Getting Started with

(in slightly more than 140 characters)

Andy Piper@andypiper

Rule #1http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/1555706680/

Twitter Background

short-form communication - 140 chars or less*

founded in 2006, big jump at SxSW in 2007

Jack Dorsey, Ev Williams, Dick Costello

rapid growth due to:

multi-channel use (SMS, web, apps)

easy API (simple to build apps on top of or around Twitter)

“cartoons on the back of business cards”http://gapingvoid.com

Early Pressit gained traction with “technorati” quickly

What are you doing?(now - What’s Happening?)

Uses?

Status broadcast

Breaking news e.g. Hudson River crash, earthquakes; citizen journalism

Location awareness

Discussion

Filtering interesting links (crowdsourced information)

Feeds

Marketing

Objects online e.g. houses, traffic info, plants…

Twitter = Broadcast(regular tweets can be seen by “everyone”*)

Also for “private” discussions(Direct Messages)

Communities form around topics(hashtags, lists etc)

http://flickr.com/photos/shawdm/820926627/

Let’s Try It!

Terminology

Username / Twitter handle

Profile

Tweet / post / update (“...did you see my tweet?”)

Follow/unfollow (followers/“tweeps”, following)

@reply / mention

Direct Message / DM

Stream

Terminology

Retweet / RT (native, and quoted)

Favourite

Hashtag (topic or marker)

List

Tweetup

Fail Whale...

Fail Whale!

Useful Tools and Apps

Twitter Apps - Twitter, TweetDeck, TweetBot, Plume - the list is nearly endless!

TwitPic and photo sharing

TwitterCounter

Buffer

Deep iOS integration

Usage tipsNB There is NO “right way” to use Twitter! These are my own thoughts!

Have a good profile - tell people why you are interesting

Don’t try to read everything - dip in and out

Don’t feel you have to respond to everything

Vary usage - mix links, status updates, RT, @replies

Follow and reply to interesting people

Try responding to strangers who seem interesting

Try to use just one tweet to get your point across

Advanced

Search and saved searches

Spam and Blocking

Media sharing

Trends / trending topics

#FF / Follow Friday

OAuth - third-party app authentication

Sponsored Tweets / advertising

Thanks!Andy Piper

@andypiperhttp://andypiper.co.uk