i'm just starting to use similar sites so its all new to me to!

Thanks everyone

Next step - got to find out how to follow people :-)

There's enough info there to keep me busy for 6 months :-)

Mary

You can use it to ask others to syndicate your blog posts, Digg posts etc so that they get more traffic.

Fabian

Mary,

Be a person, not a dotcom. Use a profile photo (settings in the top right corner).

Use the search link at the bottom of the page to search for others in your niche and follow them by clicking on their @name and then the grey "Follow" button. In turn, people will follow you back.

Join the conversation.

Best,

Brian

Thanks everyone - I'm glad this thread has been f helpt to others too!

Brian - when I got to the sign up page I didn't know what to use as a user name. The name I use for my site is different to the one I use here - so, as I'm using twitter to promote the site as well, do I use the name I use on the site? People from here may find it confusing when they clcik my twitter link and not find Mary but someone else :-)

Mary

Thanks John - I'll go and check it now. Is there any particular way I should do it? I'm not always that hot on links :-(

I still can't figure out how to get my twitter link in my contact info.

Still working on all the other tips and advice that's been given.

Thanks everyone.

Mary

OK - got sig and contact sorted.

Thanks Jassa for the tip - I've been wondering why the @ is there and why some posts have it and others haven't.

Did you know there's a twitter social group here?

Where abouts are you then?

Mary

When I started out I soon became an 'expert' on EA; then worked my way up to an 'advanced warrior' here and now - well, now I'm a 'TWIT'.

Goodness, what's to become of me? :-)

Mary

Mary,

The first thing I did on Twitter was to find any of my friend and contacts that had Twitter accounts and followed them.

Then I went to the Twitter pages for people in my industry and my friends to see who they were following. I looked for interesting people and followed them.

The interact with these people.

This is a great way to get a kick start on building a Twitter following and getting the interaction flowing.

A lot of these people will follow you back. Make sure you have your bio, image, web site and other info filled out so that if people click to your page they will have an idea of who you are and will be more likely to follow you.

Jason - I've got most of that done today. It's still my first full day today. I'm working my way through the list of warriors here as well.

Jassa - it wasn't even the fun aspect that I joined for but as a traffic generation tool. It's turned out to be great fun though and I now even feel more of a community member here in the forum.

You'll find all sorts on twitter, it's worth checking it out. I did a google search for twitter to find out a bit about it before I started.

Mary

LOL!!

I have 'talked' to so many people today and I really feel as if I 'belong' in the forum now.

It's so nice to see a friendly face on twitter. You need to tell me how to do the auto sig you mentioned.

How do you get the time to twitter, use facebook, youtube, Myspace, this forum and work?

Mary

Who is "Sue Baker" ?

I'm getting real confused here.

Iz you Sue, or iz you Mary?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Pete

Pete

If you read Mary's (Sue's) OP and her subsequent posts - all will be revealed.

I'll let you find out why!

Mary,

Have you Joined the Twitter Followers Group Here in the Warrior Forum yet?

If not, and no one has already recommended this (?) ...

I would Highly Recommend You:
1) Join the Twitter Followers Group Here in the Warrior Forum
2) Start Following other Members of the Twitter Followers Group
ok?

I may Post some other Twitter Groups elsewhere as soon/as I am able, ok?

I hope this all helps and Have a Great Day!

- Michael

Most people seem to do one of two things:

1 - Just chat and find new people and have fun.

2 - Automate link building messages and promotional messages and send them out all the time to see if people respond.

I'll let you choose yours

Pete - hope you found you're answer :-)

Michael - Yes, am a member of the twitter followers group.

Andy - my aim of joining twitter was for your second point. Is there a way I can automatically update twitter when I update my site?

or, shall I post on twitter that I've updated my site?

What I was doing yesterday was to post the title of an article and provide it's link. I was doing that regularly throughout the day and was planning on doing similar today.

I also have a category for 'Humor' on my site with any fun stuff like jokes, silly diets etc and have been adding some of them bit by bit to twitter.

ps. I like what you have in your sig :-)

Best wishes to all

Mary

Mary, is your site a blog?

Chris - I use wordpress and never know whether I should call it a site or a blog!

Thanks Andy - I'm looking at getting more plugins and widgets.

Mary

Hi glorified777 - glad you found this thread useful, there's others that have as well.

It's all about helping each other.

Mary

Well first you build a following. I'm following you now.

I have a twitter related question

what is the @ sign in a twet. It appear is is like a link to someone elses tweet. How do you do this?

Thanks
Michael

Marlow - send me a message on twitter to let me know how to do the auto follow.

I still haven't figured out the wwtweet issue yet. I'm running between here, PMs, twitter and others. It's great exercise if nothing else! :-)

traces2757 - thanks, I'm getting a following ... slowly. Thanks for following me I'm following you too.

I've seen so many warriors on twitter - is nobody doing any work today??

Mary

Hi Steve

There's been a lot of really useful information in this thread, especially from Chris Hunter - thanks Chris.

I found my first day on twitter absolutely manic while I was finding the ropes. Still haven't found them all yet, but that'll come in time.

Yesterday I stepped back and mainly watched. Watched how other people used it and started to find my way round a bit better.

Like you I find I can't get into a lot of the conversations. I'm also finding it very time consuming but maybe in time that will improve.

By far my favourite place to interact in right here in the forum.

I'll stick with it and see how it develops for fitting in with what I'm doing.

Best wishes

Mary

Thanks Chris You've given so much valuanle information to this thread.

Ever thought of writing a book on how to get the best out of twitter? or How to use Twitter for IM?

This is the first time I've had so many replies to one of my threads - it's great!!

Best wishes.

Mary

Hey guys - just saw this thread.

My best tip for Twitter is this: Write a helpful post that shows that you know what you are talking about in your field. Tweet with a teaser and a link to it i.e. I did "7 Ways To Use Press Releases To Boost Your Holiday Sales". Do that several times throughout the day, interspersed with personal tweets (you do it more than once because if you haven't tweeted in the past 15 20 minutes, a lot of your followers won't see it because so many other people are tweeting too.)

This got me my best clients ever for ghostwriting, and now it's getting me clients for press release writing.