This is an overview of Twitter which in time will be an up and coming place to make money for you blog, it now drives traffic to your sites. There are a few money making opportunities now on Twitter. These will be covered in another post.

Twitter is the one of the monsters of social networking. You post in a 140 character box of what is on your mind or other things that is happening to you right this second. Twitter is having huge user growth spurts over the last year adding hundreds of thousands of folks that want to social network like me and you. I have been using twitter for more that six months with several projects. It becomes addictive once you get used to the 140 character limits it puts on you.

Twitter is an online service that enables you to broadcast 140 character messages to your friends or family. Along the way you will meet new people that find you or you find them and will mix together your conversations. Twitter also lets you specify which Twitter users you want to follow so you can read their messages in one place. There are may famous people on twitter. You can use Twitter search to check if your favorite personality is on twitter.

Twitter is also designed to work on your mobile phone as well as on a computer. All Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, so each message can be sent as a single SMS alert. This is where some of your text messaging skills come into play. It becomes more and more addictive as you take part. Twitter is a free message pushing service. .

How do you get started on Twitter.

Go to Twitter.com and click “Join for free.” For best results, use your real name when signing up. Twitter will ask you for your Full Name, Username, password and email. The user name is key, it post with everypost you do. This should be your name of the domain of your website, helps increase your find-ability in search engines. You will need to go settings and fill out as much information as possible including your website domain. It’s also helpful to upload a picture, will make you more visually findable. If you select the “Protect my updates” box, people will not be able to read your Twitters unless you authorize them to. Otherwise everyone on twitter can see your posts.

Now that you have a Twitter account and become part of Twitter World, email your friends your username or send them the link to your Twitter page. (Example: http://twitter.com/blogprofit). You will have your own page.

Twitter will also allow you to Hook up your mobile phone and IM account

The Twitter network works for you even if you’re not at your computer or browsing the Web. Once you are registered, you can connect your mobile phone and instant messenger account. Go to Settings > Phone and IM. Connecting your phone and IM programs to your Twitter account is a straightforward process. Note that messages you view on a phone or an IM program also are readable on your personal Twitter Web page.

Sending Twitter messages, or “Tweets”. You can send a Twitter message, or “Tweet,” from any of your registered devices, web, phone or IM.

1). From the Web page, enter a message in the entry window at the top of the page.
2). From a mobile phone, send an SMS message to 40404. Your phone’s caller ID is attached to your Twitter account, so the system will know it’s from you.
3). From IM, message TwitterIM if you’re on AOL, or twitter@twitter.com if you’re on Jabber/GTalk.
Your “followers” will see your message on their own Twitter pages and possibly on their mobile devices as well.

Using Twitter on the Web:
Add a friend – log into your account. Go to your friends Twitter page and press the “Add” link in the “Actions” box. To find a user page, use the search box on your own Twitter page. Once you click “Add,” you’ll start to see his or her Tweets on your page if his or her account is set for public access. If the account is private, the system will send you a “friend” request that must be approved before you start to see updates. You also can see who your friends are following by hovering your mouse pointer over the pictures in the sidebar on your friends’ pages. Those pictures are of their friends, the ones they are following. You can see all the Tweets from any Twitters friends by clicking the “With Friends” tab above his or her message window.

On the phone or IM: send the command follow username to register your phone or IM account to receive public Tweets from a user. You also can invite people based on a phone number: SMS add phonenumber to 40404, and you’ll start following the user at that number. Interesting in the marketing of Twitter. If the phone user at that number is not a Twitter user, they will get an invitation to join Twitter.
Using direct Twitter commands

You will be able to send a Twitter message directly to another Twitter user with the Direct command. Enter d username message, and users will get your ping, only if that person is following you. The problem I have with this, if you are following someone and they send you a direct message you are unable to respond back with a direct message. Take note Twitter, this should be an automatic turn on of direct message to one who gets the message to enable you to respond back to them. This would make them one of your followers, this ok I can live it. Should be the price to pay for sending a direct message. If you enter a Tweet with @username at the beginning of it, your message is understood as being intended for that particular person, this is called a ReTwit.

Some use twitter as a push message or outgoing message to everyone that wants to get updates. Others use twitter a marketing/message board for themselves or their business. Twitter is useful for close-knit groups, you are able to make your posts private and only enable those you want to view your posts. If you follow your friends, and they follow each other, you can quickly communicate large groups of followers. If someone is a popular celebrity, their followers will go up very quickly, some even hundreds of thousands in just a few short months.

You can use Twitter Search to find out who is on Twitter.

Twitter also will put your posts in the search engines, I have seen them in Google as quick as 9 minutes, no joke in 9 minutes from the time I posted on twitter. So Twitter will produce some SEO for you also. So sign up and post with enjoyment. Becareful Twitter is addictive.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Make Money, Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.