Twitter Tips

Thursday, March 13th, 2008 | Uncategorized

Here’s an email I sent to my brother, who just got a Twitter account, and I thought I’d share it cause it has some good info.

Hey, so you’ve been Twitter-ificated.

Couple pointers for you:

1. Personalize it. Add a profile picture, a background image (Something cool but unobtrusive) , and fill in the short “About Me” blurb. Twitter is all about extending your presence to the web, and personalizing your Twitter page will tell people that see it that you’re an actual interesting person and not just some faceless robot.

2. Check spelling. It’s paradoxical: for a forum where space is so limited, some space-saving shortcuts are not received well. For example, it’s generally a bad idea to use l33t speek on Twitter. I say generally, because if the situation allows it and you can do it with tact, that’s one thing, but most of the time, use reasonably correct spelling. (Grammar is just slightly less important, I’ve noticed, but people should still be able to read and understand what you’re saying.)

3. It’s been said in many places on the Internet, but never use Twitter as an IM client. It’s rude to broadcast your private conversations and keep the however-many other people who are following you out of the loop.

4. Find some people to follow. Twitter is all about interaction with people. One of the cool things is that it will import your Gmail contacts and look for people who are already there. It’s under find and follow. (Of course, that’s assuming you’ve added people as Gmail contacts.)

5. Some technical tricks in Twitter:

    a. @ - If you put an @ in front of a Twitter username, it references that name. For example, if     you put @leemckusick in you post, it creates a link to my page. If you put it at the beginning, that’s a reply.

    b. Favorites – Find a Tweet you love? Favorite it by clicking the star next to it.

6. Have fun! Twitter is meant to be fun and to facilitate social interaction. Enjoy yourself.

There’s much more advice that could be given about Twitter, and you can find it all over. This should be good to get started. Happy Tweeting!

4 Comments to Twitter Tips

Ann
March 13, 2008

Hi Lee! Say, do you know if there is a way to purchase a song online and have it sent to a friend for them to download? So many times I’ve wanted to send songs to friends but I don’t know how to do it, and I’m pretty sure sending them a copy of a song from one of my cd’s is piracy. I just remembered your help on putting youtube code on my blog and thought maybe you’d know a way to send songs to friends.

Lee McKusick
March 13, 2008

Indeed I do.

Assuming you’re using iTunes, if you right-click a song in the iTunes Music Store, you should see an option for Copy iTunes Store URL. Send that link to your friend, and when they open it in their web browser, it will automatically open up iTunes, bring up the page in the Store for the album, and highlight the song.

When using something like the Amazon MP3 store, you can generally just send the URL for the song.

For example, here are links to Demon Hunter’s My Heartstrnigs Come Undone (Great song, glad you like it, by the way).

iTunes
Amazon

Hope that helps!

Ann
March 14, 2008

Yeah, I love that song too! I listen to it over and over, I’d love to know the story behind that song.

Okay, so I’m a little slow here. Does this mean I can pay for the song first and then send the link to my friend? Or am I just sending a link to Amazon and they have to pay for the song? Sorry I’m so clueless!!

Lee McKusick
March 14, 2008

They would have to pay for the song either way. Sending the link to a song in the iTunes or Amazon stores is like showing them an ad in a catalog: you’re making them aware of the product, but it’s they who have to buy it.

As an alternative, if you wanted to actually buy the song for your friend, you can buy an extra copy of the song on Amazon, and since its a DRM-free MP3 file, e-mail the file itself. (And coming from a person relatively knowledgeable about copyright law and fair use, you’d be fine.)

Leave a comment

Search

Twitter