twitter 411

sounds like most of you are in the same CLUELESS boat as me when it comes to twitter! when i asked you guys for pointers, everyone was like, "no idea. let me know what you find out!" that made me feel much better. maybe i'm not the only person that was completely lost after i signed up. BUT two freakin awesome ladies, Allyson and Ms. Little Brown House were so kind to leave me links to some great info pages: Webdesigner Depot and Twitter Support. let me tell ya, two great resources. but to make it easier for you, i'll condense what i learned into a 1 minute run down here :)

The Basics

• you have to follow someone to view their tweets in your time-line.
• remember, everything you do on twitter is public. (duh)  
• you can delete your tweets. but people may have already seen them by the time you delete them.
• get two accounts if you have a business; one personal and one for your business. for your business account, use your logo. (better go change mine.)
• if people ask you questions, answer them. (it's only polite.)
• busiest time on twitter is during the day during the work week. wow. that says a lot.
• apparently there are programs that will tweet for you. avoid them. (i don't understand that. i'd be worried about what it would say...)
• don't tweet about every meal you eat. (think bo*ring)
• snip your URL's using sites like tinyurl.com
• don't use profanity. (keep it G-rate please!)
• if you use twitter, you are considered a "Tweeter"
• if you see the "fail whale" twitter is down. ugh.

Commands

• # denotes a key word
• use @ to reply to a specify user. for example, to respond to a questions asked by Craftaholic22 (that's me) type @Craftaholic22 and then your message. or if you hover over a tweet, you can click on "reply" to automatically put the @ and user name in your update field.
• FAV to make a tweet as a favorite, type FAV in all caps and their user name and it will mark their last tweet as a favorite.
• GET type GET in all caps then the user name to view all their tweets.
• NUDGE type in all caps before a user name to remind them to update.
• RT stands for Retweet. this is where you repost what someone else tweeted so that your followers can see it. to do this, hover over the tweet and click "retweet".
• FF stand for Friday Follow. every friday users recommend people to follow to their followers. to participate, type #FF and then @and then user names. for example #FF @Craftaholic22 to recommend me to your followers. (aww shucks, thanks guys!) from what i've read, the etiquette on this is if someone includes you in their FF, thank them and then follow the other users they suggested.

hopefully this helps a little!! if you have anything to add or correct, please let me know. 

and in case you were wondering, i can be found on twitter @Craftaholic22 :)