Twitter book

Welcome to the Twitter book!

Welcome to the Twitter Seer's Twitter book. It is being collected and placed at a single place - all the Twitter information freely available on the Net. All you need to know in order to use Twitter to achieve your goals. This is information you are often offered to buy. I offer it for free

Preface

Believe me or not, all the necessary links, tips and pieces of advice required to fully use Twitter to your success are available on this very page. Every chapter you see is being transformed into a more detailed version of the summary given beneath its title. I will provide longer description in case you are somewhat confused in names and terms, or have no time to study it right now. The chapters will be added one by one.

To download PDF version of this book, save the following document: The-Twitter-Book.pdf. You are given all permissions to distribute this report provided you do not change it in any way.

Introduction to Twitter

What Twitter is (status service, microblogging service) and what it is not (chat, forum, guestbook)
What Twitter is ideal for: posting news, informing your customers, promoting your business, creating your brand
Twitter Codex of ethics: don't be a spam bot, don't be a troll, be nice to followers, @reply to replies, DM back if expected
The only secret of Twitter is: anyone reads everyone

The first steps

Create your account if you haven't one; choose your login and password wisely
Customize your background: e.g., use PrettyTweet
Add your photo and contacts to the background image
Add your primary point of contact as your main URL ('Web')
Use comma-delimited tags describing your primary areas of interest/competence ('Bio')
Protect your updates only if you intend to have low-traffic, friends only account
Familiarize yourself with Twitter Web interface: browse Search and Help sections thoroughly
Learn what are @replies, Direct Messages, #hashtags, ReTweets and use them wisely
Select your favorite means to interact with Twitter (my choices are Twitter native Web interface, TwitterFox for my Firefox browser and FriendFeed Twitter posting option); browse Mashable's collection of Twitter tools for more options
Sign up at TweetLater, set up your automated DM response, automated following/unfollowing
Learn about '2000 followers' limit and '10%' threshold and other limits
There are many useful information available for free; check, for example TwiTip
Sign up at Cli.gs, Bit.ly and/or any other URL shortener service providing visits stats and analysis

Content is king

Sign up for a TwitWall blog service and crosspost to Twitter automatically; you can also try Posterous to post to many a blog, Twitter included, by email
Use TwitterFeed and/or FeedMyTwitter to set up regular crossposting from your blog(s), site(s) and favorite resources as your twitter updates; alternately, use your CMS/blog engine native interface to post to Twitter
Post your favorite images and photos with TwitPic
Post your favorite Technorati, Delicios, Yahoo Buzz,... and Google Alerts feeds to your Twitter account - choose tags and subjects wisely, don't make your account a "newsbot"
Post questions and always say thanks when your followers reply
Post tips, thoughts, aphorisms related to your area of interest/niche
@reply to questions of those you follow if you can
Don't hesitate RT an interesting news/thought if it is related to your area of interests
Do not post details of what you are eating, hello/goodbye notices and similar stuff; remember the main and the only Twitter secret: anyone reads everyone
Be yourself; create your own image and manner, style and approach in communicating via Twitter

Get noticed

Socialize - be friendly, post and reply regularly
Make your entry at WeFollow, to let people find you by three #hashtags
Register at TWellow
Translate the RSS of your Twitter account to whatever sources you have: blogs, sites etc.
Create a TwitterCounter, update it often, place its widgets, including TwitterRemote, on all your Net resources (sites, blogs etc)
Measure your Twinfluence (how many people can you reach through your followers and their retweets)
Check what Twitter Grader shows
Submit yourself to TweetFind directory. It may take quite a time to appear there.
Participate in #FollowFridays wherever possible; recommend interesting people and be recommended yourself
Join a Twibe and/or create your own; it also helps to find followers
Join forums such as TwitterProForum, TwitterSocial etc to find new friends and followers, too
Join communities like Twitternet Marketing to learn and share your knowledge

Find and manage your followers

If in hurry: follow those followed by those you follow
Make use of Twitter Search Facility: it provides unrivaled means to construct very complex search queries, to find exactly what you're looking for
Follow #FollowFriday tradition, but - it's better - recommend interesting people directly, not by just @mentioning them in the Follow Friday posts
ReFollow can help you to find proper people to follow and get followed by
Twitter Karma is a good service to mass follow/unfollow. Note: if you're a 'whale' (have more than 10000 followers) and have no whitelisted account, this can exhaust your API calls very quickly
Use free tools like Friend or follow to quickly find all the three groups of your contacts and export them as CSV for further processing
To find quickly a random collection of followers, play 'follow each other' games at TwitterFollower, TWollow, TwitterTrain, TweeterGetter, TopFollowed, The Twitter List, ViralFollowers, TweetPenguin, FriendMePlease et al., or use FlashTweet or similar services. Note: think twice before using 'Twitter trains', they will pollute your timeline with their autopostings and make you look not too good
A Tweepular is not only a fun to visit, but can also help you to manage followers/following
Make use of TWollo to follow people associated with #hashtags/keywords
TwitterHit is a nice tool allowing to search for relevant topics/keywords, with high chances to find reciprocal following
Ask MrTweet to find you Twitterers close to you in many aspects
Use the Twitter directories mentioned above to find interesting people to follow; also you may look at TwitterHolic, although non-top Twitterers may have very out-of-date stats in there (mine is a year old)
When having a coin or two to spend, consider Be a Magpie service to advertise

Utilize Twitter power

Search through #hashtags and through such sites as TweetMeme and Twitturly to find what people are buzzing about
You can also use Tweet Grid to create search dashboard where results are updated in real time
Use TwittAd, Tweetbucks and/or RevTwt to monetize your Twitter account
Use TweetLater or Future Tweets to schedule your tweets as you wish
Develop a Twitter service to become much more popular - you can consider me as a developer

Be in control

Use the mentioned URL shortener services to track visits to your links - find out what are the most efficient ones
Google Analytics can help you to see whet visits to your resources are made from your Twitter timeline
Choose #hashtags wisely to make your tweets visible and read; if they are interesting, you'll raise your popularity
Choose optimal time to tweet and use TweetLater/other means to make sure your tweets are seen
Use TweetStats to analyze your Twitter activity and trends dynamics, use that to reach your followers efficiently

Appendix I: Twitter tips and tricks

Follow wisely: when you reach 2000 followed threshold, you'll be only allowed to follow approximately 10% more people than your followers count
Follow informative sources such as mashable - you'll find a vault of valuable information from their tweets
In case you find this reference useful, don't forget to follow me - at least to encourage me to enhance the book and to add more info to it

Twitter Seer Free information on mastering Twitter