Scott is a working Dad and Husband, married to Katie, a stay-at-home Mom, with 3 kids ages 4, 2, and 9months. Scott enjoys spending as much time with his family as possible. When time allows he also enjoys photography, listening to music & podcasts, reading, and his newest hobby is making paracord bracelets, lanyards, etc. Follow him on twitter @scottkeyes
Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of twitter. It always amazes me that there are still people out there that don’t know what Twitter is. There’s a chance you may be one of them. Here’s what Twitter says it is:
“Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find most compelling and follow the conversations.
At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters long, but don’t let the small size fool you—you can discover a lot in a little space. You can see photos, videos and conversations directly in Tweets to get the whole story at a glance, and all in one place. See it in action.”
To the new user, Twitter can seem very confusing, like trying to read a new language for the first time. Twitter messages, or Tweets, are sometimes full of symbols and initials. Once you understand the words surrounding Twitter and the symbols inside the Tweets, Twitter becomes much more interesting. Here’s a brief primer to some of these words and symbols:
(For more in-depth definitions/information read Twitter’s Glossary)
- Tweet – a twitter message. Each tweet can only be a maximum of 140 characters including spaces.
- Retweet – resending or forwarding another Twitter user’s message to your followers.
- Hashtag – looks like this #, any word that follows a hashtag becomes a link to a search term of that word and helps to categorize tweets inside Twitter’s search. An example of this that I have used recently is #parenting
- Handle – your Twitter Handle is your Twitter Username. For example my handle is ScottKeyes
- @ symbol – used in front of a twitter handle, becomes a link to that twitter user. So, if you wanted to say hello to me on Twitter you could type this, “Yo, @ScottKeyes!” Since you have included the @ in front of my user name I will get a notification inside twitter that you said hi to me. (Some of you may be accustom to using the @ symbol now on Facebook… using the @ to call someone out started on Twitter as did many other things that are now common on Facebook)
What most people do when they first sign up for a twitter account is they begin following celebrities. If you like celebrity gossip or want to see twitter pictures or links to instragram photos from celebrities then this is awesome. Next, most people will follow their friends and what they quickly find out is that most if not all of their friends signed up for an account over a year ago, sent out one tweet, and then forgot either how to log into their Twitter account, or just stopped using it. So what does the new user find after being on twitter for a couple days? They find that Twitter has no value to them.
The way I have found to make Twitter have the most value to me is to use it as a tool to gather great content. To clarify, when I say great content I mean the person/people/businesses that you will want to follow are the ones that are using this medium to give you (or link you to) information that you care about and are not just tweeting about what they ate for breakfast. I have a unique set of interests that I like to read about. The areas of information that I am interested in include: Parenting, Dad News, Photography, Men’s Fashion/Shoes, Music, Local Businesses/Local Events, Podcasting, Science, and finally Friends. Believe it or not you can find great content on Twitter from each one of these subject areas. Here’s a quick tip: check to see who your friends follow. You can do this by going to their profile and click where it says “Following”. Assuming you and your friend have common interests, you may find some interesting users to start following for yourself.
Hopefully after reading this you have a better understanding as to what Twitter is and how you may be able to use it in a way that adds value to your day. It seems like every where you look Twitter is being integrated more and more into our everyday culture. Feel free to leave comments or questions you may still have. And, if you decide to dip your feet into the “twittersphere” follow me @scottkeyes. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have there too.
*You can follow Great Lakes Bay Moms on twitter too! Click @greatlbmoms and follow them now.