Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. It's an easy way to discover the latest news related to subjects you care about. People follow (subscribe) to your Twitter account, and you follow other people. This allows you to read, reply to and easily share their tweets with your followers (retweet). Your tweets can include a link to any web content (blog post, website page, PDF document, etc.) or a photograph or video. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-character limit for tweets.
Basic terminologies used in twitter:
Twitter Handle:
Also known as a username. This is the name you select to represent yourself.
To Follow:
To subscribe to someone’s updates on Twitter. You do this by clicking the “Follow” button on that specific person’s Twitter page, which can be found at http://twitter.com/USERNAME. (Insert the specific person’s username into the URL, like http://twitter.com/HubSpot). When you follow someone, their updates will be displayed on your Twitter page so you know what they are doing.
To Follow Back:
To subscribe to the updates of someone who has recently started following you. Whenever a new person follows you, you receive an email alert from Twitter. In the email, there will be a link to that person’s profile. By clicking the link, you can check out who they are and decide to follow them back or not. It is not required to follow everyone back, but many people like to.
Follower:
A person who has subscribed to receive your updates. You can see your total number of followers on your Twitter profile page.
Update:
Also known as a tweet. They can be no longer than 140-characters. (Later we will talk about different types of updates.) You post your update in the white text box under “What are you doing?” @Reply: A public message sent from one Twitter user to another by putting @USERNAME at the beginning of the tweet.
Direct Message (or DM):
A private message sent from one Twitter user to another by either clicking the “message” link on their profile or typing D USERNAME.
Twitter Stream:
A list of a person’s real-time updates. Every time you post an update, it goes into your Twitter stream, which is found on your account page also at http://twitter.com/USERNAME.
Tweet-up:
An event specifically organized for Twitter-users to meet up and network, usually informal.
Hashtag (#):
A tool to aggregate the conversation surrounding an event or theme. Created by combining a # with a word, acronym or phrase (#WORD).
Retweet (or RT):
To repeat what someone else has already tweeted. People do this if someone has said something especially valuable and they want their own network to see the information too. (Example: Retweet @USERNAME: Check out this cool resource).
Mention:
Bring a Tweet to a user’s attention by including their @username in a Tweet. This is called a mention and will appear to the @username you mentioned as well as to all of your followers. You can see who mentioned you in the mention section of your Twitter profile.
Timeline: Your timeline is a list of real-time Tweets from the users you are following. Twitter lingos… @ The "at" sign is used to mention another Twitter account (e.g., @Mashable). Within a tweet, it becomes a link to that user's profile. You may see it used in a geographical sense, such as "I'm @ the office," but this is just text-speak and not Twitter-specific.
Twitter Tools Used by Social Media Experts
Basic terminologies used in twitter:
Twitter Handle:
Also known as a username. This is the name you select to represent yourself.
To Follow:
To subscribe to someone’s updates on Twitter. You do this by clicking the “Follow” button on that specific person’s Twitter page, which can be found at http://twitter.com/USERNAME. (Insert the specific person’s username into the URL, like http://twitter.com/HubSpot). When you follow someone, their updates will be displayed on your Twitter page so you know what they are doing.
To Follow Back:
To subscribe to the updates of someone who has recently started following you. Whenever a new person follows you, you receive an email alert from Twitter. In the email, there will be a link to that person’s profile. By clicking the link, you can check out who they are and decide to follow them back or not. It is not required to follow everyone back, but many people like to.
Follower:
A person who has subscribed to receive your updates. You can see your total number of followers on your Twitter profile page.
Update:
Also known as a tweet. They can be no longer than 140-characters. (Later we will talk about different types of updates.) You post your update in the white text box under “What are you doing?” @Reply: A public message sent from one Twitter user to another by putting @USERNAME at the beginning of the tweet.
Direct Message (or DM):
A private message sent from one Twitter user to another by either clicking the “message” link on their profile or typing D USERNAME.
Twitter Stream:
A list of a person’s real-time updates. Every time you post an update, it goes into your Twitter stream, which is found on your account page also at http://twitter.com/USERNAME.
Tweet-up:
An event specifically organized for Twitter-users to meet up and network, usually informal.
Hashtag (#):
A tool to aggregate the conversation surrounding an event or theme. Created by combining a # with a word, acronym or phrase (#WORD).
Retweet (or RT):
To repeat what someone else has already tweeted. People do this if someone has said something especially valuable and they want their own network to see the information too. (Example: Retweet @USERNAME: Check out this cool resource).
Mention:
Bring a Tweet to a user’s attention by including their @username in a Tweet. This is called a mention and will appear to the @username you mentioned as well as to all of your followers. You can see who mentioned you in the mention section of your Twitter profile.
Timeline: Your timeline is a list of real-time Tweets from the users you are following. Twitter lingos… @ The "at" sign is used to mention another Twitter account (e.g., @Mashable). Within a tweet, it becomes a link to that user's profile. You may see it used in a geographical sense, such as "I'm @ the office," but this is just text-speak and not Twitter-specific.
- # The hash (or pound) symbol is used to highlight keywords, topics, events or even emotions in a tweet. Using a hashtag turns the word or phrase into a link that lets you see other tweets containing the same tag. Examples: "Loving the #weather," "Watching the #SuperBowl," "Headed to #SXSW," "Long day — feeling #tiredandemotional."
- ^ The caret, or hat sign, is used to denote a tweet composed and sent by an individual on behalf of a group account used by multiple people (often a company or organization) account. It usually appears at the end of a Tweet and precedes initials, to indicate which user sent the tweet (e.g., ^JS).
- $ The dollar sign is used on Twitter before a company's shortened stock market name/code as a kind of financial hashtag. For example, $AAPL (Apple), $GOOG (Google) and $MSFT (Microsoft). Within tweets, codes prefixed with the dollar sign will become links.
- AFAIK "As far as I know."
- CC CC's literal meaning is "carbon copy." As with memos and emails, CC is a way of ensuring a Twitter user sees certain content. Used with an @ mention — for example, "Interesting article - www.urlurl.com - cc @Bob" — it will help draw a Tweet to someone's attention.
- CX "Correction."
- DM Direct message. A way to privately message someone who is following you on Twitter. As the only way to have a confidential conversation on the platform, it's usual to see public tweets with "DM me for more info," or "I'll DM you details," etc.
- FF #FF stands for "Follow Friday," a way to give an endorsement or shout out to other Twitter users by suggesting that people follow them.
- HT Occasionally styled H/T, "hat tip" is a way to give a polite nod to the person who originally shared content you are tweeting. Similar to giving someone a "via" (which is a phrase also used on Twitter) a HT will be followed by an @ mention giving a namecheck. For example, "Useful article - www.urlurl.com. HT @Bob." Some suggest the meaning is "heard through." This is a less common definition, but is pretty much the same sentiment.
- ICYMI "In case you missed it." Often employed when a Twitter user retweets his or her own content from earlier.
- MM "Music Monday" used to be a popular way to suggest music you were currently enjoying or artist recommendations. It isn't used very often now, though you may still see a few #MM tweets at the start of the week.
- MT or MRT Modified tweet or modified retweet. This means the same as "retweet" but used to show that you've edited the original tweet, usually due to space restrictions.
- NSFW "Not safe for work." This term denotes potentially inappropriate or graphic content. OH "Overheard." Although in the wider world,
- OH is more likely to mean "other half," on Twitter, it's a way of reporting a humorous or eyebrow-raising comment.
- PRT Partial retweet. A way of letting people know you've edited a tweet. Can also mean "please retweet."
- RLRT Real life retweet. Similar to OH, RLRT is used when you tweet a notable quote from someone "in real life."
- RT Retweet. Forwarding another user's tweet, usually with an added comment, letting the "RT" abbreviation mark the end of the forwarder's comment and the start of the original tweet, e.g., "Must watch! RT @Bob: This video is cool www.urlurl.com."
- SMH Shake/shaking my head. An expression of disbelief or disappointment. Can also be used to express puzzlement — "scratching my head" — although this is a less popular usage.
- TFTF "Thanks for the follow."
- TIL "Today I learned..."
- TLDR or TL;DR "Too long; didn't read." Can be used literally to indicate content that was too lengthy to wade through to the end. However, the term is more likely to be used in banter, or as a dismissive comment or insult. TMB "Tweet me back."
- TQRT "Thanks for the retweet."
- TT Translated tweet: a warning that an original tweet has been translated to a different language.
- W/ "With."
Twitter Tools Used by Social Media Experts
I. Bit.ly Bit.ly is just a URL shortening service, a free Bit.ly account will give you access to a dashboard where you can shorten and share links to multiple Twitter accounts. you can even create your own custom short domain to match your brand so you can have branding similar to Mashable’s on.mash.to and Amazon’s amzn.tocustom URLs.
II. Buffer Buffer is deemed the smarter way to tweet. It allows you to simply schedule your tweets to be spread throughout the day so you don’t go through a reading spreadsheet. You can also get great analytics on your tweets which will help determine what your audience loves, or doesn’t, out of the content you share as well as the times of day you get the most action on your tweets.
III. CoTweet CoTweet, is considered a Twitter marketing tool for companies who want to engage, track, and analyze conversations about their brand.
IV. HootSuite HootSuite is one of my personal favorites as far as Twitter management is concerned. It is a freemium tool.
V. Paper.li
Paper.li is a unique application that allows you to collect tweets and curate them manually or automatically in a newspaper-style format which can be automatically shared daily on your Twitter account.
VI. SocialOomph SocialOomph is another freemium service used that allows you to schedule tweets, track keywords, extend your Twitter profile, and much more with an unlimited amount of accounts for free.
VII. Triberr Triberr is an invite only community that allows you to join “tribes” of like-minded bloggers in order to expand your reach on Twitter.
VIII. TweetDeck TweetDeck is a desktop Twitter management tool. It has features similar features to HootSuite in terms of creating columns to organize your Twitter activity as well as the ability to send longer messages using their Deck.ly service which creates a shortened URL that directs followers to the rest of your tweet beyond 140 characters.
IX. Twitterfeed Twitterfeed, allows you to add RSS feeds (yours and others) to be shared automatically through your Twitter, Facebook, and other social media accounts each time there is a new update to them.
X. Visibli Visibili is a free service that lets you create a custom sharing bar that goes with any links you share through their service. This custom share bar can have your name and social sharing icons as well as links to your website and even a Tweet button which recommends your Twitter accounts and Facebook Like button that connects to your fan page.
XI. Commun.it
Commun.it helps you discover the most valuable members of your Twitter community by categorizing brand advocates, influencers, and supporters. You can see your engagement history with anyone on Twitter, including a summary of the number of times they’ve engaged with you vs. the number of times you’ve engaged with them. It also can help you find people whose interests match those of your business.
XII. Nestivity
Nestivity helps you turn tweets into threaded, manageable discussions so you can have rich conversations with your followers without losing track of them in the noise. The more discussions you have through Nestivity, the more you will see your Klout increase, as many people will reply to your discussions with your @username.
XIII. Twitter Grader
Get a quick, free analysis of your Twitter profile using this tool from HubSpot. Also, don’t miss the Twitter Elite lists by location.
XIV. Tweet Chat
Another great reputation and Klout booster is participating in Twitter chats. Tweet Chat allows you to easily monitor and jump into the chat.
XV. SumAll
SumAll is a free analytics tool that lets you connect your Twitter account with many others (Facebook, YouTube, Google Analytics, Shopify, Paypal, and more) to see if / how your Twitter engagement affects other areas of your online marketing and, ultimately, your business’s website traffic and bottom line.
Business prospective:
Twitter is a relationship building and relationship maintenance tool; the most obvious business use of Twitter is to meet potential customers and leads the same way you would at networking event or tradeshow.
However, we can also use it to:
1) Develop and promote your brand
2) Interact with your customer base
3) Track what people are saying about your company and brand
4) Create buzz around upcoming events
5) Help individual employees act as liaisons to the public
6) Promote other content you’ve created, including webinars, blog posts or podcasts
7) Develop direct relationships with bloggers and journalists for potential PR placement
Planning Your Twitter Content Strategy
Questions – Asking questions is a great way to engage your followers. You can include links to your content in a tweet with a question to encourage discussion on Twitter and your latest blog post comments.
Quotes – If you can find quotes fitted to your industry, they tend to be retweeted often by followers.
Links – Tweet links to content on your own site as well as links to industry related news. If you’re not sure where to find good industry news sites and blogs, try Alltop.
Photos and Video – You can send tweets with photo attachments and links to photos and videos. Tweets with media gain extra visibility on Twitter. When someone does a search, some topics will allow searchers to view tweets, people, top photos, and top videos related to their query. Sometimes photos and videos will be shown in expanded view in search results.
Presentations – Tweets with links to presentations on SlideShare are expandable so people can view the presentations on Twitter itself. If you have a pro membership on SlideShare
Use Twitter for Marketing:
1) Use Twitter to drive people to your company’s website. Tweet about interesting resources your employees have posted on your blog or website. Have you recently published a white paper that people can download for free? Tweet about it, linking back to the download page on your website. If the content on your site is truly remarkable, people may start tweeting about it on their own! They can share your resource to their friends on Twitter.
2) Monitor your brand on Twitter. Using the aforementioned Twitter Search tool (http://search.twitter.com), you can search and track what people are saying about your company, products, competitors or any other hot words in your industry. Set up an RSS feed to receive all search results in Google Reader. If you find someone tweeting about your products or a person who is looking for a solution that your product provides, let them know!
3) Use the Twitter “Favorites” feature as a list of company testimonials. To the left of each tweet in your Twitter stream, there is a little star. When you click the little star, that tweet gets added to your Favorites Tab. As you track what people are saying about your company in Twitter Search, favorite all of the positive tweets. Third-party testimonials are valuable by showing the public what other people think of your company. The next time someone asks about your company, send them the link to your Favorites page. The URL for this page will be http://twitter.com/USERNAME/favorites.
Example: www.Twitter.com/HubSpot/favorites
4) Use Twitter to promote events. Tweet-ups are a great way to get to know your Twitter community offline. The next time your company holds an event, fundraiser or open house, tweet about it! Best practice is to send people directly to an event sign-up page.
Think of a hashtag for your event before you start tweeting about it. Earlier in the eBook, we mentioned how HubSpot used #IMS08 for the Inbound Marketing Summit.
Selecting a hashtag for your own event will be beneficial in a few ways:
a) During the event, people often use the hashtag while live-tweeting, or tweeting what they see/hear in real-time. The hashtag will aggregate the event tweets, building an online conversation around the event.
b) People who are not at the event will see your hashtag and perhaps use it too. A popular #hashtag often sparks curiosity, and people will go to http://search.twitter.com to follow the conversation around the event.
5) Use Twitter to promote new tools. Twitter users love new toys, especially if they create some sort of outcome, grade or analysis of the person using the tool. Make the results of your tool/grader as easy to Tweet as possible. Perhaps you could add a “Tweet this grade” function. Make sure your tool is as easy to share as possible!
6) Establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. By tweeting about useful resources and thoughtful tips, you and your company will eventually develop thought leadership, and people will consider you an expert in that particular subject. Be sure to link to your own resources as well as others.
Referral Site - www.seoworkinindia.blogspot.com
IV. HootSuite HootSuite is one of my personal favorites as far as Twitter management is concerned. It is a freemium tool.
V. Paper.li
Paper.li is a unique application that allows you to collect tweets and curate them manually or automatically in a newspaper-style format which can be automatically shared daily on your Twitter account.
VI. SocialOomph SocialOomph is another freemium service used that allows you to schedule tweets, track keywords, extend your Twitter profile, and much more with an unlimited amount of accounts for free.
VII. Triberr Triberr is an invite only community that allows you to join “tribes” of like-minded bloggers in order to expand your reach on Twitter.
VIII. TweetDeck TweetDeck is a desktop Twitter management tool. It has features similar features to HootSuite in terms of creating columns to organize your Twitter activity as well as the ability to send longer messages using their Deck.ly service which creates a shortened URL that directs followers to the rest of your tweet beyond 140 characters.
IX. Twitterfeed Twitterfeed, allows you to add RSS feeds (yours and others) to be shared automatically through your Twitter, Facebook, and other social media accounts each time there is a new update to them.
X. Visibli Visibili is a free service that lets you create a custom sharing bar that goes with any links you share through their service. This custom share bar can have your name and social sharing icons as well as links to your website and even a Tweet button which recommends your Twitter accounts and Facebook Like button that connects to your fan page.
XI. Commun.it
Commun.it helps you discover the most valuable members of your Twitter community by categorizing brand advocates, influencers, and supporters. You can see your engagement history with anyone on Twitter, including a summary of the number of times they’ve engaged with you vs. the number of times you’ve engaged with them. It also can help you find people whose interests match those of your business.
XII. Nestivity
Nestivity helps you turn tweets into threaded, manageable discussions so you can have rich conversations with your followers without losing track of them in the noise. The more discussions you have through Nestivity, the more you will see your Klout increase, as many people will reply to your discussions with your @username.
XIII. Twitter Grader
Get a quick, free analysis of your Twitter profile using this tool from HubSpot. Also, don’t miss the Twitter Elite lists by location.
XIV. Tweet Chat
Another great reputation and Klout booster is participating in Twitter chats. Tweet Chat allows you to easily monitor and jump into the chat.
XV. SumAll
SumAll is a free analytics tool that lets you connect your Twitter account with many others (Facebook, YouTube, Google Analytics, Shopify, Paypal, and more) to see if / how your Twitter engagement affects other areas of your online marketing and, ultimately, your business’s website traffic and bottom line.
Business prospective:
Twitter is a relationship building and relationship maintenance tool; the most obvious business use of Twitter is to meet potential customers and leads the same way you would at networking event or tradeshow.
However, we can also use it to:
1) Develop and promote your brand
2) Interact with your customer base
3) Track what people are saying about your company and brand
4) Create buzz around upcoming events
5) Help individual employees act as liaisons to the public
6) Promote other content you’ve created, including webinars, blog posts or podcasts
7) Develop direct relationships with bloggers and journalists for potential PR placement
Planning Your Twitter Content Strategy
- 80% of what you tweet should be about others, and only 20% should be about your business.
- To determine what variety you should do, think about how people will feel when they visit your Twitter profile for the first time and look through your latest status updates.
- Another good way to plan your Twitter content strategy is by researching your competitors.
Questions – Asking questions is a great way to engage your followers. You can include links to your content in a tweet with a question to encourage discussion on Twitter and your latest blog post comments.
Quotes – If you can find quotes fitted to your industry, they tend to be retweeted often by followers.
Links – Tweet links to content on your own site as well as links to industry related news. If you’re not sure where to find good industry news sites and blogs, try Alltop.
Photos and Video – You can send tweets with photo attachments and links to photos and videos. Tweets with media gain extra visibility on Twitter. When someone does a search, some topics will allow searchers to view tweets, people, top photos, and top videos related to their query. Sometimes photos and videos will be shown in expanded view in search results.
Presentations – Tweets with links to presentations on SlideShare are expandable so people can view the presentations on Twitter itself. If you have a pro membership on SlideShare
Use Twitter for Marketing:
1) Use Twitter to drive people to your company’s website. Tweet about interesting resources your employees have posted on your blog or website. Have you recently published a white paper that people can download for free? Tweet about it, linking back to the download page on your website. If the content on your site is truly remarkable, people may start tweeting about it on their own! They can share your resource to their friends on Twitter.
2) Monitor your brand on Twitter. Using the aforementioned Twitter Search tool (http://search.twitter.com), you can search and track what people are saying about your company, products, competitors or any other hot words in your industry. Set up an RSS feed to receive all search results in Google Reader. If you find someone tweeting about your products or a person who is looking for a solution that your product provides, let them know!
3) Use the Twitter “Favorites” feature as a list of company testimonials. To the left of each tweet in your Twitter stream, there is a little star. When you click the little star, that tweet gets added to your Favorites Tab. As you track what people are saying about your company in Twitter Search, favorite all of the positive tweets. Third-party testimonials are valuable by showing the public what other people think of your company. The next time someone asks about your company, send them the link to your Favorites page. The URL for this page will be http://twitter.com/USERNAME/favorites.
Example: www.Twitter.com/HubSpot/favorites
4) Use Twitter to promote events. Tweet-ups are a great way to get to know your Twitter community offline. The next time your company holds an event, fundraiser or open house, tweet about it! Best practice is to send people directly to an event sign-up page.
Think of a hashtag for your event before you start tweeting about it. Earlier in the eBook, we mentioned how HubSpot used #IMS08 for the Inbound Marketing Summit.
Selecting a hashtag for your own event will be beneficial in a few ways:
a) During the event, people often use the hashtag while live-tweeting, or tweeting what they see/hear in real-time. The hashtag will aggregate the event tweets, building an online conversation around the event.
b) People who are not at the event will see your hashtag and perhaps use it too. A popular #hashtag often sparks curiosity, and people will go to http://search.twitter.com to follow the conversation around the event.
5) Use Twitter to promote new tools. Twitter users love new toys, especially if they create some sort of outcome, grade or analysis of the person using the tool. Make the results of your tool/grader as easy to Tweet as possible. Perhaps you could add a “Tweet this grade” function. Make sure your tool is as easy to share as possible!
6) Establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. By tweeting about useful resources and thoughtful tips, you and your company will eventually develop thought leadership, and people will consider you an expert in that particular subject. Be sure to link to your own resources as well as others.
Referral Site - www.seoworkinindia.blogspot.com
