How to Twitter like a PRO

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A Computer
A high-speed internet connection

Step 1

Set up an Account

Setting up an account with Twitter is very easy. Goto www.twitter.com and click on the green “Get Started /Join button. Once you click on that button, you will see a series of fields, asking you to put in your first name and last name, and to create a username that people will see when they follow you on Twitter. This does not have to be your name, though it can be, or some variation of your name. Just pick carefully, because your username appear on every “tweet” you make.

*TIP* – Anyone can goto www.twitter.com/yourusername and see your tweets unless you make your page private. If you have potential employers or co-workers whom you do not wish to share your tweets with, or have “follow” you on twitter, goto “Settings” on the top of your twitter homepage, and check the box next to “Protect my updates”
Step 2

Find folks to “Follow”

When you “Follow” someone on Twitter, you get all of their messages or “Tweets” on your Twitter page. The fastest and easiest way to find people you already know to “Follow” on Twitter is to use the IM or Email tool. On your Twitter page at the top where the Menu items are located, click on “Find People” and click the “Find on other networks” tab or go to the “Suggested Users” tab to see popular users that Twitter recommends you follow. You can also find people one at a time by typing in their name.
Step 3

Know the Lingo

Twitter has some interesting lingo that includes lots of confusing @, #,RTs – what does it all mean? Here is a run-down of what it all means before you start using Twitter…

RT – stands for “Re-Tweet” – if someone posts or “Tweets” something you like that you want to share with your friends on Twitter, copy the text and add RT + an @ symbol in front of the user’s username, as a way of giving credit to the person you got the information from.
For example, I post the following “Tweet”

“kidronlewis: There is going to be an awesome workshop on Computers tomorrow at the DC Public Library SW Branch”

You want to pass that along to your friends on Twitter – so you "re tweet" it by copying my statement, pasting it into your box, and adding the following two symbols:

“RT @kidronlewis There is going to be an awesome workshop on Computers tomorrow at the DC Public Library SW Branch”

– that way everyone who is “Following” you on Twitter knows where you got the information from.

# on Twitter indicates a “hot topic” people are talking about on Twitter. Some of the big ones from the week of this article included
#IranElection and #iPhone

You will always see a list of hot-topics on the right of your feed on your Twitter page. If you click on of the #HotTopic links, you will be redirected to a feed with the most popular tweets about that event. With respect to Iran, some of the best on the ground information about what was really going on with respect to the anti-government protests, was being read about on the #IranElection Twitter feed, as reporters were being restricted and asked to leave the country.
Step 4

Start Twittering

Now that you know how to set up an account, find people, and you know some of the complicated Twitter lingo, you’re ready to start Twittering! At the top of your twitter page you will see in large print the words “What are you doing?” In the box below type what you are doing, an interesting link you found, or “Retweet” something.

If you would like to make a comment on someone’s “Tweet” simply include their username preceded by the @ symbol so they are notified of the comment.
F
or example, you may want to respond to my tweet about the following:

kidronlewis: I can’t believe it, I just won the lottery, no more writing e-How articles and ahem ‘working’ for a living!”

To reply to me simply begin your tweet with @kidronlewis …
Step 5

TweetDeck makes Twitter less complicated, and let's you integrate your tweets with your facebook page!

Make Twittering easier using "TweetDeck"

So now that you are up and twittering, it’s time to go pro using TweetDeck – TweetDeck makes it possibly to update your facebook and Twitter pages from one application. It also allows you to see feeds from both your facebook and Twitter friends simultaneously. The other thing it does, is if you mouse over the picture icon on one of your Twitter friends on Tweetdeck you have a number of options such as Retweet and Reply.

If you select them TweetDeck will add all those crazy Twitter symbols in for you, so you don’t have to. Tweetdeck is free and works with both PC and MAC. To downloaded TweetDeck, click on the following link http://tweetdeck.com/beta/download