Basic Twitter Set-up
First of all, log on to Twitter where you will be presented with the home screen and the option to set up a new account.
In the New to twitter box, you need to add your name, email and a password.
You will then be taken through a series of steps where you can select to add a picture to your profile, select certain people to start following etc or you can skip each of those steps for now and just go straight to your new twitter page. You will be sent a confirmation email in which you will have to click a link to fully validate your account before you start using it.
Above is what your profile page will look like - your feed (much in the same manner as Facebook). Here you will be able to see the tweets posted by the people you follow. To return to this page at any time, simply hit the home icon in the top left corner.
Now to start 'following' people. There are millions of people on twitter, including lots of companies, celebrities etc. Whoever you choose to follow, their tweets will appear on your feed.
To look for people to follow, start typing their name in the search box at the top right corner. As you start to type, suggestions matching this will begin to appear - click on the one you are looking for.
In the above example, I was looking for the twitter account for the Bonnyrigg Hub. Once you click on the name, the account for that person/group/company will open.
You will be able to see all the tweets they have sent on their page. If you choose to follow them their tweets will show on your feed. To follow them, simply click on the follow button on the right, underneath their header picture.
The more people you choose to follow, the more tweets will appear on your feed for you to read.
When you read a tweet you like, you can do a number of actions. You can retweet it, and thus have it appearing on your feed for all your followers to see, you can favourite it - just to show you like what it says, or you can reply and therefore comment on the tweet. All these actions appear underneath individual tweets. The arrow (reply), double arrows (retweet) and star are the actions as can be seen below.
To send a tweet, you simple go to the top of your feed where it says 'What's happening?' and begin typing. The biggest problem is that you are limited to only 140 characters. You can see your remaining characters decrease as you type.
You can also tag other pages in to your tweet. As you put a @ (all twitter user names begin with this) and start typing, a list of suggestions will come up for you to select from. In the below example, I am adding Bonnyrigg Hub in to the tweet.
To send the tweet, simply hit tweet. This will appear on your feed, and Bonnyrigg Hub will get a notification telling them that they have been tagged in a tweet. If they select to retweet the tweet, then it will also appear on their feed for all their followers to see. You may want to tag another user to simply involve them in a conversation (you can also send Private Messages) or you may just want to tell a company for example that they are doing well. For example, "Had a delicious meal at @ThePaperMill Lasswade for an impromptu night out"…..The Papermill will be able to see this and will likely retweet it as they are showing their followers a review of their products. As you can see above, you can also add a photo to your tweet.
What about # (hashtags)
When you are sending a tweet, it is helpful to add in hashtags. These are tags relating to what the subject matter of your tweet it. For example, if you are talking about a run you have just done in the midlothian area, you might think about adding #running, #midlothian, #keepingfit……what this then means, is that your tweet can become searchable by someone who is perhaps looking to see what people are saying about running or indeed about midlothian. For example, if in the search box, instead of a person/company you type in a hashtag, tweets that have made use of that hashtag will come up. In the example below, I typed in the search box #midlothian and here are a few of the tweets that appeared….I may not follow any of the people on the list that comes up, but it allows me to see their tweets anyway, because I am searching by hashtag usage.
What about #Midlothianhour??
On twitter, there are a number of 'hours' going on. This is when people who want to attend that 'hour' all go on twitter and have a conversation in effect. They talk about the subject of the 'hour' by tweeting using #hour in their tweet. For those wanting to be part of Midlothianhour, the hashtag to use will be #midlothianhour and this will take place the first Monday of the month 9-10pm- the first one being Monday 6th July. As a user, normally you would only be able to see the #midlothianhour tweets of those you follow. However, what is going to happen is that I will be there as a host. My job will be to be on the @Midlothianhour account and anytime a tweet using #midlothianhour comes up, I will then be retweeting it. In order for this to work and for your tweets to be seen, you have to be following @midlothianhour and also using #midlothianhour within your tweets. If you can also tag @midlothianhour within your tweet, that will make it even more easier to retweet for you. By following @midlothianhour, you will then be able to see all the tweets that are retweeted, even if you don;t follow the original 'tweeter' yourself. A lot of the time, you will find you will gain followers and also find other people that you would like to follow.
A lot to take in??
If you are not used to using twitter, it can be a lot to take in. If you wish to take part in #midlothianhour, here are a few simple steps you need to do….
1. If you don't already have one, set up a twitter account.
2. Search, find and follow @midlothianhour
3. On Monday 6th June, stick the kettle on, get yourself a cuppa and start sending some tweets between 9-10pm about anything to do with Midlothian. make sure all your tweets tag @midlothianhour AND contain #midlothianhour
Hints and tips
*If you are wanting to include a weblink in your tweet (perhaps to a website etc), go to a link shortening site first such at www.tinyurl.com, put your link in there and it will give you a 'shortened' version of your link. The link will still take users to where you want them to go, but it will save some of your valuable 140 characters!
* If you can't be free 9-10pm on 6th June but still want to see what was talked about, after the event type in #midlothianhour into the search box and you will see the tweets using that hashtag. Alternatively, visit the page of @midlothianhour where all the retweeted tweets will be seen.
*If you are using a MAC laptop you will see you don't have a # button!!! Don't panic…..simply hit 'alt' and number '3' at the same time, and there it is!!
*If you want a trial run to see how it all works, follow @edinhour and join #edinhour on 10th June 9-10pm.
The more people/companies/community groups etc that get involved in this, the more varied the conversations can be. If we find it is really popular, then it could be that we increase the frequency to fortnightly/weekly. If anybody at all would be interested in taking a turn of acting as the 'host' then please let me know…..it really is just a case of retweeting and also getting involved in some of the conversations :-)
If you have any questions or you think I have said something that you don't think it right, please do let me know. I am a self taught 'tweeter' and so there are still going to aspects that I don't know myself….yet!!!
I am hoping to do another post before the big launch focusing more on the benefits of twitter for business. I hope for now though, this has been helpful.
Laura
LE Designs
@Le_Designs2013
