Brandi J. Clark

Now…what to say?

I thought about this a lot last night and I think before you can understand what to say, it is important to understand how to work with what other people have already said.

Twitter is about engaging with others and not just tweeting about yourself.

HOW TO RESPOND TO YOUR TWITTER FEED – BASICS

1. Understanding your home feed.
1. Your home feed, as you view it on Twitter.com is the conversation of all your followers. This is like having all your friends talking at once, in one long stream of disjointed conversation.

It looks like this

2. Reply

If you think that something is interesting. Click on the tweet messsage. The tweet will enlarge. You will see a series of symbols.

The first symbol is the reply button.

 Reply

When pressed you will get a reply box with the address of the person who sent the message. For example if you hit reply to the message about Kellogg’s Tweet shop (above) you would see this:

@FastCoCreate

Following the tweet address you can fill in a response or comment.

@FastCoCreate I wish I could use social currency to buy groceries.

…or something more interesting.

Then press send. The message is sent back to the person who tweeted it and it is also viewed by of your followers.

3. Retweet
If you see a message in your feed that you think your followers (friends)  would like to read press “retweet”.  The second symbol is the retweet button.

 Retweet

When you press retweet the entire message appears in the status box with a RT (retweet) in front of the message.

Using the above “Kellogg’s” tweet as an example it would look like this:

RT @FastCoCreate Kellogg’s Tweet Shop Let’s You Pay for Food with Social Currency trib.al/z CSZoh

The “RT” gives credit to the person who composed the original message. It is like saying…

 “Hey everyone…guess what so and so said…it’s brilliant. Listen up. Pay attention. He/she has the goods.”

After you press “send” the RT message is sent to all of your followers.

4. Favorite
Sometimes you just love a tweet so much that you need to keep it for later. This is when you select the symbol:

 When you press the favorite symbol, the tweet is saved for later, to find under your twitter profile…under favorites. When you “favorite” a tweet, the person who sent the tweet is notified that you “favorite-ed” it. (Is that even a word?)

I work with many teachers.
They love Pinterest.
Twitter… not so much.

It got me to thinking how I could explain Twitter so that they would try it.

So here is what I came up with…when in doubt go the pop culture route! (pronounced “Rowt” in an effort to be clever and whimsical.)

SCROLL down to getting started with Twitter if you are anxious and on a timecrunch.

But for those who want the full story…here are the differences between Pinterest and Twitter…

There is a difference in effort.

Pinterest is like sitting in hot tub. (relaxing)

Twitter is like lane swimming in a pool. (invigorating with some effort)

And they look different…

Pinterest is all about the pictures.

Twitter is all about words.

And they are for different things.

Pinterest is all about Show and Tell.

Twitter is all about conversation and building a professional learning network.

It’s not to say that they don’t overlap. They do. But I think you do need both.

Getting Started with Twitter

1. Sign Up at Twitter.com

Think of your username as your namecard. Who are you?

Tips

• Use your real name. Why? Because it’s professional and because @Tootie or @Macgyver are from the 80’s and you don’t want to date yourself.
• If your name is taken, add a middle initial, or two.

DO THIS NOW!

RECAP… you are now in a giant “cyber” room, with your name tag on, standing around self consciously like you are at a high school dance. 

You need to find some friends…

2. Find some friends.

Tips

• Old school ….In the search feature  (see below) look up real friends.  The ones you have met in …the REAL world. GASP!
• New school…Check out the “who to follow” section (bottom left of picture below).  Twitter suggests friends for you. 

For both old school and new school discoveries follow these steps to add them to your list.
        1. Check out their profile first.
 
        Click on the person’s name (in bold).
A profile will enlarge.

Are their profiles interesting?
Would you invite these people to dinner? …or have a conversation with behind a locked screened door?

NOTE: Relax. This isn’t lifematch or e-harmony. These are not forever friends. This is not to say that some might become really good friends in time but you can always unfollow them. There is no limit to who you follow. Eventually you will have a whole assortment of followers

              2.  Press the follow button.

 
After you press “Follow” the usernames are added to your followers list. 
 

.

RECAP…You are now in a giant “cyber” room, with a name tag on, with a small group of friends, wondering what to say…

Next Post:
Tweet Language!  Composing a Tweet that would even impress John Tesh!

Until Next Time,
Lit Maven Out!