Twitter Beginner’s Guide

Deanna Zandt , a media technologist and consultant, has put together a simple and useful “Non-fanatical beginner’s guide to Twitter” for people who want to experiment a little, quickly learn the lingo and figure out how they might integrate Twitter into their work or personal lives. According to Deanna, “It takes a while to get the feel of Twitter. Commit, if you can, to trying it a couple times a day for two weeks or so. At the end of your little trial period, assess how you feel and how you think you’ll use it.”

Here are a few of her tips on what to “tweet” about on Twitter:

What do I say? Well, just about anything, really. Okay, we’re probably not going to be interested in your belly button lint… but here are some methodologies you can try out:

• Pure professional. You’re an expert in your field and you want to share this with the world. Pick a couple of “beats” and focus your twittering on those beats. Find other folks tweeting about these topics and have conversations with them.
• Pure personal. Your cat is hilarious, you’re thinking about moving to Wisconsin, you’re on your way to Miami for a much needed vacation. You get the idea here, but do try to keep your audience in mind as you post some of your life’s minutiae. I’m guilty of posting weird stuff, for sure.
• The blended model. This is the way to go, and what ultimately makes Twitter so interesting, in my opinion. If I wanted to know people’s political analysis only, I’d go read their blogs. There’s a humanizing effect of reading about a distant colleague’s child’s first words, or seeing that people you think are on top of the world have bad days, too. It creates empathy and insight. When I tweeted that I’d had a really rough, emotional weekend once, I was surprised to see which followers spoke up to say, “Hey, we’re with you.” And it helped further complete a picture of me for them, as well.

One of the biggest things to keep in mind about Twitter is that it’s a conversation. I generally dissuade my fellow Twitter gurus from making blanket statements on how to use Twitter, but it’s clear at this point that one of the joys most everyone gets out of it is talking to one another. Reply often to your followers and people you follow. Twitter is a two way street, with many, many lanes going both directions.

See the original for the full guide, especially the first section on grammar and vocab.  Twitter is an odd little animal, but now that scores of senators are now tweeting live from the floor, its quickly moving into the mainstream and worth playing around with for at least an hour or so.