3. What We’ll Cover Today
What is Twitter, really?
Who uses Twitter?
What is it good for?
How do I get started Tweeting?
What else can I do with Twitter?
13. Your Neighbors
Twitter experienced 1,382% year-over-
year growth in February 2009, with the
number of total unique visitors increasing
from 475,000 in February 2008 to 7
million last month, according to Nielsen
Online.
Hundreds of big name journalists on Twitter.Great way to keep up with their top stories, but also many of them use it for research… so it’s another way to influence the media. Much more responsive to THEIR needs than sending them press releases.
133 Tweeting so far, and counting…You can see what they’re up to, but also you can message them. You could use this medium to put pressure on Congress members, e.g. getting your network to publicly message a particular Congress member asking them to pass a piece of legislation that you support.
Just like Facebook and other social networks, Twitter is a way to find other people who have shared challenges and concerns.
Padmasree Warrior - CTO - Ciscohttp://twitter.com/padmasreeWhat CTO before Twitter could have had an unfiltered megaphone to 400K+ people interested in Cisco? It’s great for Cisco, but it’s also great for her. Imagine how much harder it is to fire her now!
Save an hour, skip Oprah and read her Tweets.
The great thing about Greg Grunberg is that he’s Tweeting as himself, not as Matt Parkman. So if you’re a big Heroes fan, as I am, this is a really neat way to both get insider info on the show, and to get to know what the person behind the character is like.
Al Gore may be the most boring Twitterer ever. But if you work in the enviromental field, you should follow him. You’ll know what research and events are top-of-the-radar for this leader in your field.
So don’t feel weird if you’re not on Twitter yet. Most Americans aren’t. But the trend says that soon, many will be.
This is me on Twitter. Here I am talking this class up.
I am also one of the people who Tweets as FissionStrategy, along with the rest of our team.We haven’t really pushed this out yet. We’ve been seeding it first with some good Tweets.Something to note is that these 2 accounts have different personalities. When I Tweet as myself, I’m sharing things that I think are interesting, updates about my life, engaging with my network of friends. When I Tweet as FissionStrategy, I am really speaking to an audience of nonprofit Internet professionals, sharing tools and data I think they’ll find useful.
And sometimes I’m one of our clients, like MomsRising. In their case, we found their core audience – moms – were heavy Twitter users, so we went in and seeded the account with content, then followed a bunch of popular mommy bloggers and their followers. You can see their followers are way up, and Twitter is a top source of traffic to their website every week.
iPhone - Who here has an iPhone? Did you buy it in the first week it came out? Did you have to wait in line?John EdwardsPassive updates on what people are up to – e.g. know someone had a baby, even if you’re not in their close circle and haven’t seen them in awhile
- Between Facebook and Twitter alone, I have about 1600 connections. This is way above average but not anywhere near the big Connector types and famous people. However when I post a Tweet, since it’s hooked up to my Facebook account, I instantly reach that extended network of 1600. If it’s good information, they’re in a position to easily pass it along to their networks. The information is pushed out passively, so I’m not burning up social capital (as I would with an email or phone call), I’m building it.Today I direct messaged a bunch of people who have big DC networks and asked them to reTweet my message about tonight’s class.I frequently ask questions like: Looking for an online tool that will create a Google map out of an Excel file. Pls ping if you’ve got a rec.
Pretty obvious. Go to Twitter.com. Click on Sign up.
If you’re a business or nonprofit… invest some time in following people of interest in your field. And those who follow them. Still 70% who you follow will follow you back. This is how we boosted the following of Greenpeace International and MomsRising.
You’ll really never take advantage of Twitter if you use the website alone.I use an iPhone app and Twhirl.
Twhirl let’s me be 3 people at once.If this becomes a key part of your job or life, I strongly recommend getting a second monitor and relegating all your “streams” to that 2nd monitor.
Obama @ DNCC
If you’ve read the 4 Hour Workweek, you’ll guess my other secret. I sometimes use a virtual assistant to help manage this and my Facebook account – thank people, follow those who follow me.
We are all busy people. Don’t be ashamed to automate.MomsRising > we setup TwitterFeed fromtheir blog as an entre to TwitterMy Twitter is hooked up to Facebook status through a FB app. Often when I Tweet I’ll get more comments via Facebook than Twitter. It’s a bigger audience.With this new app, you can designate which Tweets update your Facebook status, and which don’t.
Want to find out who is unhappy at your office?
Or on a more productive note, find out who is talking about your organization or business on Twitter. The is a way of finding negative posts.
Hashtags just flag disparate posts as being on a similar topic.You can use these to be part of an existing conversation.If you’re trying to get noticed, you’ll want to use “trending topics” – hashtags that lots of people are using.For example, on Mother’s Day when MomsRising released a video they wanted people to pass along, they added the hashtag #mom to all their Tweets. It “trended” on Mother’s Day – showed up on Twitter search home.